Is Your Agency Ready for an Increase In Rate Concern Calls: Expect the Calls
Picture this: it’s the first thing on Monday morning. You’re armed with your coffee in hand, and you’re ready to have a productive week. But then a call comes in: someone who isn’t just mad, but completely pissed off about their insurance rate increase.
“Remember, when they’re calling us they are not calling our competition. So expect the call and be kind.”
They’re flying off the handle, and now, you feel like your week is going to turn into a dumpster fire.
And this probably isn’t the only call like this that you’re going to receive. Rates are going up, and customers are looking for ways to save money.
How do you handle these calls, especially when customers are upset? Are these rate concern calls really that bad, or are you letting them get to you more than you should?
The State of Rate
Here’s the thing: inbound calls around rate increases are bound to happen, because for many reasons, rates are going up. Especially with inflation, rates are rising, and it’s not just in insurance. People are calling their cable company, they’re calling their phone provider, they’re feeling it at the gas tank.
The bottom line is that daytime costs are going up, and people are looking for ways to maximize their budgets. So you better believe that insurance will be in their crosshairs, and that you’ll probably receive an increase in rate concern calls, because everyone is looking for ways to save money.
But instead of heading for the hills, or letting these calls really get you down, you can take some steps to handle this in the best way possible, and in a way that ensures your teams feel good and solid.
Ultimately, you need to have a game plan.
Planning for the Rate Increase Calls
How exactly do you prepare your people for an increase in rate concern calls? You can start by asking yourself questions like:
- “Do our people have scripts?”
- “Are our people trained for these scenarios?”
The problem is that at a lot of agencies, the answer to these questions is no. The plan is to just handle it with no plan.
But there are definitely much better ways to handle these calls, and ways you can plan for these scenarios.
We Wrote the Book On It
One of the reasons we’re so knowledgeable about how to handle increases in rate concern calls is that we pretty much wrote the book on how to handle these calls, in the form of a course. We have an entire course on how to handle rate.
If you’re wondering if your team needs this course, this is definitely the perfect time to invest in your team’s training on it.
The videos are 10-15 minutes each, there’s scripts, and ultimately, there’s a powerful impact on how you can handle this changing economy.
But the first video, and what we’re going to cover right now, is that you need to expect the call.
Expecting the Expected
Why is the first step with handling increases in rate concern calls simply expecting these calls?
So much of this is mindset. If you’re saying:
“Ugh, another person calling about the rates!”
Guess what?
Then we should be expecting that this is going to happen. This is the season that we’re in.
We don’t want to be in the mindset that customers are silly, or chastise them for trying to save money. When someone gets hit with rising bills, it’s understandable they’re looking for places to save a few bucks. It’s completely normal, so let’s not judge them for it.
Instead, we can say:
“I’m so glad you called.”
Remember, when they’re calling us, they’re not calling our competition. So expect the call, and be kind.
Many of us are doing this in our own household, and it’s no different.
The Game Plan: Positive Mindset
The bottom line is that your game plan with this should be to have a positive mindset. We don’t want everybody getting themselves all worked up about rate increases, because inevitably, they’re going to happen.
These rate increases are part of the process, but instead of panicking, we need to keep a positive mindset. Really, we should be focusing on the fact that when our customers call, they’re calling us, and we’re here to be of service. And most importantly, they’re not calling our competition.
We can also see these calls as an opportunity.
Seizing the Moment
How exactly can we use these rate concern calls as an opportunity? These calls are a great chance to really take a close look at our customers’ accounts.
We can update accounts, scrub discounts, look at cross sells, and really dig deep into what’s going on with each client.
There’s another way we can use our mindset to really change how we see these calls: we can see them as an opportunity, not something that’s happening to us.
So when these calls happen, really take a deep breath and realize that they’re an opportunity, not something that’s happening to us. They’re a blessing and an opportunity, and we should use it as such.
At the end of the day, don’t let these rate increase concern calls get you down. And keep following this video series, as we’re going to be going over four different strategies that you should take on in your agency.
The idea is that these little tips are going to help make this season of insurance a little bit more bearable.
And of course, if you like these videos, make sure you’re liking them, commenting, giving us comments on what we could cover in future videos.
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