Boost Retention And Referrals In Your Insurance Agency

Boost Retention And Referrals In Your Insurance Agency
Copyright © 2007 Stephanie Cunningham

If you have ever stayed at a nice hotel, then you have probably seen the hotel's Concierge. The role of the Concierge is to assist guests with information and service to enhance their stay. What would happen if you took the idea of the Concierge and applied it to the way you service your agency clients?

I have no doubt that you currently provide excellent customer service to your clients. If you are reading this article, then it must be important to you as an agency owner. As you read this special report, you'll discover some techniques that will have your clients exclaiming praises such as "You are by far the best agency I have ever worked with!" more than they already are.

It goes without saying that the stronger your relationships are with your clients, the less price-sensitive they will be when the company that you represent endures a price increase. Since increasing client retention and referral business are some of the key ingredients for agency growth, it makes sense to make an effort to nurture your existing client relationships with some kind of dependable and automated process.

Gone are the days that you have only snail mail and outbound phone communication as options to stay in touch with your clients. In fact, email marketing has become more popular than ever across most industries. With good reason. It works. It allows businesses of all sizes to stay in front of their customers. The good news is that there are some programs that allow you to create your own client email communication. The bad news is that it takes considerable time and energy to keep up with the demands of publishing email communications on a consistent schedule to yield the results that you are looking for.

With email marketing, you now have the command of a tool that provides your clients with email marketing campaigns that look as if they have come directly from you. Best of all, there are services that do 98% of the work for you. All you do is input your agency's contact information and upload your pictures. From there, simply add your client's email addresses and first names to your account as you collect them. Over time, you will find that you will continue to broaden your reach to more and more of your book of business. In essence, it becomes more valuable to you as times goes by.

Here are some ways that you will have your clients earnestly giving you their email addresses while at the same time providing your clients a Concierge Agency Experience. Keep in mind that everyone operates from the mindset of "what's in it for me?" That is simply human nature. The secret to creating the Concierge Agency Experience is by using your customer's email account to make their interactions with your agency more effective and efficient. Here are some examples.

Your customer calls your agency to add a car to his policy. Even though you know that he will receive a new ID in the mail, you offer to email him one right away.

Your customer calls to make a payment over the phone with her credit card. Rather than give her the reference number for the transaction over the phone, you offer to email the confirmation information to her so it is stored in her email account where she can easily find it if she needs it.

Your customer calls to get a quote on a cross line policy. You offer to email the quote for him to view.

You get the idea. The point is to identify the requests that your customers make and think of ways to provide it to them with the use of their email address. This makes their agency experience a Concierge Agency Experience.

Once you tailor this to your agency, you will find that it is rewarding to see your agency's email contact list growing quickly. This will fuel your account list to automatically keep you in front of your clients each month so that you can continue to create value for your clients.

In the end, clients who feel like they are getting value from your agency will stay and they will send you their friends and family.



About The Author:

Stephanie Cunningham is an insurance agent in Kent, Washington and the creator of the Agent Contact Wizard. Learn more about affordable, automated ways to grow your insurance agency at http://www.agentcontactwizard.com

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