Bypass Three Common Business-Busting Broker Blunders
After investing years of hard work to establish and grow their business into a thriving operation, savvy business insurance brokers know that resting on their laurels is a foreign concept they can never embrace. Rather, maintaining a constant vigil on their clients’ evolving needs and being willing to reinvent their processes to address those needs as new tools and technology arrive are critical to how effective brokers will be in retaining clients for the long term and continuously finding and converting prospects into new clients. To avoid derailing their efforts, following are three of the biggest blunders brokers should avoid:
Not Leveraging Great Customer Service to Generate Great Customer Reviews
The insurance industry has one of the better reputations for providing good customer service. Ironically, this means brokers have to work that much harder and be more ingenious to deliver a truly distinctive customer experience (from offering expertly crafted coverage programs to risk analysis and claims management) that compels clients to provide enthusiastic feedback. In the Internet age, customer ratings and reviews are the brick and mortar that build (or break) a broker’s reputation.
Today’s prospective business clients use search engines to efficiently create a short list of brokers to assess. Of course, they are looking at coverage, carriers, and pricing, but they’re also checking out your customer ratings and reviews. Because this independent feedback can literally be the lever that compels a prospect to reach out to a broker, it’s important to ensure you consistently provide off-the-charts service, but also have a prominently placed link to your brokerage’s profile where clients can easily and immediately click through to leave ratings and reviews in the afterglow of a satisfying transaction.
Providing Numbers with a “One Size Fits All” Approach
Commercial clients will likely look to get least three brokers to pitch their business before making a decision—and that decision will be driven by data, not a relationship that hasn’t yet had time to be cultivated. The winning broker will likely be the one whose data demonstrates he or she has the greatest knowledge of the prospect’s industry and the inherent and unique business risks.
A cookie-cutter approach based on general data won’t earn the prospect’s trust or respect (or business). By taking the time and effort to research and present benchmark data specific to the prospect’s industry, size, location, number of employees, etc., brokers can present a breadth and depth of information that validates the appropriateness of the program they’re recommending.
Ghosting Clients Until Renewal Time
Today your clients and prospects are facing everything from rising interest rates and an inflationary economy to staffing shortages, lingering supply chain disruptions, and more. In some areas, runaway jury awards or years of catastrophic losses have resulted in carriers raising premiums substantially, adding exclusions, reducing limits, or exiting a market entirely. All of these can affect your clients’ insurance program and pricing so communication year ‘round is essential. Especially when the renewal forecast isn’t sunny, clients won’t be surprised or unprepared if you’ve kept them informed.
Business clients often have two things in common: not enough time or money. Underscore how your brokerage lets clients save on both by leveraging your expertise for quality coverage at the best pricing.