If you own an agency, this should be your dream list:

• Huge ROI
• Massive CLV
• Brand awareness
• Referral business
• Real Impact

If so, the first ingredient is customer engagement.

You already have great products. And great customer service. Those are non-negotiables.

But customer engagement will set you apart. It’s your chance to build care and credibility, which are the foundations of a trust relationship.

Once your customer engagement is dialed in, if you’re consistent and continuously improve, customers will stay with you forever.

So how do you optimize your customer engagement strategy?

 

Maximize Your Surface Area

You’ve got to go multiply your customer engagement opportunities. Maximize your at-bats and turn them into home runs.

Here are some opportunities that you might be missing today. Consider what your agency would look like with all of them fully in play.

 

1. New Customers

You spend a few hundred dollars and a lot of effort to get a new customer. Your payback period is probably something like 2-3 years, after which you start to make money.

Do you want to keep that revenue flowing for 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, or 25 years?

25, right? Selling them a policy and hoping they call in to experience your terrific customer service won’t cut it.

You need an onboarding meeting in the first 30 days. Show them what it’s like to be your customer. Uncover their unmet or underserved needs. Win their additional business. Dial up the customer stickiness from the very beginning.

 

2. A and B Customers

Probably about 5-10% of your book is “A” customers. They’ve been with you for a long time, and they’re not going anywhere. You have all of their business. They generate $500-$1000 of annual premiums. They likely represent nearly half of your net income.

If you take them for granted, you do it at your peril. Being too busy to meet with them is your biggest strategic mistake.

Meet with them every couple of years. Earn introductions to their friends, family, and colleagues. Make sure they don’t ever shop elsewhere.

And don’t just meet with them: call them or write to them occasionally just to thank them or wish them a happy birthday. No strings attached. It’s the little things that count.

“B” customers are probably 40% of your book. They’ve been with you longer than average, and they have two or three policies with you.

Meet with them and convert them to A customers. Win all of their business and their long-term trust. Introduce them to the professionals they need for other aspects of their lives. Help them start to build their “network.”

And while you’re at it, ask them for feedback about your agency. Imagine if 200 of them gave you critical feedback and overwhelmingly agreed on a few key points. That’s like getting free, spot-on management consulting.

 

3. Customers Facing Premium Increases

This one separates trusted advisors from insurance resellers. Many agents avoid customers whose premiums are going up. They don’t want to deal with uncomfortable conversations.

But some agents thrive on it. One agent put it this way:

“I love those conversations. I get to reinforce the relationship and try to find a solution for them. Even if I lose that policy, I won’t lose the customer. Plus, in six months, I’ll win that policy back.”

 

4. Special Cases

You have customers that have special cases:

• They own businesses.
• They have investments and retirement accounts.
• They’re becoming Medicare-eligible.

If you have the right skills and/or certifications and you’re not talking to them, you’re missing out.

Build it into your plan to get in front of them–in some cases annually–to provide them with real value and earn their ongoing business.

 

Summary

If you’re proactively engaging with:

• New customers
• A and B customers
• Customers with premium increases
• Specialty cases

you’re making your future self extremely happy. And you’re making it impossible for others to compete with you. Let them have all the price-shopping, carrier-hopping customers. And you take all the ones with high customer loyalty.

You win.

 

P.S. I typically avoid shameless plugs in this blog, but this is important. If the only reason you aren’t engaging with customers is that your appointments don’t get scheduled, we can help.