The Not So Difficult Guide to Client Management
The key to your success lies with happy clients who love your products and services. Because of this, client management must be a priority for any organization. When you’re in a sales or client-focused business, you know that without the clients, your business is nothing. In fact, some companies say that working on their customer experience is the most exciting opportunity they see in their future, beating out content marketing, data-driven marketing, and social media.
If you’re an insurance agent and don’t see yourself as a client manager, it might be time to reconsider. Nurturing your existing clients and maintaining a healthy retention is a critical part of your future growth. In this article, we’ll tell you all about client management and how to leverage it to boost your business.
Client Management Defined
Client management is the practice of coordinated interactions with active clients and potential clients. Often, a customer has only a brief interaction with a company when making a purchase. That makes it difficult to develop a deeper/stronger relationship. With client management, the goal is to build and maintain good client relationships over a period of time.
By building/keeping good relationships with clients through client management, you can retain more customers and, in turn, generate more revenue. A McKinsey report says satisfied customers are 80% more likely to renew their policies with their current insurance agent. Focusing on client management and delivering personalized attention is important to your bottom line. We’ll explore that more in the next section.
Why Client Management Is Important
If you’re an insurance agent, sales can be positively impacted by good client management. Here are a few ways how that happens:
Customer Retention
Client management helps your customers stay customers. If your clients are happy, when the time comes for renewal, they are much more likely to stay with you and renew. It takes a lot of hard work to get new clients, and it is far more valuable for you to retain your clients through good client management.
It Help Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
When you focus on client management, you are making a point to nurture the relationships you have with your customer base. Your customers receive individual attention and customized service, which helps build trust and loyalty. Since your customers already have an interest in the products and services you offer, they’ll trust that there is value in anything additional you offer them. They will strongly consider products you upsell or cross-sell to them.
It Can Earn You Referrals
When your customers are happy, they will talk about you to others. A referral from a satisfied customer goes a long way. When your customers talk positively about your business and services, they are helping you build trust with potential new customers. You also don’t have to wait for your customers to recommend you to friends and colleagues. You can simply ask them to leave a review on a third-party site or give a testimonial for your website.
Four Tips for Successful Client Management
Now that you know what client management is, now it’s time to focus on how to be great at it. These four tips can help you nail client management.
Set Clear Expectations
Setting clear expectations is a great first step to improving client management. It is important that your clients do not expect more than you’re able to deliver. This helps to be very transparent with your clients, and, as the old saying goes, under-promise and over-deliver. Setting expectations is all about having trust and strong communication between you and your clients.
When you talk about services with your clients, only discuss what you know you can offer. If there are some “maybes” that you may be able to work out, don’t mention them up front. Let your clients be surprised when you come through for them. Expectations also go both ways, so it can be helpful to ask your clients what they expect from you.
Keep Open Lines of Communication
As an insurance agent, your job isn’t done when a policy is sold. Once the sale is complete, it is time to begin your client management. Begin by asking your clients how they prefer to keep in touch, whether through email, phone, or mobile app. Once you know their preferences, it is vital to keep checking in and help them through any challenges.
Communicate Proactively
Don’t wait for your clients to call you with a need or a complaint. Make it a habit to reach out every few weeks, especially in the first few weeks after the initial sale to make sure everything is going well. Your clients will appreciate that you’ve taken the time to contact them and address any potential issues before they begin.
Approach your proactive communication with the mindset that the client is happy with their products or service so far. If you have doubts about what you’re offering, the clients will sense it in your voice. Instead of asking if there are any problems, ask if there is any way you can be of service.
Make and Meet Deadlines
You can stay on the same page as your clients by defining clear deliverables and setting deadlines for when you plan to deliver them. In being clear about what the client is to receive and when, you reduce the likelihood that incorrect assumptions will be made.
Try not to be too vague about what you are to deliver, because your client can then try to fill in the gaps on their own. Be as detailed as possible, and try to remember to under-promise and over-deliver here, too. Be conservative with your timeline, that way you can impress the customer yet again if you are able to deliver early.
What to Avoid in Your Client Management
Just as there are tips to be more successful at client management, there are also some common missteps to avoid. Here are a few.
Not Prioritizing Clients
For insurance agents sales is always going to be a high-priority part of the job. New business is a key part of an agency’s success. But if you aren’t putting in enough time reaching out to customers and nurturing relationships, you’re leaving time for a competitor to come in and do just that.
Not Hearing Clients’ Needs
It’s important to always listen to clients’ needs, and not just during a sales pitch. Your clients can tell when you’re simply trying to sell rather than have meaningful conversations that lead to lasting customer relationships.
Lack of Organization
Insurance agents who aren’t organized suffer more than just when it comes to client management. Using outdated organization tactics can cost you money. Insurance agent sales software like a CRM can keep you from losing customers to disorganization. This software can keep you on track with your client communication, and can make a big difference in sales revenues. Agencies that use CRM report up to 29% increased revenue.
Using CRM and Automation for Client Management
Client management can be time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Technology can drastically improve the speed and efficacy of a client management program. CRM tools can contain valuable automation features that streamline your client management workflow and optimize the results you’ll get.
Here are some areas where automation can enhance your client management
Client Communications
You can use automation tools within a CRM to send personalized communications to clients, like greetings for holidays or birthdays. You can also set the automation tool to send follow-up communications at predetermined intervals after purchase or inquiry. No matter the reason for the communication, it is easy to program your CRM to automatically send out the messages, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Customer Service
You can use chatbots through a CRM tool to respond to simple inquiries on your website. They can be programmed to check on order statuses or troubleshoot issues. If live service is required, bots gather key information from the customer, making the process more efficient for both the agent and the client.
Sales
CRM tools can help keep data on prospective clients as they enter your pipeline. You can gather and store a range of information about each prospect, and your insurance agent sales team can use the data to categorize the potential of each prospect. CRM tools can also track when a prospect interacts with your website or downloads marketing materials, making it easier to follow up on good leads.
InsuredMine – The Right CRM for Expert Client Management
If you’ve learned from our easy-to-follow guide on client management, you might be wondering if a CRM software should be in your plans. CRM can be a game changer in your insurance agency sales efforts and client management. InsuredMine has a robust offering of automated features as well as a high degree of visibility into your agency, your team, and your clients – it’s easy to see why InsuredMine has been ranked the #1 insurance CRM software on the market. Try InsuredMine for free today.
