Should You Make Insurance Renewal Calls?
Our next strategy to drive retention is a little controversial, but it’s something we feel strongly about. Let’s start with the question: should you make insurance renewal review calls at your agency? Agents are typically encouraged not to “poke the sleeping bear” or to not reach out to customers, out of fear that they’ll then ask to be reshopped.
“It’s really easy for someone to not know who their agent is today, or more importantly, not know how to contact you.”
This “old school” mindset might have worked in the past, but that was before national insurance giants came along. Now, these companies spend about $7 billion a year on advertising to show your customers that there are other options out there.
Here’s why we recommend making insurance renewal review calls at your agency:
When done right, they can help with retention
Insurance renewal review calls can be extremely helpful at driving retention, when done properly. But there is another side to this coin, and that’s the fact that when these calls are done by untrained employees, they can be risky. That’s why we suggest training your team on how to make these calls, ensuring that they’re able to really drive a conversation.
They make you less transactional
You’ve heard us say it before and we’ll say it again: in order to drive retention, you need to be a valued advisor, instead of just an order-taker. That means that you shouldn’t just be completing transactions. If you’re acting as an account manager for your customers, you need to have conversations, feel comfortable talking about rate, and seek out those opportunities to cross-sell. Insurance renewal calls put you in that position to be more than just a transaction to your customers.
These calls will lead to loyalty
With all of the money being spent by these huge insurance companies, you need to have customers who are loyal to you, in order to drive retention. If you’re only speaking to them when they get a new vehicle, that’s not going to drive customer loyalty. Plus, it’s far too easy for customers to have absolutely no idea who their agent is, or even how to get in touch with you. These renewal reviews will give you that valuable opportunity to connect.
The bottom line is that in today’s insurance landscape, you can’t just sit back and wait for your customers to call you. While renewal review calls might seem intimidating at first, they’ll ultimately lead to a reduction in reshops, less upset over rates, and ultimately an improvement in your retention.
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