In last month’s blog, we explored three reasons (comfort level of the client, reduction of errors, and efficiency) why creating a consistent customer experience is critical to winning new clients.
This blog will focus on four different times when we can use consistency to win clients for the three reasons above.
For the purposes of this blog, we are going to break down clients into four different stages. All clients start as a prospect; prospects are broken down further into those interacting with us for the first time and those that are currently in the sales process. Our third group is made up of our existing clients that have at least one policy with us. Finally, we have our clients that are leaving or have left the agency.
The first group is our most niche and unique.
The old cliché, “you never get a chance to make a first impression” is right on point with our Initial Contact group. The first time a client interacts with us has a dramatic effect on whether they will choose to do business with us. You have less than 30 seconds to convince the client to want to engage with you.
Being consistent in our marketing and branding is key here. A brand guide is the most effective way to ensure that your marketing and branding efforts stay consistent. This not only helps with the design elements that go into your print and digital marketing but drives the language and tone used by the staff when talking with a client. Additionally, creating a consistent process for the way that the phone is answered, transferred to the appropriate person, and how that person transitions from identifying the reason for the call into rapport building is vital to a good customer experience.
Once a prospect has moved from the Initial Contact group into the Sales Pipeline group, a consistent sales process helps with both the customer experience as well as efficiencies and lack of mistakes. By utilizing the best practices developed by the agency, we can ensure that the client is experiencing the sales process in a way that is positive for them and increases our chances of success. We also eliminate potential errors and omissions by making it less likely to miss something. Finally, by following a more tactical approach, we don’t have to stop and determine our next steps wasting valuable time. This also helps when jumping back into a file as it is easy to know what has been done and what is still pending. There is an added value to this point when multiple people end up having to work on the same account.
Our third group of people is typically by far the largest.
These are your Active Clients. There are many areas where we interact with our existing clients. You have new clients that need a consistent onboarding process. There are different ways clients can interact with us such as phone, email, walk-in, mail, fax, social media, website, (carrier pigeon?), etc. And there are numerous different reasons why they interact with us. For example, billing questions, claims, policy changes, and general questions. Finally, there is a subgroup here of people that contact on behalf of a client such as mortgage brokers, certificate holders, realtors, and car dealerships.
This group of clients are the ones that are going to take the most advantage of your consistent processes because over time they will start to know what to expect when they contact you. By setting the expectation on their experience, you will reduce the fear and anxiety that many people feel when dealing with insurance. This can dramatically reduce the desire to contact another agent (or even worse, a direct writer!) by increasing their comfort level with you and having the fear of the unknown still on the other agent. This will also help in any revenue generating activities within the agency to round out accounts, increase coverages, and obtain referrals.
Our final group is comprised of clients that are canceling or have canceled.
I group these people together because the consistent process we want them to experience should be all part of the same process from the time we receive the request through winning them back. We need to start a process to identify the reason why we are losing the client. We all realize there is a set of clients that we aren’t going to get back (moved out of state or died) or don’t want back (call every month to ask if we can have their non-pay cancellation date extended). But how are we handling those profitable clients that left us for the agency down the street or a direct writer? We should first be trying to save them and identify the reason we lost them. Keeping the customer experience consistent here will be the last impression the client has before leaving us and is crucial to winning them back. Any actual lost clients need to go into the pipeline for a follow-up campaign at the appropriate time. They will then cycle back around to the Initial Contact group. This is when we can actually have a second chance at making a first impression!
Creating a positive and consistent customer experience is crucial.
Contact us today to learn more about our Customer Experience AppX program to learn more about how consistency is one of the aspects needed to create a positive customer experience!
