Agencies Look To Keep Clients Satisfied
Independent agents seeking to build a stronger bridge between their agencies and their customers found some guidance from service experts during the recent Independent Insurance Agents of America annual convention.
The Honolulu convention program included a series of continuing education seminars, geared toward improving the relationship between customers and their agents. The programs blended with the Alexandria, Va.-based agent associations introduction of its national branding program, "Trusted Choice," which will be geared toward educating consumers about the unique services and advantages that independent agents provide to clients.
The importance of branding on the local level was the subject of one program given by Peter Van Aartrijk, chief executive officer and managing director of the Van Aartrijk Group, an insurance marketing and communications firm headquartered in Springfield, Va.
"Branding is about getting customer loyalty," Mr. Van Aartrijk observed.
Customers, he added, need to have a "unique" and "consistent" positive experience with an agency to keep them happy. That experience, he said, should focus on:
Personality (what people say about the agency).
Presence (advertising, logos, community presence).
Performance (what the agency does for the customer).
The purpose of this consistent message is to develop a client mentality that is more concerned with the agency brand than the price of the product, Mr. Van Aartrijk said. The relationship that develops through this positive experience helps produce referrals aimed at the quality of the business over the price of the product.
How to get a customer pumped up about doing business with an agency was the subject of a session based on Ken Blanchards book "Raving Fans." Mr. Blanchard–best known for one of his other books, "The One Minute Manager"–was the keynote speaker during IIAAs opening general session.
Discussing the points of the book was Ann Phillips, a consultant with The Ken Blanchard Companies of Escondido, Calif., who focused on what it takes to provide good customer focus within an agency.
The session was a sample of a two-day session aimed at training participants to focus on what customers think and want out of an organization with which they are doing business.
The point of the course, Ms. Phillips explained, is to help agency principals develop strategies through interactive exercises to help them understand the customer service culture and the priority they need to place on the area.
"Some people just do not understand the need for customer service, and we try to get out the word about its importance," Ms. Phillips said.
With all the focus on the human relationship in customer service, a third session dealt with the technological evolution and its effect on the subject.
Increasing an agencys efficiency with the use of technology allows for more work to be processed by the same number of people, said Ed Higgins, chairman of the Agents Council of Technology, affiliated with IIAA.
Technology also helps reduce stress, he suggested, by allowing employees to perform their jobs quickly and efficiently. Because of improved record keeping, there is better errors and omissions prevention and reduced litigation, but an agent has to learn how to optimize technology, he added.
"Managing the technology is just as important as having it," Mr. Higgins said.
Developing an Internet site is also important to the future of independent agencies, noted Robert Horenburg, vice president of Horenburg Insurance Services Inc. in Silver Spring, Md.
Customers will be looking for the capability to do their insurance business at anytime of the day or night, Mr. Horenburg explained, suggesting that the Web can accomplish this if developed properly.
Agents are not maximizing the potential of their agency management systems, contends Sharon D. Cunningham, president of Business Management Group in Hartford.
Filing, letter writing and data collection that is done manually or through other systems can be performed using the agency management system, said Ms. Cunningham. Agencies, she said, either have not bothered to learn, or did not receive proper training in using their systems.
Simply discovering the full potential of the capabilities of their agency management systems can dramatically improve what an agency can get out of the system, Ms. Cunningham observed.
The future will mean increasing dependency on technology as companies begin moving more and more of their application process and underwriting work online, advised David Findley, senior vice president of commercial and personal lines operations at Travelers Insurance, headquartered in Hartford.
"From a carrier point of view, there is a lot of technology coming through and it is coming fast," said Mr. Findley.
Probably the biggest change will be in carriers getting away from dedicated mainframes and using the Internet to exchange data, Mr. Findley explained. This push will make it even more important for agencies to access broadband lines so they can carry on business over the Web at the fastest possible speed.
The future holds "radical changes" for agencies, said Mr. Findley, and if they are not current with the latest version of their agency management systems, they will find they cannot take advantage of what the future has to offer.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, December 24, 2001. Copyright 2001 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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