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Top Ways to Improve Customer Loyalty for Your Insurance Agency

February 11, 2015
By: Voldico

In the insurance industry, customer loyalty is critical for increasing policy renewals for your agency. A happy customer will come back again and again for additional products.

What makes a happy customer? Many factors go into customer happiness and loyalty. Critical components such as customer service, relationship building, trust and listening to what your customers want are just a few that quickly come to mind.

We have put together a short list of tips to help you increase customer loyalty, and therefore, policy renewals for your agency. If you want to keep your customers happy and be able to rely on repeat business, follow these tips to get started.

5 Tips for Increasing Renewal Rate in your Agency

When a customer decides whether or not to renew their policy with you, their decision might occur spontaneously during a critical interaction with you, or it could be based on several experiences throughout the year. Here are five tips for increasing customer loyalty and renewal rates at your agency:

  1. Personalize the experience. Whether it is a personalized email newsletter, thank you note or a birthday card, keeping in touch with customers lets them know you are thinking about them and care enough to send out a little reminder. Birthday, anniversary and life event cards are always a hit. Collect this data and keep it in your database. Special occasion cards add a personal touch that show your customers you value them enough to remember their special day.
  2. Listen to customer feedback. Good customer service requires going the extra mile to meet customer needs. Customers remember being treated well, and positive customer experiences result in repeat business. Pay attention to customer concerns and complaints. By providing feedback when they are dissatisfied, your customers give you an opportunity to resolve their issue and improve your service.
  3. Use comment cards. This is a great way to collect feedback. Check with your carriers, as many offer free comment cards for agents to use with customers. You can hand out cards to new customers or when they are renewing policies. If you want to be a bit more environmentally friendly, you can provide links (via email signatures or email blasts) to online survey forms and reviews pages as well. Use social media to promote this aspect of your business!
  4. Turn complaints into opportunities. Once you have collected customer feedback, meet with your staff to see what changes you can make to improve your business. Look at this as an opportunity to change things that are not working well and to improve your customer’s satisfaction. Keep customers in the loop, so they know you heard their feedback and have implemented change. A little effort goes a long way!
  5. Train your employees. Your employees are the face of your company, and training can empower them to make your company prosper. Make sure training sessions are a positive experience -- boring training sessions are a waste of time and money and foster a negative attitude toward the company. Encourage your employees to engage in training and explain how it will help them on the job and why it is good for business.

Taking the time to implement these simple steps will make all the difference in how your customer’s view you and your agency.