Every insurance agency has unique processes for how they manage day-to-day activities and communications.
Perhaps you’re a one-person agency and you wear many hats. Or you might have a robust team of producers, customer service representatives (CSRs), an office manager, etc.
Regardless of the size of your agency, you need to build meaningful, personalized connections with your customers and prospects if you want to grow. To do that, you want to make sure the right team members are sending the right communications to the right contacts.
Match the message to the team member who can help
Most people have called a company’s customer service line and had the frustrating experience of being transferred several times and waiting on hold while they find someone who can help. Don’t do this to your prospects or customers.
When you send a message, think about how you want the recipient to respond. Maybe you’re trying to convert a prospect or cross-sell a policy. Or you might just be trying to create goodwill with a client by sending them a holiday card. No matter what your goal is, make sure you’re sending your email, text or card from the person who can help the customer or prospect if they respond.
Occasionally you may want to send a message from the agency principal, a team inbox or a general company email address, such as for office closures or big agency announcements. In these cases, make sure someone is monitoring that inbox and can respond quickly if a customer replies to the email. Opt for communications from a real human no matter the topic, if at all possible.
Assign a primary contact to every customer
Once a prospect becomes a policyholder, it’s time to assign them a primary point of contact at the agency. This primary point person will be the person the client reaches out to with policy questions.
Each customer’s primary contact should be able to answer most insurance questions or be able to direct clients to the right person to help with specific requests.
The main point of contact for each customer should also build positive relationships by sending their policyholders handwritten cards for special occasions throughout the year and keep in touch outside of renewal times by sending articles, videos or podcasts their clients would be interested in.
Customers who love their insurance agent are more likely to stay longer, purchase additional policies, refer their friends and leave positive reviews. And when they consistently hear from the same person, on a regular basis, they start to develop a relationship that has long-term potential. That’s exactly what you want to achieve with every client.
Balance employee workloads
As new prospects request quotes and become policyholders, you’ll need to decide how many accounts each team member can manage.
Use a round-robin approach to equally assign new leads to producers and new customers to CSRs. Or keep an eye on how many accounts or policies each team member manages and use a weighted approach to assign new clients. For example, if you have a CSR with double the policyholders of anyone else, you could assign a smaller percentage of new clients to them going forward.
If an employee leaves your agency, use a similar approach to quickly reassign their contacts to other insurance agents or salespeople.
Personalize automated communications
Even if you’re sending an automated cross-sell campaign, it’s important you send it from a real person at your agency whenever possible. Clients don’t want to feel like another name on a long list. You may occasionally need to send something from a general support or sales email address. Just make sure someone on your team is checking that email and able to reply if needed. By making sure you assign the right employees for different client groups and message types, you’ll be able to maintain that personal touch even when you’re sending an automated campaign to a list of recipients.
At ClientCircle, we pull information directly from your management system and can send communications from anyone on your team. You can change whom communications come from at any time.
See how it works
Check out the video below to see how easy it is to send the communications from the right team members with ClientCircle.