WORLD-CLASS CUSTOMER SERVICE
by Diane Herbert and Pamela Millard
What sets your agency apart? What do you do better than other agencies? What do you offer that they don't? Why should people buy insurance from you? Everyone in your agency should know intuitively what sets your agency apart from the competition. Diane Herbert and Pamela Millard help you to meet or exceed customer expectations.
When we ask those questions in our consulting practice, the answer is invariably, “Service. We provide great service.” When asked what that means, we often hear “We truly care about our clients.” “We return phone calls the same day.” Or, “A real live person always answers the phone.” Although those things are important, we doubt that your clients consider them special. They are (or should be) given.
In our 20-plus years of consulting with hundreds of independent insurance agencies and talking with thousands of agency personnel, we can count on our fingers and toes the number of times that we've had people give us concrete, meaningful expressions of quality customer service —even when the agency is in fact providing truly exceptional service to their clients.
In a service-driven environment such as the Independent Agency System, the value of what you provide is determined entirely by the customer's perception. The customer decides what value is. As a result, providing great customer service that the client wants and needs — and making sure they recognize that you're providing it — will be extremely critical for account retention. As you look at the ways in which you provide service to your customers, ask yourself, “Do our customers know that we're doing this and would they pay me for it if they did?” If the answer is no, you need to redefine quality service in your agency.
WHAT IS OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE?
It's whatever the client says it is!
Outstanding customer service means meeting or exceeding customer expectations. This includes the speed with which you deliver and the convenience for the customer. In other words, quality customer service means providing responsive service when, where, and how the customer wants it.
Don't assume that you know. You might be wrong. For instance, a recent study by the IIABA asked agents and their customers how important it was to have online access. While 80% of consumers felt that online access was important, very few agency principals did.
Institute a consistent customer feedback process that will allow you to find out what's really important to your customers, what it is they want and need from their insurance agent. Ask these key questions:
- What products and service characteristics matter most to you?
- What do you feel is wrong or missing?
This feedback can take many forms. You can simply talk to your customers and prospects. Or you can take a formal approach such as periodic customer satisfaction surveys or even holding customer focus groups.
Another way to determine what constitutes great service for your customers is to scrutinize every complaint carefully. Make sure that all complaints are fully documented, and then make a commitment to review them personally. Attempt to identify the root cause of the dissatisfaction. Is there something to be learned? Is it the people, the process, or both?
HOW CAN I TELL IF I'M PROVIDING QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE?
Again, ask your clients. They're the arbiters of great service. Ask how well you're doing compared not only with their expectations but also with your competitors. Remember, your competitors aren't just other insurance agencies, but include other service industries.
In addition to getting feedback from your current customers, regularly poll your lost customers to find out why they left. Even if the reason is price, there's probably more to it than that. Although there's no denying that price is a major consideration, all other things being equal, inertia will cause most customers to stay with the agency.
The key is that once you know what your customers want, you must be prepared to deliver it.
ARE YOUR PROCESSES ‘CUSTOMER FRIENDLY?'
Establish effective, customer-focused service and support systems. Review these processes from the customer's perspective. Do they serve the customer as the customer would like to be served? Do you regularly demonstrate that you know your customer's business? The IIABA study found that this was one of the major requirements that customers want from their insurance advisors.
If you're not already doing so, look at how you can provide service 24/7. And no, that doesn't mean that you have to have staff on site 24-hours per day. Make sure that there's an emergency number someone can call off hours if necessary. Allow clients to leave voice mail messages after hours (and yes, remind them that coverage can't be bound by voice mail); and confirm receipt of those messages within hours of receipt, not days. Put e-mail addresses on all business cards and encourage the use of e-mail for all correspondence, not just off-hours. Advertise evening and weekend hours by appointment. These are just some of the most basic steps that you can take to expand your availability.
Stepping it up a bit, have a Web site where clients can send e-mails to you. Better yet, turn that site into a true customer service tool by allowing clients to access a glossary of insurance terms, request a change, report a claim, ask for a quote on other lines of business, and order MVR reports, special insurance forms, or ID cards.
Even better, make it truly a self-serve 24/7 option. Allow clients access to their account and policy information online to generate their own quotes, prepare their own certificates of insurance, and more. Make sure that your clients know what options are available.
MANAGE THE RESULTS
Remember, if you aren't measuring customer service (and most agencies don't), you won't be able to manage it effectively. We guarantee that what gets measured gets done. Set measurable customer service standards for performance based on what customers want and expect. To ensure greater employee buy-in, involve your staff in developing these standards.
Some of these standards will vary based on different types of clients. For example, you might perform an annual account review — by mail for small Commercial and Personal Lines customers, by telephone for mid-size accounts, and in person for large Commercial accounts. This demonstrates your professionalism and shows that you care about customers and their needs.
Set standards for how often you reach out to your customers. Again, the number of times and the reasons will vary. Is once a year at renewal time enough? You can bet that your customer is getting “touched” more often than that by competitors who want their business. Care to guess how many times your competitors solicit your good large accounts? And the airwaves sizzle with ads for “cheap” insurance or do-it-yourself Internet convenience.
Keep in touch with your customers with mailings, phone calls, or personal meetings. Make sure that these contacts are meaningful. Newsletters, special mailings, and information about changes in regulations or available products will be appropriate for different segments of your customer base. Your automation system and a well-maintained database make it easy and cost-effective to tailor each touch-point to the right customers.
Here are some other service standards that you might want to set and monitor:
- Return all phone calls within two hours.
- Never direct a client into an automated voice mail system during office hours without offering the option of speaking with someone else.
- Respond to all e-mails within 24 hours.
- Verify and mail all policies to the insured within two days of receipt.
- Fax certificates of insurance requested by phone within two hours (four hours, if the request came by fax or e-mail).
Review your standards periodically and raise the bar when needed due to changes in technology, the staff's capability, or increased customer expectations. Make meeting those standards part of your ongoing performance review process and a criterion for promotion. Use customer feedback in the review process.
CONCLUSION
Commit to a continuous improvement process within your agency aimed at constantly improving the level of service and support provided to clients. Make this a three-step process:
- Focus on the customer. Identify what the customer wants and needs from your agency, and then determine how well you are meeting those needs. Use a formal customer feedback process to gather and analyze the results.
- Revamp existing processes. Evaluate existing systems and procedures against the criteria set by the client. Are they customer-friendly? Are they responsive to the customer? Do they offer convenience and choices? Are they timely? Streamline and revamp existing processes, always keeping in mind the client's definition of quality customer service.
- Manage results. Set measurable service standards and evaluate performance based on those standards. Remember, you can't manage what you don't measure.
If you need, help, give us a call or visit our web site at www.transformationadvisors.com.
Diane Herbert and Pamela Millard are partners in Transformation Advisors, a client-focused management consulting firm. You can contact Herbert at (239) 948-6888, Millard at (530) 295-1083.