Hello Blogosphere! It’s time for your weekly dose of “What Can I Do To Be Awesome?” I am running a short week starting out in beautiful Newport, Rhode Island for the New England NetVu conference and then I’m off to Vermont to get hitched! You’re all tired of hearing about my impending wedding so I promise this will be the last mention of it, by me at least!
This blog is very near and dear to my heart as it came up last week when I met up with some friends from college. The conversation shifted to what we were up to work-wise and when it got to me I explained to them that I work closely with independent insurance agencies by providing training and consulting. It seemed pretty open and shut to me but then a friend asked me if I had gotten the opportunity to work with Geico, Progressive, or All State. I did a double take and then reminded myself that because none of my friends had careers in or near insurance it’s entirely plausible that they wouldn’t know the difference between a direct carrier and an independent agency.
I carefully explained the difference and once my friends got it another asked me if it’s a better idea to work with an independent agency versus a direct carrier. I told him absolutely it’s a better idea to work with an independent agency and I found myself going through the 100 reasons why. This spurred an idea in my head so I decided I would take my idea on the road with me.
During the two past conventions I’ve attended and spoke at, I decided to turn it around to the agents and asked them, “When you or your service staff are speaking with clients and prospects do you make it a point to explain to them the difference of doing business with you, the independent agent, versus a direct carrier?” The result was actually pretty astounding.
Of the 50 agents I spoke with only 2 answered yes to that question. Everyone else said they didn’t see the point while others said they just assumed the customer knew the difference. The reality is that because we all eat, breathe and live insurance these concepts are common knowledge to us and it’s the human condition to sometimes assume everyone else knows what we know. This just isn’t the case.
My second point to this matter is that because this recent event was held in Newport, my mom decided to show up unannounced to say hi and surprise me. I walked her around the tradeshow floor and introduced her to a couple I agents knew and then my mother who has had insurance since she moved out of the house and is now 62 asked me if I ever work with Geico, Progressive, or USAA? My own smart and worldly mother didn’t know the difference either!
Customers may find us via the internet, word of mouth, etc. but they don’t know what the benefit is to doing business with us. They may assume they are just calling a more localized Geico or Progressive. This is why we need to take the time to educate our customers on why they are doing business with us in the first place! It’s a huge selling point that you don’t sell one product but rather you have access to many products. People like choices and we have to let them know that they have those when working with us.
Try instituting a talk track in your agency around the benefits of an independent agency. It’s the first step in keeping and retaining our clients and it will affirm their decision to do business with you. For everything else there is Agency Performance Partners. Give us a call and learn about other great talk tracks and little tricks to take your agency from good to great.
