As independent agencies one sales strategy we still have struggled to adopt is quoting insurance over the phone. Now, it can’t be done on every account but the idea is that every opportunity it CAN be it should be. It is also something that will take many people out of their comfort zones. However, for those agencies who have embraced quoting over the phone the benefits outweighs the pain.
Let’s start with why you don’t believe quoting over the phone for both personal insurance and commercial insurance will work:
- People don’t want to be on the phone that long
- We can’t do it all the time so we resort to something we can control
- The only people who want quotes over the phone are non-standard, low coverage customers who value speed over relationship
- We can’t get valid quotes over the phone because we need the time to really review every detail
Now let’s consider the modern consumer and what they value:
- People pay more for services that are convenient
- The rise of Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Amazon Prime all show that we are in an on demand society
- For many of us we want things crossed off our list, getting all the information over, waiting for a quote stalls the process
- The longer people wait to get a quote the less likely you are to sell it
- Captive agents can quote over the phone
- 44% of people will jump on the first quote they receive if it meets their qualifications
So how can we as independent agents meet the needs of our prospects? We have to get uncomfortable BUT the outcome will be worth it. What we have found for many small commercial and personal insurance quotes sit. This is true of both remarkets and new business quotes. Somehow the service work gets in the way and it could be 5 days to get a reshop or new quote out the door. Then on top of the extraordinary delay, we generally email quotes to clients. When we email quotes we see that people only make judgement on one thing- PRICE.
At APP our AppX Sales Program we help to train people how to start quoting over the phone. Here is how we start:
- Phase 1: Start by quoting PL monoline reshops (you already have all the information in the rater), monoline auto and small bops on the phone. You can also add no prior insurance to this list as most likely you will only be quoting them with 1 company.
- Phase 2: Start quoting all reshops over the phone for personal lines (again, you have most of it the rater as it is)
- Phase 3: New Personal lines, home and auto quotes are taken over the phone and directly typed into the rater. The rater provides an estimation of premium. The agent gets buy in on the estimate in order to bridge to the primary carrier that is competitive and the agency is trying to place business with.
A few notes to make this all work:
- No more paper quote sheets, all data gets entered directly into the rater
- People have to learn how to have small talk on the phone with clients. We need to treat them like a person, not an application
- We have to be OK with giving people premiums from the rater, as an estimate. If we get their buy in and explain it we can then get their permission to bridge and run reports
- Agencies who are successful at quoting over the phone are less interested in finding the cheapest rate and more interested in getting a sale with a competitive company.
For agencies that embrace quoting over the phone they see a much improved closing ratio, better time management and a customer experience that gets noticed.
