When asked, 'What is your greatest strength?' most insurance agents will answer 'Excellent service.' Yet if all the agents who claim excellent service actually provided it, many fewer accounts would be closed for reasons such as, 'Went elsewhere,' or 'Lost to price,' or, the old standby, 'Non-pay-no reason.'
Do most of the agents you know provide service you'd call 'excellent'? Why do they think they do? Here are some possible reasons:
They're fooling themselves. Ego forces them to believe that the service they provide is excellent because they're providing it. They've never been exposed to excellent service, so they can't know how their current practices measure up. They see the occasional spark of service in their staff and choose to believe it's the norm.
They're fooling others. These agents know that their agency's service fails to meet their (or their customers') expectations-but they don't know how to change it, or they feel that the human or financial cost of changing won't justify the results.
They're cynics. They have a low expectation of their customers and their employees, so they feel that their service is 'adequate.' And, for the most part, it's exactly that: adequate! But since 'adequate' doesn't sell, they use the word 'excellent,' assuming that no one will be able to tell the difference. To avoid confronting their inability to provide excellent service, they hide behind excuses like:
'My employees can't [or won't] do better.'
'My customers don't care about service, no matter what they say. They just want the lowest price.'
'The more service we provide, the more our customers will expect.'
'We can't provide better service when most of the mistakes come from the carriers.'
Those are some of the common excuses. But how accurate are they?
'My employees can't [or won't] do better.' I've never met an employee who didn't want to take pride in his or her performance and want to be the best. (Yes, this includes your employees!) The key to this initiative and pride is the desire to be appreciated. Fair compensation is important, of course, but many employees hide their true feelings behind the demand for more money. It's like children crying as if they've been hurt, when all they want is attention. For employees, the true hurt is unjustified criticism and lack of appreciation and praise.
Many owners beam with pride over their wonderful employees, frequently praising them publicly to anyone who will listen and privately to the employees themselves. They're not afraid that praise will cause the employee to ask for more money. They're honest in their praise, too; it's easy to tell the difference between true praise and patronization. Of course, the employees make mistakes (so do the owners!), but the owners know that the employees try their best every day. If they have criticism, they always voice it in private. When the criticism is justified, it usually takes the form of disappointment that the employee didn't live up to his or her potential.
The satisfaction level of praised employees is much higher than that of those who feel unappreciated and underpaid, and the turnover rate is minuscule. The performance of your employees depends on long-term, consistent appreciation. This requires a paradigm shift on the part of the owners, not a change that the employees must make. It's a state of mind.
'My customers don't care about service, no matter what they say. They just want the lowest price.' If price were really customers' only priority, they'd all be driving Yugos, eating generic-brand foods, and shifting billions of dollars of premium to the lowest-rated insurance companies every year through automated systems (such as Term Life comparison raters). Yet higher-priced cars attract a consistent flow of buyers, brand-name foods continue to outsell generic, and even companies with rates in the upper 50% retain customers and get new ones every year. The facts just don't substantiate the impression that price beats all.
'The more service we provide, the more our customers will expect.' This statement is true. Once you start surprising the customers with excellent service, they will raise the bar and expect more. Eventually, what was once excellent will become routine, forcing you to enhance your service further. But isn't continuous improvement one of the habits you'd like to build into your organization? And where will that put customers' and prospects' perceptions of your service compared to that of your competitors?
'We can't provide better service when most of the mistakes come from the carriers.' Until carriers pursue excellence in their operations, a part of your job will be to check and correct them. This should generally be visible to your customers-described, in fact, as a part of the reason they have you instead of being forced to deal directly with a company that has a history of inaccuracy.
Of course, not all agents who feel that their organization provides great service are delusional. But the feeling that you offer good service is just that-a feeling-unless you have a gauge against which to measure yourself. What scale can you use to weigh your grade of service?
Some agents have started to record complaints. They feel that the fewer complaints, the better the service. This is simply not true. The lack of complaints could simply mean that customers have accepted the agency's mediocrity as normal. If they find a reason to leave, they will. Otherwise, they'll stay. Just as no one likes being called mediocre, I trust that you wouldn't like to be considered an 'average' agency.
Instead of living with mediocrity, take your search for excellence to your customers. After all, they're the ones who judge how good you are! In fact, it's not how good you are that makes or breaks your reputation, its how good you are perceived to be by your customers. So it makes perfect sense to let your customers set the standards by which you measure yourself.
Ask your customers! Ask them very specific questions about very specific service issues. Use their answers to help you set the standards that you must beat to qualify for the 'excellent' reputation you want for your agency. Don't ask them open-ended questions such as, 'How can we serve you better?' They have no idea. But if you ask them how long it should take to call back with an answer to a question-and give them the choice of one hour, four hours, one day, three days, or five days-you'll get a good idea of what's needed to create the perception of good service.
Personal surveys work better than mail surveys. To conduct a personal survey, call the client and ask for five minutes of time to help your agency enhance your service to them. Telephone surveys are better than in-person surveys because they seem less threatening. Quality-oriented personal surveys are better taken individually than in focus groups; focus groups actually tend to lose, rather than sharpen, focus. One or two participants usually end up monopolizing the conversation and influencing others to express the same feelings. Unless facilitated very carefully, a focus group could end up being a complaint session.
Personal surveys and mail surveys are better done by an objective third party than by the agency and must be done with guaranteed anonymity. The third party demonstrates that the agency is serious about the participants' opinions-and that the customers need not be embarrassed if they criticize a business with which they have a working relationship.
After surveying your clients to identify how your current service levels compare with their expectations, publish the results. If you're identifying yourself as an excellent agency, say so, loudly and frequently. If you haven't met your customers' expectations yet, publicize the desired service goals and how you intend to achieve them (including time frames). Then follow up with occasional updates to remind yourself, your employees, and your clients of your goals, the reasons behind them, and the progress you've made to date. Publicity is important because you can make all the changes in the world, but nothing will seem to have occurred until you change customers' perceptions as well.
Excellent service must be proven to yourself and your customers every day. Don't live with excuses for not being excellent, or stop at being 'as good as' other agents. If you think you provide excellent service but can't describe how or why, you may be wrong.
We urge our clients to market themselves as excellent servicers-but only when they are excellent in the eyes of the customers. After all, it's not how you feel about yourself that puts bread on the table, but how your customers view you. Service excellence is a state of mind, but it's also more than that-it's the reality of identifying your service levels, learning your customers' definitions of excellence, and changing what you do to meet those definitions.