It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Budget season.
Did you know that on average small and medium sized businesses are spending $1605 per year on employee training?
Now your jaw may be on the floor right now. For most agencies it is nowhere near that. We rely on online CE classes, carrier lunch and learns or the occasional webinar. But don’t worry, be a boss and carry on!
McKinsey has studied insurance customer experience and the impact on profitability and growth. Great news, those agencies that are invested in top of class customer experience are growing faster and more profitably.
Customer experience comes from a strong definition of how the company wants the team to respond and act. What do they believe in? What are the agency’s values and rules of engagement? A great example of this is getting an agency standard or values. (You can check out ones we helped coordinate for Galvez Insurance and Paradiso Insurance to get an idea). But then you have to train your team and get their buy in!
There are several companies in America that are well known for their customer experience: Southwest Airlines (although I think Delta is way better!), Nordstroms, Trader Joes. Still curious? Here is a great podcast on how poor experience can impact your business.
So when you are budgeting this year you really need to include some form of training for your team. Now let’s be clear – training is outstanding but programs that combine training and coaching get the ideas to stick to your team. We only remember 10% of what we hear in a training and apply 1% (scary right?). Our AppX Programs (Sales & Retention) and Agency Assessment help you accomplish just this! Plus with our End of Year Special we have the best pricing ever!
The bottom line is training needs to be a line item in your agency’s budget next year and you are short changing yourself if you leave it out!
