Great Service and Exceptional People

[scott]

Almost every insurance agent in the country professes to provide exceptional service. Many, when questioned on their marketing, spout that they get new business from the great service they provide.

It doesn't work that way - not in big numbers anyway.

Marketing guru Roy Williams comments on service and people as marketing in his latest Monday Morning Memo. http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/?ShowM ... emoID=1777

Word of mouth is spread through remarkableness. Something that makes you worth of remark. Good service is assumed by most of us in every transaction. At times we are all surprised when we get it. However, we don't run around town telling everyone about the waitress that was polite and efficient or the bank teller who gave us the correct amount of cash from our withdrawal.

Roy is correct that we do tell the world about missteps we experience. So, I'm not saying that great service isn't important. It just isn't the marketing powerhouse many think it is.

[pita3333]

Welcome Back Scott (you have been MIA lately)!

Interesting blog by Mr. Williams. I am a tough nut on customer (rather say client here...but that is another post) service. In my personal life I will go out of my way to make purchases from someone who has given me great service.

Example: I drive 10 miles out of my way to buy my vitamins from a large national retailer..I pass no less than three other outlets of that same retailer just to get to the one where the manager knows me by name and tells me the truth (at least what I believe to be so) about the products I purchase. I have followed this guy to three different stores over the last several years. The sole reason is service. He calls me by name everytime, and when I ask about new products he tells me what they can do. Often he tells me that I don't need it and he will direct me to specials of the products that he knows I use.

If I get poor service I look elsewhere for a new source. When I am helped by a good person I specifically ask them their name or look for it on a name tag. I will thank them using their own name and this usually elicits a smile from them. I believe that is because I have taken the effort to know who they are and say something...treating them like a person not a robot. I once bought a pair of shoes from Macy's and the clerk had to dig in the back for my size. When we completed the purchase I said "Thank you Janet for finding these for me" she smiled and said she was happy to do so. I returned to that store about two weeks later...and saw her working in another department where I was shopping. She was working with another customer and had a "neutral" look on her face. When she turned and saw me she smiled and said "Hello you are back how are the shoes?" She must have seen hundreds of customers in between my visit, but obviously remembered me.

When I get a call from a client who I am not familar with (in my position this happens often) before I pick up the phone I check their account to see what is happening. I am often abel to pick up the phone with the answer to their question in hand (they are usually calling me to complain about someone) and this difuses their anger. I struggle to get our other staff members to do the same. Yes this does sometimes mean that they will hold a few moments, but I direct our receiptionist to let the client know that I will be with them in a moment.

Having been in this industry for nearly 30 years I have seen the lip service given to service...it is on almost every website or brochure that has ever been created...but what does it mean? Does it mean we say what everyone else says? I think action speaks louder than words.

Now I am a content over presentation person. You can throw a flashy presentation in front of me...pretty colors and all and I am flipping past all of that looking at the details. Each person is different...Our agency owner is quite the opposite. He will be impressed with a flashy presentation where there are no details.

So wrapping up...if we truely give great service, not because we have to ... but we WANT to, I believe that we will be rewarded. Something that has become lost these days...

[d's insurance store]

We all draw our conclusions from our individual experiences, and although there are volumes written about the virtues and long term rewards for exceptional service (and Insurance is by definition a Service Business), I take a more cynical view based on the changes in the retail insurance world that I've lived in over the past five to 10 years.

At the beginning of my career in the retail, multi line insurance biz, 25+ years ago, I pledged to deliver 'over the top' service. Clients received birthday cards, renewal letters, my home phone number, renewing thank you letters, late pay phone calls and letters...anyway, anyone who's been in the business for any length of time will find these behaviors familiar. At the time I was a captive agent for one of the big three, and I thrived and my client base grew both from word of mouth and doing business under a familiar sign.

But that captive company and I came to a parting of the ways about 10 years ago, and my business plan forecast that I would be able to re-establish relationships with about 25% of my clients. My thinking was that half of the book was aligned with the company, half with me, and of that half that I felt I controlled, I figured that I could better about half of those in either rates or coverage, with the remainder in an unable to help due to underwriting or claims or other reasons.

My peers said I was nuts...that given my reputation for high touch service, I should be able to reacquire 60% or so.

When the dust settled, I brought into my new agency only about 3%. In spite of what I felt were long term, service attributes and relationships, very few of my former clients made even minimal effort to retain me as their insurance person, even though the places they were 'parked' did not deliver anywhere near the service I was known for. In the beginning, I nursed the hurt and just hustled to build a new book, thinking that my former clients would gravitate to me once they experienced lesser service in a time of need. But that did not happen.

I came away from that experience concluding that my former clients were happy to take the high service offerings when offered, and in spite of their statements that 'I was the reason they stayed with the captive company & without me, they would be long gone', in fact, for whatever the reasons, when given an opportunity to stay with me and in fact, perhaps get a better rate or coverage, it just wasn't enough motivation for them to retain my services.

In the current era, when the retail insurance business is changing to a web based pricing, selling and service business, and by observation that even my own current clients have expectations to conduct business in that fashion, even though I still make myself available to service their insurance needs, I have reached the conclusion, that at least in the retail, personal lines/small commercial side of the biz, the large population just doesn't seek what I refer to as the 'trusted insurance advisor' from times past, and instead makes their own buying decisions primarily based on price and convenience. I know all of the arguments that we agents are supposed to use about needing our services at the time of a claim and proper coverage advice...blah, blah, blah, but in my marketing world, that tends to fall on deaf ears.

Now I'm the first to admit that perhaps in the medium to large commercial areas, or in Scott's consulting side of the business, extraordinary service may well translate into steady, measured and continued business growth, but in the rough and tumble world that I've chosen to play in, the Unique Selling Proposition doesn't develop a whole lot of traction when that USP is tied up in knowledge and caring service.

I'll wait for rebuttals...but I don't think it will change my outlook.

[InsMgmt]

D - Spoken like a well seasoned pro.

For agencies practicing In the small commercial and personal lines market, your experience tends to ring true for many. Stats are showing, however, that the efforts of the likes of Progressive, GEICO and Esurance to change the purchasing habits of insurance consumers are not providing sufficient business growth, especially in view of the level of resource dedicated to the effort. Consumers are continuing to show a preference to purchase coverage from the local agent. Yes, there will be that percentage of folks who are enamored by all things web-based, but I do not believe that this will be a trend to threaten the current agency distribution system.

So, for those of us attempting to grow a book worthy of being bought out, we must put into action a consistent and persistent marketing plan using a USP, in whatever form that may take, to get the attention of the Top 5000 small commercial and personal lines clients. An example of a USP might be the offering of a proactive timeline of value added services (policy delivery, premium audit review, semi-annual coverage review, renewal strategy meetings, etc.) delivered faithfully to your "A" level clients. Once you've delivered these extraordinary services you make routine requests for not just referrals, but introductions to anyone the client may know working for the Top 20 commercial accounts on your lust list. Eventually, you will be taken to the Land of Fat and Happy - provided your carriers keep their promises, the Federal Government doesn't nationalize all industry, and the falling of the sky doesn't bankrupt the country.

Just keep bragging on your agency and encourage others to follow in kind.