Do you know how important good phone manners can be? They can be extremely important, especially when it comes to converting Internet leads. Treating online shoppers as if they aren’t important isn’t the best way to handle them. Each online shopper is an opportunity. If your producers, brokers, agents, and CSRs aren’t treating them like one, you can easily miss those opportunities. So how do you make sure your staff takes their role of answering the phone more seriously?

Here are some tips:

Create a Welcome Message – Create a welcome message that everyone in your agency uses to answer the phone. Make it cheerful and helpful to create an inviting welcome for callers.

Encourage Smiling – A smile can be heard through the phone. It also triggers a positive attitude for the person answering the phone. So even if the person is frustrated by something that just happened, a smile can make him or her feel more positive when answering the phone, which can translate into more sales.

Explain the “Why” – Why should someone do business with your agency instead of buying directly from a direct writer? You should know the answer to that question and share it with callers. If you’re not explaining the unique value of working with a local agent, you may lose a prospect based on price alone.

These are just a few tips for converting phone leads. It’s important to remember, if your staff doesn’t want to help the shoppers, you probably aren’t going to see much growth in sales. Insurance buyers in the 21st century are different than those from years past. Get ahead of the curve today!

About the Author: Dan Noltensmeyer is CEO of Noltensmeyer Insurance Services LLC, a fully licensed property and casualty and life and health insurance agency located in the heart of Houston, Texas. Noltensmeyer got his MBA from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas. His agency specializes in personal lines such as Texas car insurance and business insurance as well.