As a person who deals in audio and video, as well as the printed word, I’ve always been a bit backward and out-of-sync with my personal technology. For instance, my wife recently pointed out that our television was 16 years old. It was our Northridge earthquake replacement unit. Also, our component stereo system for the house was nearly 30 years old. Now I might be slow, but I’m not stupid. So I headed over to Best Buy in Branson to purchase a complete media center for the house.
With the help of a highly intelligent sales clerk, I managed to select everything I wanted, while amassing a bill far larger than I wanted. As he was ringing everything up, we decided that they would deliver the television, but I would take everything else so it would be ready and waiting for the television delivery.
That’s when he hit me with the bad news! Delivery wouldn’t be until Tuesday: Two days away! Now, I don’t know about you, but when I buy something, I want it now. I don’t do well with waiting. Then came the double whammy: Their Geek Squad wouldn’t be there until Wednesday - three days away - to hook it up for me. I pressed the issue, but you just can’t fight the fact that people weren’t working over the holiday. So I agreed to the timeframe, took the rest of my purchases, and headed home. The entire drive home consisted of me convincing myself that three days wasn’t that long to wait.
Policy Delivery
This brings me to the insurance industry. I’ve recently been doing some research on policy delivery regulations, which vary by state. New York requires policy delivery within 30 days of inception, including whatever time it takes for the carrier to get it to the agent. Other states give the agent 30 days from the time it is received from the carrier; and some states have no policy delivery guidelines. Yet, in agency after agency, I can always count on the back-office to verify that there’s a backlog in policy checking, which means delayed policy delivery.
Granted, an insurance policy isn’t a new television. However, the fact remains that no one really likes to wait for the delivery of something they’ve purchased. I know one agency that barely gets through the January renewal policy-checking backlog before the mid-year renewals hit. I’ve had CSRs admit that policy delivery can sometimes be as much as 90 to 180 days after the effective date. When I ask why management allows this, they generally respond their managers don’t understand what they do.
As a sales-oriented person, I understand and empathize with aversion to paperwork and back-office tasks. However, I also realize the importance of satisfying the client—and late delivery, even if there’s no complaint, is simply unacceptable behavior for a professional organization.
This internal workflow problem also explains why so many state bureaucrats have gotten involved in developing regulations about when we deliver a policy to a client.
I strongly urge every agency owner and manager to investigate their own operations and determine exactly what, if any, backlog problem might be impeding policy delivery to customers. If there’s a justifiable concern, analyze how to fix the problem. Perhaps this will only require workers and managers to focus on eliminating the backlog. Perhaps it will require a workflow efficiency expert or system to correct the true cause of the problem. Larger organizations might consider outsourcing some tasks, freeing up staff to use their creative talents more effectively to improve service and increase sales.
Whatever you do, don’t ignore policy checking and delivery—problems in this area do not nurture your client relationships!
Stay tuned: My next article will continue these thoughts about valuing your customers with a sequel to the television story and a discussion about taking existing clients for granted.