Clients say they value good communication the most in an insurance agent—ahead of price or other important attributes. So, it’s no surprise that a simple survey and a phone call can drastically increase client retention.
Start by uncovering your clients' true feelings
You probably think you have a good idea which of your clients are unhappy and which are over the moon. But unless you have a system in place to measure client loyalty, you're likely not as perceptive as you think.
Here’s why.
Most people avoid confrontation even when they are upset about something. But the moment they get a chance to leave their thoughts in a survey or a review, all bets are off.
So, if you don’t have a way to ask your clients how you’re doing regularly, you’ll never uncover their true feelings. This is why the Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey should be an essential piece of your agency’s strategy.
The Net Promoter Score
The NPS survey is a one-question survey that measures client loyalty. Many successful companies that excel at customer service use NPS.
You can use NPS survey results to help you:
- Find out who your happiest clients (promoters) are and who isn’t so thrilled (detractors)
- Save relationships with unhappy clients before they have a chance to shop around
Understanding your clients’ survey responses and true feelings
As you start sending out the NPS survey every six months, your responses will reveal three categories of clients:
- Promoters (They are happy with your service)
- Passives (They are neutral about you, you should check in with them)
- Detractors (They are unhappy with you)
As NPS survey responses come in, don’t get discouraged with your detractor responses. After all, this is exactly what you want to uncover. While you should follow up and respond to all your clients, focusing on those who are at risk of leaving is the best way to increase client retention.
Focus on detractors to increase client retention
Detractors are disappointed with your agency and might even leave you a negative online review. And unless you act quickly, the chances they start shopping around for another insurance provider go up each day they don’t hear from you.
It’s up to you to fix things and prevent these clients from leaving. How? You pick up the phone.
Just one call can help change how unhappy clients feel about you
We measured how calling a detractor affects the likelihood of retaining them at renewal. And we learned that when an agent calls a detractor within 48 hours of receiving a negative NPS response, they increase the likelihood of retaining that client by 55%. That’s a lot!
Of course, simply calling and saying, “I’m sorry,” isn’t enough. This call will require a little more time and prep work. But don’t worry, we have you covered.
Here’s how to speak with unhappy clients:
- Thank them for being a client and taking time to respond to the survey
- Mention the low score and ask if there is a particular reason they gave you a low rating
- Acknowledge the issue and tell them you’ll work to resolve it
- Mention the specific steps you will take to address the issue
- Ask if they’d like to discuss their coverage in more detail
- Indicate you are always only a phone call or email away if they need anything
- Address and solve their concern to continue to build trust
We put together some talking points you can use when calling unhappy clients.
The value of this one phone call
Following these simple steps will help keep your client longer and give you time to implement a few other tactics to make sure they stay with you long-term.
On average, an agency has 11% detractors when they first implement the NPS survey. By connecting with just half of these detractors, the agency could increase its annual premiums by 1.7% within one year and by more than 3% after two years.
Combine this with the fact that a 5% increase in customer retention correlates with at least a 25% increase in profit and it’s obvious just how important retention is.
So, pick up the phone and save those relationships before it’s too late.
