How Insurance Agencies Can Build Deeper Customer Relationships
Forward-thinking agents know that sustained success in the insurance business rests on a foundation of strong customer relationships. Keeping customers happy is the key to fostering long-term relationships and creating more revenue through referrals.
Because insurance is a customer-centric industry, agencies that make building deeper relationships tend to have a competitive advantage through better retention rates and higher sales.
With that in mind, let's review a few tactics to help you cultivate stronger bonds with clients.
In today's hyper-connected world, consumers are conditioned to expect a quick response. Studies have shown that fast response times make a profound difference when it comes to successfully closing leads or sales calls.
On the other end of the spectrum, customers who don't receive prompt attention to their queries, complaints or feedback may feel that they are not valuable to your agency. Even one negative experience can be enough to sour an otherwise happy relationship.
Dale Carnegie once said that "a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language." Carnegie used this personalized approach to great effect, becoming one of the world's best-selling authors and foremost authorities on public speaking and self-improvement.
Science backs up the idea that personalization is important; brain imaging studies have shown that the use of names elicits a positive neurological response. When you treat customers like a friend and show that you're invested in their lives, they tend to repay you with loyalty. By making an effort to get to know your clients on a more personal level, you can forge a deeper and more lasting bond.
When an agency is brand new and is just beginning to acquire customers, it's relatively easy to give each person the attention they deserve. Once a few dozen clients turn into hundreds or thousands it becomes more challenging to sustain these bonds.
The use of an advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform can streamline and improve your sales process while also ensuring that you never forget a client meeting, birthday or any important milestone. Choosing the right platform for the needs of your agency is an essential part of realizing these goals. By leveraging the power of automation and data analysis, you can make sure that you keep customer relationships strong even when you begin to scale.
As we mentioned, the insurance industry is about relationships. When people have milestone events (such as getting married or buying a first home) or suffer through challenging experiences (auto collisions or home damage), insurance agents are involved. If customers know they can rely on you, their loyalty will be enduring.
Customers 2020, the first ever B2B customer service study, showed evidence that customer service is now the most important brand differentiator -- even more critical than product or price. Great customer service has become absolutely integral to business success and it's one of the best ways to create stronger customer relationships. To deliver this level of service:
- Be ready to deliver great service across multiple channels. Some customers prefer the phone, while others are more technologically inclined. Make sure you can accommodate everyone.
- Make sure all agency personnel are committed to stellar customer service. Strong relationships require friendly, personalized treatment from every point of contact.
- Be responsive to feedback. If a customer has an issue, make sure it gets addressed promptly and fairly. Even the best agency can suffer a mistake or an episode of good faith miscommunication, so handling feedback in a smart and responsive way is critical for maintaining deep, healthy client relationships.
