The insurance industry is highly competitive. Even if your brokerage or agency is doing a great job, there’s a good chance some of your clients will leave—if for no other reason than that research suggests people switch insurance plans often.
To get your brokerage or agency to the next level, you need to do everything within your power to boost customer retention rates. Not only is it easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one, but it’s also more lucrative. According to the Harvard Business Review, a 5 percent increase in customer retention can boost profitability by up to 95 percent!
One of the easiest ways insurance agencies and brokerages can increase retention is by using modern tools that make it easier to provide top-notch service to their clients.
One such tool is called a customer relationship management (CRM) system, which helps you keep track of client-specific information while automating repetitive tasks and reducing human error.
What Is a CRM and What Does It Measure?
A customer relationship management solution helps you keep track of all kinds of information about your clients. Your insurance agency or brokerage should use a CRM to store the following information:
- Basic information: You need to keep track of things such as names, employers, phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, and other similar data.
- Preferred method of communication: If your customer prefers communicating via email, you might not be delivering as much value if you’re calling them every time an issue comes up. Use a CRM to easily keep tabs on the way your customers like to communicate, and meet their expectations by doing what they prefer.
- Personal information: A CRM can help you store personal information—such as someone’s hobbies, what their family is like, when their birthday is, and more. Use a CRM to automatically email all of your clients to wish them a happy birthday.
- Pre-existing health conditions: Deliver more value to your clients by being aware of any health conditions that might impact their insurance and offering tips and resources to help them manage those ailments. This is an easy way to personalize your insurance outreach and increase retention.
- Policy details: When is your client’s policy renewal coming up? You don’t want to drop the ball here. With a CRM for insurance agents, you can automatically reach out to your clients as their renewal dates near, helping them seamlessly re-enroll and reminding them well in advance so they don’t have to worry about renewing at the last minute.
- Date of last contact: Don’t make your clients think that you forgot about them! A CRM helps you keep track of the last time you reached out to a client or a prospect. You can automatically send notes at regular intervals to ensure you keep in contact with your clients.
Extending Your CRM
In addition to helping you keep track of all of this data, today’s leading CRM solutions can also be integrated with other tools.
For example, by integrating your CRM solution with an online quoting and enrollment tool, you can improve your relationships with existing customers while strengthening your outreach to cold prospects and optimizing lead management—all of which ultimately translates into increased retention rates and more referrals.
With a CRM for insurance agents in place, you get the peace of mind that comes with knowing you won’t have to rely on bad data or—worse yet—no data. Instead, you’ll also have access to robust client profiles that are always just a few clicks away.
With more information on hand, you can launch targeted, data-driven marketing efforts that will enable you to enjoy better business outcomes by serving up personalized experiences to your clients, leads, and other prospects on a regular basis.
Set Your Agency or Brokerage Apart with Modern CRM Tools
If your insurance agency or brokerage is still relying on spreadsheets to run your business, it’s time to consider moving to a modern CRM solution.
A CRM enables you to automate repetitive tasks while ensuring that you stay on top of important milestones—such as birthdays, policy renewals, and aging into Medicare.
Add it all up, and it’s an easy and fast way to provide better, personalized experiences to your clients, increasing your competitiveness and boosting your retention rates. What’s not to like?
