You have been tasked with boosting your agency’s insurance customer retention. You look around for solutions, and every suggestion comes back to making renewal review calls. So it’s time to bite the bullet.
Now, we know these are a few thoughts running through your head:
- Should I get a bulletproof vest?
- Will I need to bribe my team?
- Should I start putting job ads out for the mass exit of team members wanting to quit when they hear about this new plan?
Here is the reality. How you launch renewal review calls with your team is just as important as making them. Like selling a new lead, you need to identify their core pain points and connect clearly how these calls can make a huge difference to their lives.
Before we outline how to launch renewal review calls, this is how not to launch renewal review calls:
- Email the team the news. Spoiler Alert: This is when you need a bulletproof vest.
- Mandate reviews, walk away, and check in a month later. Spoiler Alert: You’re shocked that they haven’t been made.
- Ask the team to try to conduct review calls. Spoiler Alert: This will be misinterpreted as temporary or optional.
- Hold a meeting and speak to it as it’s wild and difficult. Spoiler Alert: It’ll be wild and difficult for everyone.
In order to earn your team’s buy-in on renewal reviews, you have to show others you believe and support it. This, for a leader, means:
- Being abreast of the metrics (knowing the average number of calls)
- Appointing a Beta Tester (letting someone else work on the kinks)
- Discussing with other agencies/listening to podcasts from people who have accomplished this
- Knowing the game plan and writing out the process
- Having regular weekly meetings to check in and understand what is working, and troubleshoot solutions
- Being prepared to track renewal review calls
- Having an incentive plan to celebrate doing something hard
Here is the bottom line. Do not proceed with reading this blog if you do not support the renewal calls.
- If you don’t think your team can do it, they won’t.
- If you don’t think there is time, there won’t be time.
- If you cannot clearly articular the benefit, the team won’t buy-in to the change.
Remember, if you need help, we can help! We have our Agency School & 6 Month Retention Program.
FAQs on Renewal Review Calls
Remember, you can always prepare better when you know better in advance. Knowing your team’s common concerns in conducting renewal reviews that boost insurance customer retention will help you launch renewal reviews.
Here is a breakdown of the common stumbling blocks your team may have in understanding how to integrate renewal reviews into their day-to-day operations:
- I don’t have time: You may want to remind the team that being proactive will yield results in due time. Give it 60-90 days and watch it become less overwhelming.
- What do we do when people are out?: You can skip those calls, work to get ahead, or distribute them.
- If we call our clients, they will all want to be reshopped: Oddly enough, that’s incorrect. The stats show that it reduces remarket quantity because the agents are in control.
- People don’t want to be bothered by us: this is not a bother, this is a huge assist! This could be the most important call of their year.
- I don’t do cold calls: Calling a current customer is not a cold call; it is the essence of your job.
- What do we ask clients? We recommend using our call form so the team can be guided through a clear process that drives success.
How To Launch Renewal Review Calls With Your Team
In this section, we will start to outline how you can launch renewal review calls with your team.
Leadership Builds the Program
The agency’s leadership must map out all the details of making the calls. Account managers want to be told exactly what to do and they want the details! So you must structure the calling program to earn the team’s buy-in.
Here are some decisions to make:
- When will calls be made (maybe a certain number of days before renewal, or not?)
- How will people get the calls (we recommend management system activities)
- How to document the call in the agency management system
- How to get ready for the call
- What questions to ask on the call
- What happens if someone gets backlogged (what is the plan?)
- What is the reshopping expectation?
For you to get buy-in from your team, you need to make sure you have the details of the program. Account managers can smell a half-baked idea, so let’s ensure the details are locked and loaded.
It is advisable you document the process, so the team has a document they can always refer to. Also, you must align your management system with tracking the program.
Incentive Program
Whenever you start something new, you must recognize that the team may need some motivation. To be clear, the renewal reviews will eventually be part of the team’s job. However, the initial launch of it may need a little extra push.
At the start of launching the renewal calls, we strongly recommend incentivizing people to make the calls. If all the calls are made that week, the team can leave on Friday with the following:
- Coffee gift card
- Favorite bottle of wine
- Lotto tickets
- Bonus jeans day
- Gift Card
- Lunch the following week
You also want to make sure it’s a team bonus. Doing renewal reviews requires a dedicated team approach as the team has to learn to work together.
When the team gets used to making the calls, you want to retire the program of incentivizing the team to make calls and convert them into call results. You want to incentivize cross-sales and coverage increases.
We recommend some of the following options:
- Spin the wheel for every cross-sell
- Every five coverage increases provide an incentive
- Create a team goal of cross-sales and coverage increases to reward
“Incentive plans are a great way to have fun, celebrate and recognize the team for a job well done.”
– Kelly Donahue Piro
Don’t Have A Meeting – Have A Launch Party
When introducing something new, and you call a meeting, what is the vibe in the room? Generally, it’s not super inspirational. So why don’t we change that?
We strongly suggest that you coordinate a launch party. Make it fun, exciting, and something people look forward to. This also sets the stage that this is happening for the team, not to the team.
“Having a launch party rather than a meeting means your team sees that the agency is investing in your success. A launch party proves this is happening for the agency team rather than to the agency team.”
– Kelly Donahue Piro
You may be thinking, “How do I hold a launch party? We’ve never done this before.” It may seem hokey or funny but that’s the point. Don’t make everything so serious!
Here is what goes into a great party:
- Theme – pick a theme your agency can coordinate (maybe a beach party, 90s theme, or pizza party)
- Great food – feeding people always works!
- Location – will you host it at your office or rent a space to have some fun?
- Party Gifts – consider agency swag or our Ridiculously Amazing Insurance Agent Swag
- Invitations – have nice invitations to send to people
The more fun you have the more adoption you will get.
Share With The Team the Vision, Process & Why
While it may be normal and natural to you to do renewal review calls to boost your insurance customer retention, it may not be for the team. Generally, the team thinks about the day-to-day tactics.
Leadership is here to identify strategies for execution. When you’re sharing the plan, here are a few tips we have on sharing the plan with the team:
- Start With the Why: What are the core problems the industry, your agency, the team, and the clients are facing, and how can renewal reviews help get a win for everyone?
- WIIFM: What’s In It For Me – you have to be clear and impeccable in your communication on this. This is the main thing most of the team will care about.
- Process: You will tick off your team if you don’t go into details. Account managers love details. They want to know exactly what to do, what is expected, and the big key that you have thought through the challenges. Make sure you have this documented to hand out, do not go on just verbal communication.
- Incentive Plan: How can you motivate and incentivize the team? This shows you recognize this isn’t easy but necessary.
- Timeline: Be specific on the timeline. The launch training, date to start, when they should see a difference, dates of incentive plans, etc.
- Q&A: let the team ask open and honest questions
Your team will feel better knowing there is a training plan. You can take this on yourself or partner with us, Agency Performance Partners, to assist. You will want the team to know you’re not just asking them to pick up the phone and go for it. They will want to be walked through the following:
- How will they get the calls
- What to prepare for on the calls
- What to do if they get stuck
- How to handle the rate on the calls
- What to do if they find an error
- How to document the calls
At Agency Performance Partners, we have an online school and virtual and in-person training options.
Training
Your team will feel better knowing there is a training plan. You can take this on yourself or partner with us to assist. You will want the team to know you’re not just asking them to pick up the phone and go for it. They will want to be walked through the following:
- How they will get the calls
- What to prepare for on the calls
- What to do if they get stuck
- How to handle rate on the calls
- What to do if they find an error
- How to document the calls
At Agency Performance Partners we have an online school, virtual and in person training options.
Team Cheerleader
When doing something hard, you need a cheerleader to motivate you. Whether saving money, working out, or learning something new, you need someone to believe in you on the hard days. Your job now turns into believing in the team when it’s hard. You also have a new job. Find problems, solve problems, and communicate.
As your team makes calls, they will find problems. You want to encourage an environment where the team can raise their hand, report an issue and lean on leadership to solve problems. It is mission-critical that you do not blow off any problems. Take them seriously and solve them. Be sure to communicate your updates and results.
Metrics
When you’re working out and eating healthy, it can be a bummer until the scale moves and you get some progress. Then you’re motivated. There may be a delay when people see results from the hard work. You want to be tracking and sharing metrics with the entire team and be transparent.
Some agencies struggle with showing the metrics, especially if someone is struggling. Why hide it? When problems are in the dark, they stay there. Bring them to light!
Here are some metrics we recommend looking at:
- Calls Assigned
- Calls Made
- Coverage Increases
- Cross Sales
- Remarkets (these should go down)
- Cancellation reasons
Share the numbers. When you see your name on the list as the lowest person making calls, the problem generally fixes itself.
Conclusion
There is no magic bullet or secret sauce to launching renewal review calls to boost your insurance customer retention. If there were, I would certainly own the market on it! This strategy is very, very traditional. It’s not revolutionary. This is actually how insurance was always run.
The difference is that technology, automatic renewals, and more have made our lives easier (and the goal was to spend more time with customers). Still, in today’s crazy world, we take care of the clients with problems and often forget the clients that are our most profitable.
Understand that anything new can be overwhelming, and work with it. Don’t force-feed the renewal calls, and give them the time they deserve to educate your team and provide them the tools they need to succeed. Telling someone to do renewal reviews doesn’t work. However, onboarding the team with new thinking can be successful over six months.
You do not have to do this alone. In fact, you shouldn’t. You do not have to recreate the wheel. We can help your agency and your team become successful in connecting with your clients for an annual insurance renewal review.
