I spent many years coaching high school football. Whenever a team was underperforming, we went back to basics: blocking and tackling. If your agency’s sales and retention are suffering from the current economy, or if you wish to enhance your performance, it’s time to reinforce the fundamentals of any sales organization: asking for referrals and developing accounts.
Anytime a member of your staff has direct contact (face-to-face or on the phone) with a client, require them to ask for referrals. The agency owner or manager should work with each individual in preparing scripts that they can use to secure the referral. Once they have the referral, the CSR or producer must contact the referred party and ask for the opportunity to write their insurance. The owner or manager should also help the producer or CSR create a sales script.
This program won’t achieve the desired results unless there’s accountability. All too often, employees will do what’s expected only if it’s inspected. Do this by developing specific coding in the activity logs and then running weekly reports on the activities of each individual. If this isn’t practical, develop a weekly written report for CSRs and producers that provides this information:
- Referral name
- Date
- Referral source
- Date of contacting referral
- Date of providing quote
- Date of writing account
- Policy(ies)written
- Effective date of new policy(ies)
Every industry survey indicates that insurance buyers would prefer to have all their insurance with one agent. This means that account development is important, not only to you, but also to your clients. Include account development activity on all new business and renewal reviews (You are contacting all your clients on a regular basis to review their insurance needs, aren’t you?)
Prepare and use exposure checklists for all Personal Lines and Commercial Lines clients that cover not only Property/Casualty coverages, but also Life, Health Long-Term Disability, etc.
Going back to basics will ensure that you will enjoy a steady growth of business – and reduce your loss of business.
A final thought: Consumers today are looking to save money any way possible – and that includes the cost of their insurance policies. It’s in your best interest to have your staff contact direct-bill clients before they receive their renewal; let them know that, as an independent agency that works with many companies, you can shop for them. Doing this will help reduce the business you lose from price-shopping clients.
If you need help in creating referral and sales scripts, reporting forms, or exposure checklists, please don’t hesitate to contact me.