The Secret Sauce: The Keys to Long-Standing Client Relationships

Recently I renewed two large accounts for the twenty-sixth time. Over the years, I’ve found the loyalty of these particular clients professionally and personally rewarding. It’s also created a stable source of revenue for a long time.

Though these two clients are among my longest tenured, we have many long-time clients. Why is that? What is the secret to sustaining long-term client relationships? I believe it’s good salesmanship that comes to play repeatedly during the lifecycle of the account and superior customer service.

Don’t Rest on Your Laurels

Whether a client comes to our agency because we offered a lower price, better coverage, a well-known carrier partner or the promise of better service, someone had to convince them to purchase the policy. If you want to keep the client long-term, you’ll need to revive that salesmanship to reassure them when times get tough and help them continue to assess their changing needs.

It may not be easy to maintain that level of quality salesmanship, particularly if the original producer is retired, but good salesmanship is critical to the long-term stability of the account.

Below are three reasons to keep your foot on the gas when it comes to salesmanship if you want to succeed with clients long-term.

1. Long-term accounts are resold every year.

One hallmark of producers and agencies with large, stable books of business is that they don’t rest on their laurels. They work hard to maintain their existing accounts. The primary way they do this is by retelling the story of why the current, or proposed, coverage and service the agency is providing continues to be the best option for the client.

A good producer is involved in the relationship, and is up to date on the client’s business and insurance coverage, not because of service responsibilities (though they should be a part of that team) of the account, but because they are constantly looking for ways to reinforce the value proposition that enticed the client to sign with the agency.

If you think about your experiences in going to church, or voting in elections, you’ll recognize that both the preacher and the politician have a limited list of topics they discuss. They repeat the same themes because they know that in order to keep people coming back, they need to continually remind them of why they made the decision to belong or vote in the first place. The producer of long-term relationships never forgets this.

2. The producer is part of the client relationship “team.”

Roger Sitkins, the well-known sales coach in the independent agency industry, is famous for what he calls “the service handoff,” where the producer steps away as the primary contact for the account during the year so that she can return to selling. This does not mean the producer’s role in the account is finished until renewal time.

The producer isn’t just the initiator of the relationship but works as a team with the various agency service professionals. It’s teamwork, not delegation, that creates the depth of a relationship. Coupled with knowledge and account experience, this teamwork drives decades-long renewals. There are many details and many team members involved in the management of a commercial insurance account and the producer should stay cognizant of all of them. How else can she continue to develop the powerful story of why the client is where they need to be or sell them the new products that fit their changing needs?

3. The producer holds the team accountable.

In many agencies, account service is a delegated responsibility, as is marketing. How the account is handled internally may not be something the producer determines but it is something for which she is responsible. Afterall, the producer is the quarterback of the team and the person on that team most directly affected by renewal or nonrenewal.

A producer can’t, with integrity, argue that the solution proposed is the best for the client if she doesn’t know it as fact because she wasn’t intimately involved. When people are busy, the natural reaction is to take short cuts, but the salesperson is ultimately the person that needs to see that this doesn’t happen to her accounts.

Think Customer Service

While good salesmanship is critical in retaining long-term clients, it wasn’t just the selling job that kept the client with the agency for years. It was the excellent service coupled with the sales story each year that created believers, and renewers. Agencies with great retention recognize this and take it to heart. When you think about it, the customer service team is really part of the sales team as the account is resold, or not, in every encounter with the agency from claims to billing disputes.

Great service people focused on long term retention of their accounts follow these best practices:

1. They see the account as theirs. They take ownership.

The two accounts we just renewed for the 26th time have customer service people who know the accounts inside and out. They can always refresh their memories because they extensively document everything in the agency management system. In my experience, great customer support people fight tooth and nail to keep accounts when agencies reorganize, even if it means a heavier workload.

2. Knowing the account intimately, they suggest coverage options. They consult.

A great service person thinks about all the ways the client isn’t covered or could enhance their coverage for better protection. They suggest things the producer may have overlooked. They create sales as a byproduct of caring.

3. They remind the people who work for the account of their value. They sell.

While many service people may shy away from closing a deal, they are great at making suggestions. They find opportunities all year long to recommend solutions and products that could reduce a client’s risk, solve a problem or lower costs.

Seize the Day

The industry is currently in a hard, and hardening market driven by economics affecting our carrier partners. We are also hanging in a “good” economy that virtually everyone believes will turn south soon. This will naturally drive insurance customers to worry about rising insurance costs. As a result, agencies focused on long-term success would be wise to do the things that create long-term clients as every single one is, in a sense, more valuable in a time of economic uncertainty or turmoil.

During tough times like these, many clients consider shopping their insurance. They’ll be tempted to move their policies from producers and agencies that don’t focus on salesmanship and customer service.

Agency owners who choose to focus their agencies on these two staples will reap the benefits of long-standing client relationships with assured renewals. If you want to prosper and grow, particularly in tougher times, focus on how you can keep your clients forever.