There are two classic reasons why consumers change insurance providers: a lower premium and a profound lack of appreciation. Agency management can only do so many things about the premiums they proffer. But there is always something to do to make a client feel valued. One such approach is to establish a virtual community; one that’s populated entirely by the agency, its lead carriers, and most importantly, its insureds.
Think community
Most sales are made within an agency’s local universe. This means that the majority of an agency’s insureds are within driving distance of their workplace. Therefore most agencies and their clientele have at least two things in common: They are physically near each other and they transact business together. These are the two key characteristics of any community. By expanding on this basic premise, agents can grow their office and retain more accounts. This is accomplished by taking specific steps to tighten the bonds between agency and insured. Make clients feel as if they do more than just buy insurance from you.
Think community news
Every American community has its own newspaper. It’s from this wellspring that citizens draw much of their local news, information and gossip. An agency newsletter, with a slightly revised focus, can fulfill this important need for its own virtual village.
Insurance newsletters don’t have to contain boring articles peppered with thinly disguised sales pitches. Instead, they can be written to provide insureds with what they really want to read. Most clients aren’t interested in the formal facade of the industry. Instead, they prefer their insurance facts presented with a decidedly human-interest slant. So use their wants to the agency’s advantage.
Turn a once dry newsletter, focused on official recitations of coverages, features and insurance regulations, into a quarterly or semi-annual community newspaper that’s jam-packed with life. Report on how the policies sold by the agency have favorably impacted local people and businesses. Include community information that will truly interest readers. Invite clients, staff and lead carriers to participate. Print cold facts and figures only when they’re essential to your point. Simultaneously use the publication to drive traffic to the agency’s other key communications tool, its Web site. Together, they help to establish and maintain a cohesive agency community; one that ideally clients, carriers and employees won’t ever want to leave.
Getting started
Initiate the process by referring to the central inhabitants of the agency community as citizens, instead of clients, customers or insureds. This term has a familiar connotation to it and adds feelings of belonging, rights and responsibility. Next, convert your current newsletter and Web site into the keystones of your society. Use some or all of the ideas suggested below. Welcome your staff and lead carriers as founding partners in the world that you are trying to build. To be successful, everyone needs to participate, not just your insureds. To help, here are 10 newsletter and Web site content suggestions.
Happy-endings. Following their final claim settlement, ask satisfied insureds if they would like to be interviewed and photographed for the community paper. If so, write about their loss and settlement from the human-interest point-of-view. Discuss the harm that impacted their family or business. Then using the claimant’s own words, reveal how their agency-provided protection made them whole again. This style of article helps to establish a real sense of belonging, while heartening citizens that they made the right buying decision. Discussions of claim settlements (without revealing numbers) reassure everyone that the agency’s carriers pay out money as well as take it in.
Agency averages. An informed citizenry is good for everyone, so openly reveal some key averages for the typical agency insured. Then publish the data in an easy-to-read chart in your community paper and online, subject to any disclaimers or advice from your errors and omissions carrier and attorney. Display averages for auto and homeowners liability limits, collision deductibles, homeowners coverage forms, additions and alterations for condo-unit owners, etc. Ask citizens to compare their protection to the community averages and to call a special hotline if their numbers fall below the line. These averages can be quickly determined by agency management software or with a reasonable sampling of files.
Online polls and surveys. Community communications should never be one-way. So regularly obtain citizen feedback by posting a monthly poll and quarterly online survey. There are many low-cost providers of these services, including www.pollmonkey.com and www.surveymonkey.com.
Sample poll question: Baby Boomers, How much money have you saved for retirement? Under $100K
Proclaim personal milestones. Births, anniversaries, graduations and weddings are part of life in every community. So encourage citizens and employees to let you know about the latest happenings. Then publish brief details about them in a regular (and always positive) gossip-like column. Print each citizen’s name in bold to make it stand out. Use photos whenever they’re available. Since everyone loves to see themselves, their family and friends in the paper, this column promotes the sense of kinship that the community seeks to instill.
Unabashedly seek referrals. Invite fellow citizens to help grow the community. Ask them to tell others about it by adding a referral form to your paper and Web site. Create a simple fill-in Web form to gather online referrals instead of an e-mail link. Send each referred person and business a copy of the community paper and formally invite them to visit the office.
Invite employee participation. Many agency newsletters wisely feature their employees. This is because when insureds feel that they know the people who serve them, they may be more hesitant to buy elsewhere. Allocate room in your paper for employee recipes, book and movie suggestions, ideas for day trips, etc. Identify each contribution with the name and photo of the staffer who provided it.
Demand company participation. Don’t leave your lead carriers on the edge of town. Include a special section in your newspaper and Web site for your top insurers to communicate to the community. Invite marketing reps, underwriters, and managers to contribute family recipes, movie reviews, etc., alongside your agency employees.
Print notices and wants ads. Every real community paper prints notices about upcoming social, charitable and other local events, so invite all area non-profit groups to supply you with a calendar of their events. Publish them in your paper and Web site in a Community Calendar section. Also run want ads for private and commercial citizens. Subject to certain restrictions, let people place advertisements for used cars, etc., and allow businesses to run help wanted ads or advertise their used equipment.
Encourage merchant participation. No community can survive long without business people to provide its needed goods and services. That’s why it’s wise to encourage all citizens to do business with each other. Here are three possible ways to do it.
Add a password-protected Citizens’ Yellow Pages section to your Web site. List all businesses you insure and who agree to participate, by category. Include their name, location, phone, e-mail address, and a link to their Web site. Ask participants to return the favor by providing a link back to the agency’s Web site. Also feature a Business-of-the-Month, online and in the newspaper. Highlight what the firm does and how it serves its fellow citizens. Finally, offer low-cost display ads in your community paper to all commercial citizens.
Offer insurance advice. Last but not least, citizens still expect and need quality insurance information. A nice way to present this advice is in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions newspaper column on your Web site.
Conclusion
The ultimate reward for these efforts is an active and loyal agency-centric community. This virtual world gives you a major advantage over other operations that treat their staff, insureds and carriers with minimal respect. Of course, premiums are still very important. But, a manageable cost difference is seldom more crucial than a true community connection.
Alan Shulman, CPCU, is the publisher of Agency Ideas, a subscription-only sales and marketing newsletter. He is also the author of the 1001 Agency Ideas book series and other popular P/C sales resources. He may be reached at (800) 724-1435, shulman@agencyideas.com,
or visit: www.agencyideas.com.
Topics Carriers Training Development
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