Insurance retention is a critical piece of agency success. We all know the stats: it is far easier to keep a current customer than to search for a new one. Recent studies show it costs 5x more to hook a new customer than to keep an existing one. With stats like these, it’s easy to see where you can make the biggest bang for your buck: cross-selling
Cross-selling is the practice of selling additional policies to an existing customer. These could be adding home to auto or life to medical among others. It can also be adding an extra policy for a child, spouse, or another family member. Anything that tacking on to a customer’s existing policy is a cross-sell.
So, if cross-selling is so important, how do you do it? Here are three steps to help you spot, nurture, and close a cross-selling opportunity.
Get tips on how to improve your overall insurance customer retention here
Spotting an Opportunity
To make a cross-selling sale, you need to know what to look for in your customers. Start by segmenting your customers into groups by gender, location, age, and other defining factors. You can use these segments to look for patterns. When you successfully cross-sell to a customer in a given segment, start looking for opportunities with other customers in that segment.
Life changes are major cross-selling indicators. When a customer gets a new car, has a baby, gets married, buys a new house, or retires, they will likely need to update their coverage. Take these opportunities to introduce potential coverage additions. Leverage your CSRs and agents to gain information on coming life changes as they spend the most time talking with customers. Have a centralized place (like a CRM or agency management system) to track interactions to get an idea of who may be looking for coverage updates.
Customer content engagement can also be telling. Someone who liked a tweet on choosing the right vehicle for your family and attended a webinar on “The Ins and Outs of Auto Insurance” is sending signals. With marketing automation, you can track these engagements and spot an opportunity from a mile away. And, you can nurture this lead by sending targeted content on auto policies and an opportunity to set up a consultation with an agent.
See how you can leverage your place as an independent, community-based agency
Tracking and Nurturing
As mentioned, marketing automation is excellent for nurturing cross-selling leads. Utilize it to keep customers engaged with regular newsletters and holiday and birthday greetings, and nudge them along with customized content based on their interactions. One critical piece of custom content is an automated renewal reminder 60-90 days before a policy’s end date. This email should include info on possible cross-sell items based on what you know from your marketing automation data.
The other prospect management tool you need is a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) to bring everything together. When synced with your marketing automation, your CRM can tell you precisely the right moment to make the pitch. This marketing automation data, along with info on a prospect’s interactions with agents and CSRs, tell you exactly what a prospect is looking for and when they’re primed to make a purchase.
Find out how to improve your customer relationships on the SIS blog
Making the Sale
When it comes time to make your pitch, the most important factors are to give options and make it personal. You want the prospect to recognize that you understand their unique needs, and you want them to be in control of deciding what’s best for them.
That personal connection and ability to offer choice are what drive our Partner Platform Proposal Creator. This intuitive tool allows you to make high-quality, agency-branded proposals in minutes. With its ease, quickness, and professionalism, you can give your customers multiple custom proposal options well within your sales window.
Find out more about the Partner Platform Proposal Creator, and our Marketing Automation Manager and Producer Results Manager CRM, today at https://sispartnerplatform.com/contact-us/.
Sarah Deak has been contributing to the SIS team since 2013, covering topics like agency perpetuation, workflow improvements, data security, and marketing. She has a background in small business, working with organizations to improve their online presence and client engagement. Sarah also writes for the SIS newsletters and website, and counts herself lucky to hear from our many passionate, hard-working clients for our client stories. Her favorite part about working for SIS are the dedicated, service-minded people.