HOW TO CREATE ADVOCATES FOR YOUR BUSINESS
by Brandie Hinen
A comprehensive, ongoing client advocacy program will keep your agency growing and growing. Brandie Hinen gives you a step-by-step approach to creating advocates in your business.
A recent article in the IMMS Weekly Marketeer focused on the five steps of “Climbing the Ladder of Success” by converting suspects into advocates for your agency. Let’s talk about “advocacy,” or moving from the “client” to the “advocate” step on the ladder.
Developing and implementing a client advocacy program offers significant benefits:
- Builds credibility
- Gets the word out about why you’re unique in your field
- Improves client retention
- Creates growth through referrals
As I see it, an advocate is someone who is anxiously engaged in the process of helping you promote your product or service. Advocates are rare in business, but when you have one, you know it. These are the people who believe in you, speak highly of you, and are willing to help endorse your business because of who you are for them.
Rather than give you advice, I’d like to give you a step-by-step approach to creating these kinds of advocates in your business.
- Start by running a report in your agency computer system for your largest income accounts, and the largest “centers of influence” — people who know a lot of people in the community (these might often be small-premium accounts).
- Check in with these clients. Being “satisfied” is not enough. Find out if these people are genuinely happy with your level of service. If they’re not, set a time-phased plan to win them back. Remember, most unsatisfied clients don’t talk about going away; they just leave without telling you why. If you’re doing “fine,” find out what that means. Ask your insureds to be specific. Then go back and share with the staff the results and pat them on the back.
- Ask for letters of recommendation in which clients give specifics of how or what you or the staff have done to make their insurance experience better. Put together a one-page “HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT US” piece. Have an accountability partner in the agency (for example, a peer, the Account Manager, the front desk) remind you to make the phone calls needed to get these letters.
- Get involved in asking for referrals and using these letters of recommendation . There’s power in a request; unless you ask, often clients are too busy to offer you one on their own. Ask for a letter when you’ve done well or before renewal.
- Increase your visibility. All of us are bombarded with information overload. Stay in touch with your clients. Tell them that you care. Say “thank you for your business;” ask to speak at a local Lions or Rotary meeting (they’re always looking for speakers). Do something creative, funny and/or outrageous that makes you stand out and abolishes insurance stereotypes. Call me at (877) 303-1722 and I’ll be glad to give you some ideas on this.
- Ask advocates for the gift of honest feedback. Good friends are willing to be candid. Ask your advocates what you could be doing better, what they’d like to see changed, or ways in which you could improve service. Then go back and do something with this valuable information. The chances are that if your advocates have seen these ways to improve, so have others.
CONCLUSION
A comprehensive, ongoing client advocacy program will keep your agency growing and growing. Try it — you’ll like it!
Brandie Hinen, president of P.A.C.E., Inc., provides expertise in staffing, workflow, sales, marketing, management, and client communication. For more information, please contact P.A.C.E., Inc., P.O. Box 303, Twin Falls, ID 83303, (877) 303-7223, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.settingthepace.biz.