How to Cure 8 Common ‘Small’ Insurance Agency Ailments

Being Small Has Its Advantages But It’s No Excuse for Being Unprofessional

Ask most people what they like about working with small insurance firms and they’ll answer “their personal approach” or “I’m not just a customer number to them” or “I get to work with the heavy hitters instead of some trainee just out of school.”

Yes, those are the things they say when things are going well. But should the perceived service level drop, those same enthusiastic supporters begin to question their decision about working with a small firm. In particular, things they used to find charming, such as a live person taking messages instead of a system putting a call through to voice mail, suddenly become indications that maybe they need to look into finding a somewhat larger, “more professional” firm.

The good news is these small agency quirks don’t have to be fatal. In fact, many can be fixed with the application of simple technology that provides big business tools while allowing firms to stay true to their small business core. The following eight cures to the common small insurance firm ailments can help ensure an agency doesn’t fall into the “too small” trap.

• Don’t have one phone line for all your business communications. Nothing says “too small” like a phone number that returns a busy signal, or a phone that rings and rings until the caller finally gives up. In today’s business world, when someone actually places a call (instead of sending an e-mail) they expect it to be answered. Or, at the very least, routed to an auto-attendant or voice mailbox. While a standard public branch exchange (PBX) phone system might be too costly to install and require too much specialized knowledge to maintain, virtual PBX services can provide the same professional “face” without the equipment investment or the maintenance. These services automatically route calls to extensions you set up, and provide voice mail services so callers can leave a message. Callers will never get a busy signal or be stuck in a ringing loop, giving them the confidence that you have the staff to service their business.

• Don’t keep using a portal e-mail account. An e-mail address that reads @gmail.com, @aol.com, @yahoo.com, etc., makes an agency look like a small-timer with a serious lack of working capital — and perhaps one that doesn’t expect to be in business for very long. Most Web hosts allow customers to create one or more e-mail accounts with an address of @yourdomain.com. Any agency without its own domain yet should buy one! It can cost less than $10 per year (sometimes substantially less). The Web site lets customers get to know how good a company is, and allows new customers to find it.

• Don’t make your customers wait while the agency switches its phone over to accept a fax. Or the corollary — don’t give customers an earful of fax screeches when they try to make a call. Either way, customers start to wonder whether the agency is big enough to handle their business. An Internet fax service solves both issues by allowing a business to send and receive faxes via e-mail account or a secure online server. Customers never know the difference — to them they’re sending to and receiving from a fax machine. But it’s much more efficient for both the business and the customer. As a bonus, the business is able to send and receive faxes from anywhere there is an Internet connection, making the business far more reachable than if it were relying on a fax machine in the office.

• Don’t give customers a series of phone numbers to call. Business cards (or e-mail signatures) with too many phone numbers on them can be confusing to customers. Often they’re not sure which number to call and when, so sooner or later they decide the best number to call is a competitor’s. Here’s where a virtual PBX system can again come in handy. It allows a business to provide a single phone number for customers to call, then rings multiple phones (office, home, mobile) either all at once or in a sequence determined by the business. It takes all the guesswork out of calling for customers while assuring them the agency is always reachable — which is often the reason they signed with the agency in the first place.

• Don’t wait a day or two before responding to customer calls or e-mails. Customers love when they are getting all the attention. They love the agency a whole lot less when all the attention is going to someone else. Deep down they know the agency has other clients, but they don’t like to think about it. Checking voice mail regularly is good. Having voice mail messages that find a person in the agency is better. Virtual PBX systems send voice mails to an e-mail inbox so the agency is always aware that a caller left a message — and expects a prompt reply. That expectation applies even more to e-mail. Be sure to check it often. Agents whose insurance business is such that they can’t open a laptop regularly (or can’t access the Internet everywhere they go) should invest in a mobile phone with e-mail capabilities. The more reachable an agency is, the better service it’ll be able to provide.

• Don’t include text message abbreviations, typos, poor grammar and other mistakes in written communications. As the line between business lives and personal lives continues to blur, it seems some people think that it’s alright to communicate with business associates the same way they do with friends. It’s not. Using text abbreviations (such as “r u” for “are you”) makes an agency look like someone playing at running a business. Typos and poor grammar may allegedly make a blog look “real,” but they do little for creating a professional image. Agencies should take the time to create well-crafted business communications and then proofread them thoroughly before sending. Attention to detail helps a business stand out from the crowd.

• Don’t have constant technology problems. Sure, every insurance firm experiences a technology glitch (or even an outright outage) now and then. But if an agency is constantly apologizing because this or that system isn’t working, pretty soon customers will seek out a competitor whose technology does work. Many agencies may not have the technical knowledge to deal with IT problems quickly. Rather than continuing trying to learn IT management on the job, why not just outsource it? There are firms that will manage the equipment an agency already owns, and others that will let a business create a network on their equipment. Either way, keeping systems up and running becomes their job, which allows the agency to put more focus on doing its real job for its customers.

• Don’t lose customers’ files. Telling a customer the agency lost his or her data due to a hard drive crash is like telling the teacher the dog ate the homework. It may be true, but it doesn’t excuse the loss. Nor does it present an agency in a very good light. The IT departments at the typical enterprise-size business set up and perform automatic backups on a frequent basis — sometimes more than once a day. That way if a hard drive crashes the data can still be recovered. For agencies that don’t want to hassle with that themselves, there are hosted services that will backup and store data via the Internet. Remember, there are only two kinds of users — those who have had a hard drive crash already, and those who will. Agencies should have a solution in place.