Customer Service Skills Your Agent Needs

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Insurance agents should always be considered a trusted advisor. As such, there are many unique skill sets an agent should possess. Without these skills you run the risk of having the wrong insurance program, being uninformed regarding your risks, and be frustrated whenever you call or meet with your agent.

Here are some of the skills of a trusted advisor:

  • Has under taken additional training in the field of risk management and insurance.
  • The trusted advisor puts clients’ interests in front of their own. Selling is dead, education is thriving. A trusted advisor will always put education over sales. If we stop trying to just make a sale and truly understand the customer needs, trust is formed.
  • A trusted advisor is genuinely interested in their client’s business success. By showing this level of interest their clients were more open with them and invariably opportunities were identified through discussion.
  • A trusted advisor has a team of experts working together to meet the client’s needs. You will receive personal attention and our team will even come to you. After you describe your personal situation, you will be presented with a custom-tailored insurance solution.
  • Seek to understand. As Steven Covey so succinctly puts it in the The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”.
  • Trusted advisors are genuine, real, individual people. People can sense when others are being insincere and the relationship never develops beyond the civil stage as the client mistrusts the sales person’s motives.

Insurance Myth Busters

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According to recent estimates by the Insurance Research Council (IRC), roughly one in seven drivers are uninsured.  A majority of drivers only carry the state minimum limits.

The Common Myth

If an uninsured or underinsured motorist hits you, many think, no worries, they have coverage, or my insurance will pay.

Myth Busted

Your coverage is limited to the amount of coverage you have on your policy.  Therefore, if you purchase minimum limits you would have little coverage if someone hit you carrying no insurance. Adding an endorsement to your personal umbrella policy will place higher limits of coverage over and above your auto policy uninsured motorist coverage.

Why Insurance Is More Than A Policy

The example above is an excellent example of why it is important to have an agent who knows and understands insurance, and one who can communicate complex issues in “English”. This allows our customers to make intelligent choices regarding their insurance.

Your insurance policy is only as good as the agent who placed it. Your agent should be asking you questions and learning about your individual risks and provide options as to how to treat your risks. When your needs change or your situation complicates, you don’t want an automated phone tree or cold cyber-agent. You want to talk to compassionate, honest insurance experts – that’s our team

Why Selling Is Dead and Education Is Thriving

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You can read articles every day on the internet about how traditional selling is dead, and that we all need to embrace the new age of selling.  Here are some of the titles of articles on selling I found during an internet search this last month.

  • “Selling is Dead, Sales Live On”
  • “Social Media is the New Producer”
  • “Is Relationship Selling Dead?”
  • “How to Sell–New Age Terms”
  • “Sell with Intensity”
  • “Always Be Closing”
  • “Tell Your Story When Selling”

Now I am sure all these articles have good information, but many are missing the point.  If I had to re-title these I would start with; “EDUCATE, DON’T SELL.”  However, that may be easier said than done.  So I thought it might be fun to identify a number of steps we use to change a mindset from selling to educating. The result, hopefully, will be a new way of thinking about insurance sales, and customers who demand more from their agents.

How the best sales people can look and act like educators

  • We explain our mission of providing insurance education, with or without a sale.
  • It is important to develop risk solutions that do not involve insurance.
  • We will utilize other professionals to help create solutions and educate our clients.
  • There is real value in looking for problems, then create solutions.
  • We volunteer our advice upfront and suggest an alternate solution that will likely serve our clients better.

Selling is educating, so the more we teach clients about the solutions, value, and benefits we offer, the more educated our customers will be.

Keep Your Agency Healthy Through Client Service Reviews

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Do you ever sit down with your team and complete a customer service review? If you don’t, let me try to convince you of its value. A customer service review is like an annual physical. It is necessary for the health of the agency, and it helps everyone better understand the client’s needs. Your review should include the producer, account manager, claims person, and any other team member that touches the client. The customer service review should only take a short time, but the information can be invaluable in making sure that the team is on the same page to deliver outstanding service to the client.

Here are some of the topics that should be included during a customer review:

  1. Review all open claims to make sure they are progressing correctly.
  2. Does the client have any service issues or concerns?
  3. What are any issues facing the client or the industry?
  4. Does the agency have any new services or solutions to offer?
  5. Have there been any personnel changes with the client?

Having this information can help build a true partnership with the client. If there are any issues or concerns, it is best to address these well before the renewal. By doing so, the client will feel they are being treated like a partner and will in turn treat you like a valued business partner, not just an insurance agent.

The Downside of Poor Customer Service

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Over that past year or so, we have been suggesting ways to improve how insurance is delivered. We have stressed that price shopping can actually cost the buyer more money in the long run; and that developing relationships can lead to a better risk management program.  Now, we would like to examine the downside of poor customer service. Poor customer service can impact a business negatively in many ways. This is especially true for small businesses that rely on repeat business and positive word-of-mouth advertising for their success. Here is a staggering fact: in 2014, U.S. businesses lost $50 billion due to poor customer services. (source; newmeida.com)

According to the latest numbers, here is how customers will act after they have received poor service:

  • 59% of people will change agents
  • 30% will tell others not to use your firm
  • 25% will post a negative review on social media

There is nothing worse to an organization than having angry customers and dealing with lost business. Here are some of the outcomes of poor customer services:

  1. Low employee moral
  2. Employee turnover
  3. Reduced income
  4. Loss of potential customers
  5. Loss of reputation

If you do not want your business to be among those companies that have to deal with the above list, your goal must be to use every service problem as an opportunity to impress your customer. When mistakes happen, use proactive recovery as the means to create customer loyalty. Next month we will give you tools to help you recover from a customer service issue.

The Downside of Poor Customer Service

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Over that past year or so, we have been suggesting ways to improve how insurance is delivered. We have stressed that price shopping can actually cost the buyer more money in the long run; and that developing relationships can lead to a better risk management program.  Now, we would like to examine the downside of poor customer service. Poor customer service can impact a business negatively in many ways. This is especially true for small businesses that rely on repeat business and positive word-of-mouth advertising for their success. Here is a staggering fact: in 2014, U.S. businesses lost $50 billion due to poor customer service. (source; newmeida.com)

According to the latest numbers, here is how customers will act after they have received poor service:

  • 59% of people will change agents
  • 30% will tell others not to use your firm
  • 25% will post a negative review on social media

There is nothing worse to an organization than having angry customers and dealing with lost business. Here are some of the outcomes of poor customer services:

  1. Low employee moral
  2. Employee turnover
  3. Reduced income
  4. Loss of potential customers
  5. Loss of reputation

If you do not want your business to be among those companies that have to deal with the above list, your goal must be to use every service problem as an opportunity to impress your customer. When mistakes happen, use proactive recovery as the means to create customer loyalty. Next month we will give you tools to help you recover from a customer service issue.

Win the day!

Keep Your Agency Healthy Through a Client Service Review

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Do you ever sit down with your team and complete a client service review? If you don’t, let me try to convince you of its value. A client service review is like an annual physical. It is necessary for the health of the agency, and it helps everyone better understand the client’s needs. Your review should include the producer, account manager, claims person, and any other team member that touches the client. The client service review should only take a short time, but the information can be invaluable in making sure that the team is on the same page to deliver outstanding service to the client.

Here are some of the topics that should be included during a client review:

  1. Review all open claims to make sure they are progressing correctly.
  2. Does the client have any service issues or concerns?
  3. What are any issues facing the client or the industry?
  4. Does the agency have any new services or solutions to offer?
  5. Have there been any personnel changes with the client?

Having this information can help build a true partnership with the client. If there are any issues or concerns, it is best to address these well before the renewal. By doing so, the client will feel they are being treated like a partner and will in turn treat you like a valued business partner, not just an insurance agent.

Can Selling And Customer Service Coexist?

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Traditional insurance “selling” has not always gone hand in hand with good customer service. Traditional insurance selling often consists of a sales person trying to convince a buyer of the benefits of the product he/she is selling. Conversely, good customer service involves determining the customer’s needs and concerns first, and then determining how to best provide solutions. The difference is in the mindset of the sales professional. You can actually provide good customer service while “selling” if you view selling as offering a value added service to your customer. This starts with how the sales professional views the process.

If you are looking for something different in the insurance buying process, evaluate your next insurance meeting using these standards.

  • Does your agent ask questions to determine your needs and concerns?
  • How fast does the agent offer insurance products as the only solution, if it in the first 15 minutes you have a traditional insurance sales person.
  • Do you feel your agent knows and understands your business and industry?
  • Has your agent ever offered a non-insurance solution such as a contractual risk transfer?

We would encourage you to establish a set of standards by which you evaluate your insurance provider. Do they value relationships, do your values line up together and do they value the relationship? If you can answer these, you are on your way to developing a trusted partner.

Why A Trained Agent Is Better Than An Untrained Agent

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Agents come in many shapes, sizes, and qualifications.  Every insurance agent must go through a basic level of insurance training in order to obtain a license. In order to keep their license, an agent must take a minimum level of training annually.  Unfortunately, many agents never do any more than the minimum. There is so much more to know about insurance than just the minimum of training.  It is imperative that all agents continually keep trained and educated in order to create, and deliver insurance and risk solutions to their clients.

Training benefits to agents and agencies

  • Enhances your company’s reputation. 
  • Employees desire professional development.
  • Helps agency attract and retain the best employees.
  • Increase the collective knowledge of your team.
  • Boosts your retention.
  • Allows you to truly provide “trusted advisor” solutions to your clients.

Training benefits to clients

  • Allows agents to bring a much broader knowledge base to problem solving.
  • Agents are more equipped to educate clients.
  • Provides a basis for providing business solutions beyond just insurance.
  • Trained agents are generally more knowledgeable about many different industries.
  • With a trained agent you can lower your cost of risk.
  • Professionally trained agents understand in greater detail how insurance is designed to work.
  • Highly trained agents can help you navigate difficult claims to your satisfaction.
  • Training is essential for knowledge transfer. It’s very important to share knowledge.

Professional development can come in many forms. But having an agent who is trained will always provide a broader depth of skill and experience to the client.

Invest In Customer Satisfaction

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If you search the web you will find many good articles on how increasing customer satisfaction boosts your profit and is a good return on investment. While these are good articles, they miss the point. Don’t deliver outstanding customer service to make money, do it because it is the right thing to do. We believe that a happy and satisfied customer will become your ally, and you become their trusted advisor.

Here Is What We Know About Customer Service

  1. Customers know more about risk and insurance today than they did a few years ago.
  2. People want to be educated not sold.
  3. Partners are better than vendors.
  4. Everyone “says” they offer god customer service.
  5. There is a strong correlation between customer experience and loyalty factors such as repurchasing, trying new services, forgiving mistakes, and recommending the company to friends and colleagues.
  6. Customers expect extended hours: 24/7
  7. Consumers view excellent customer service as an extension of a company’s values and believe that these companies have “earned” their business.

What Customer Service Tools Should We Invest In?

  1. Continue to educate yourself and your team in insurance and risk management topics.
  2. Invest in a mobile-first customer experience. Customers want some level of mobile services, which could mean, paying bills, managing policy information and receiving claims update.
  3. Build a meaningful web site. Your web page is an excellent way to offer education and other services.
  4. Invest in people, most customers hate calling an agency and getting voice mail.
  5. Invest in the technology that allows 24/7 communication with your customers.

Go win the day!