There are many ways to improve your insurance agency management, but one of the most impactful is hiring the right people. When you have the right people for the right job, you start from an optimal point.
But how do you know who to hire? We’ve got your answers in our latest eGuide, Who You Hire Matters: The How and Why of Hiring Great Producers and Leaders.
In this guide, you’ll learn:
“We all need somebody to lean on,” as Bill Withers said in his famous song Lean on Me. Yet, it can be challenging to know when and how to ask for help. Working in an independent agency, you likely need more help than you know. With a small team, everyone is usually tackling more than one job at a time, making it easy for something to fall through the cracks.
Though you may intend to put effort and thought into something, invariably other time-sensative matters comes up. For many agencies, that something is insurance agency marketing. Whether it’s a customer request, an uptick in claims, or another important measure, marketing gets put on the back burner again.
So how do you know when it’s been too long since you paid attention to your insurance marketing? There are a few signs that it’s time to get help.
Discover why reviews and referrals are key to your insurance agency marketing strategies.
Gaining and retaining customers is a big deal in insurance. When you have a diverse, loyal book of business, you are set to grow and try new things in this evolving digital insurance landscape. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, retaining just 5% more customers can boost profits by 100%.
How can you bring that kind of growth to your independent insurance agency?
Know What Your Customers Want
A surefire way to retain customers is by giving them what they want. The same goes for gaining quality leads – give the people what they want!
The coronavirus pandemic accelerated trends in several areas, including digital insurance customer service. A recent survey showed that almost 90% of American consumers think customer service is more important now than before the pandemic took hold of the world.
Consumers not only expect more from service providers, they also have more options, meaning they’ll choose an agency that offers quicker and smoother interactions over one that’s, say, unable to process esignatures. As your team transitions back to the office, now is the time to reevaluate your customer service tools and processes to keep up with expectations.
Everyone loves to get two for the price of one. It’s the beauty of doubling your money and getting more done in half the time: a win-win for all. The digitization of insurance has made that “two for one” thrill possible with insurance marketing tools that double as customer service tools, too. And it all begins with data.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digitation across industries, and insurance was no exception. Part of the acceleration included a rise in direct-to-consumer (DTC) purchases. More people started buying goods and services online, cutting out in-person or phone interactions. That rise in DTC increased access to customer data.
Approximately 43% of all cyberattacks are on small businesses, and, in 2020, 12% were attributed to finance and insurance industries. In the age of digital insurance, your independent agency is part of that vulnerable small business group. And, this threat increased since the COVID-19 pandemic: researchers report a 30% increase in cyber-security breaches since the pandemic hit.
As a particularly vulnerable industry, insurance agencies must be mindful. The volume of files processed daily and the sensitive information contained in each mean insurance agencies are increasingly at risk. Yet, KPMG found that only 43% of insurance executives said their organization was protected.
Is your agency taking cyber attacks seriously? Here are some ways you can start.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to change many elements of our lives. For businesses, it created a quickening effect on plans to increase tech use and move to digital. With those changes, many agencies turned to their insurance websites as hubs for their business, whether or not their site was optimized to take on that level of responsibility.
As your agency evaluates how to shift to the “new normal,” consider these insurance website statistics and what they mean for your agency.
We’re almost halfway through the year, and a lot has changed since January. At this mid-year mark, we took a look back at some of our most popular posts and put together a list of the essentials. These posts can help hone your insurance marketing strategies for the remainder of the year and beyond.
Posts to Improve Service
• What Customers Want and the Insurance Software to Get It (view post)
• What Insurance Tech Do Agency Customers Want (view post)
• Digital Insurance Customer Service: Keeping it Personal (view post)
When it comes to your insurance prospects and customers, there are three main areas to focus on:
1. Improving ease and speed of service
2. Personalizing prospect and customer experience
3. Gaining data for expert advice
Each of these areas answers the question, “what do insurance customers want?”. Are you leveraging the right insurance sales software and processes to respond to these needs?