Tech: Build and maintain strong customer relationships

Nothing impacts your business’s success more than the strength of your customer relationships. Delivering high-quality customer service makes your customers feel connected, encouraging them to renew, purchase additional products, and recommend your agency to others.

However, fostering strong customer relationships means going the extra mile to maintain constant contact with insureds. Whether it’s sending a quote to a prospect or a reminder about renewals, replying to a change request, or sending birthday wishes, your agency needs to reach out and respond to customers constantly. Without this consistent communication and availability, even loyal clients can get frustrated or feel unheard. Despite the importance of customer relationship management, it can become a challenge for agents to remain available to clients while also getting other critical tasks done.

So, how can your agency focus on building strong customer relationships and still have time for everything else? Invest in software that saves time and helps your agency frequently reach out and respond to insureds so you can create a satisfying customer experience. What technology should you use?

Here are some tech solutions that can help you build and maintain those vital customer relationships:

24/7 customer support. Clients often need on-demand access to their personal documents in real time (e.g., ID cards, policies and other customer data). An online portal where clients can download these documents at any time fosters positive relationships with insureds, making them feel like they’re getting quality service while reducing time spent responding to requests. This software allows clients to view their personal information, request policy changes from any device and location, and receive prompt service.

It lets your agency focus on more revenue-generating tasks without sacrificing client satisfaction.

Email marketing software. Investing in technology that assists in crafting and timing personalized emails creates a better experience for your insureds. Investing in email marketing software enhances your client relationships, leading to higher retention, positive upselling responses and referrals. It saves your agents time and mental effort, as they no longer need to remember dates to send personalized emails. In addition to customer satisfaction, it allows for reporting on your marketing campaigns, thus helping to identify the most impactful messages for your clients.

Retention software. Retention software is another solution that can support customer needs and your agency at the same time. By incorporating a retention software tool, you can touch every single renewal and prioritize at-risk clients so you can focus on them.

Retention software can boost customer retention rates by automating renewal messages to lower-risk clients, making them feel valued. The software also allows you to generate pricing changes between current and prospective policies of clients, so you can save time comparing plans and provide a transparent view of policy changes.

Automation software. Automation can enhance almost every aspect of maintaining customer relationships. Automation software allows you to preset email send dates for customer outreach and renewals and eliminate the need to track manually. It also helps you remember to review and follow up on policy changes, ensuring customers have the right information.

Implementing automation technology makes customer outreach easier to manage, so you can free up time for your team members to focus on other essential tasks.

Text messaging. Modern customers expect various options to communicate with their insurance agencies. This means your business needs to offer more than just email and over-the-phone responses to maintain customer engagement. In addition to online access, clients often prefer to communicate via text message. Text messaging eliminates the need for lengthy phone calls during which clients could be put on hold for long wait periods, and instead gives insureds the ability to easily receive relevant policy information via text. Messaging can be used anywhere, anytime, and minimizes errors-and-omissions claims, making it a safe and fast way to communicate with insureds.

Take customer relationships to the next level

Your agency’s growth and success rely on building and maintaining strong customer relations. When your clients know that your agency is available to them around the clock and sees them as a priority, insureds are more likely to have an emotional connection to your business. This connection fosters brand loyalty and generates word-of-mouth referrals—ultimately impacting your bottom line positively.

This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of PIA Magazine.