Your work as an insurance agent doesn’t end when your customer purchases their policy. In fact, the first 90 days with a new policyholder are a critically important time in your relationship. The customer experience should define the partnership and set you and your policyholder up for success.
Learn how to manage these important first three months with a new policyholder and set your new relationship up for success.
The First 90 Days With a New Policyholder
Try these six tips for success in your first months with a new policyholder:
Focus on the initial customer experience.
Onboarding new customers well is critical to their overall customer experience. For a positive experience, focus on the initial onboarding time. Spend time with your new policyholder to go over their policy. Don’t assume they understand their coverages, conditions, and exclusions. It is a better customer experience to spend time at policy inception explaining how their coverage works rather than having to explain an exclusion when your policyholder files a claim.
Connect through multiple communication channels.
Your policyholder may have questions during the first 90 days after purchasing an insurance policy. Reach out to them using various methods of communication to share your availability to help them. Insurance isn’t always top of mind for customers, so checking in with them periodically during their first few months as a customer reminds them to ask any questions they have.
Set up a 30-day coverage review.
Schedule a follow-up appointment thirty days after policy inception to review any concerns. This helps answer questions but also lets your customer have time to review their coverage and raise issues they may not have considered when taking out the policy. You can also use this time to talk about other coverages they might consider and set up a time for renewal conversations.
Be accessible.
While it is a best practice to remain accessible to all your clients, being available to new policyholders during their first 90 days goes a long way toward improving the customer experience. New policyholders may worry about their coverage or the cost of insurance, and being accessible means you can answer questions and talk about the benefits of their policy.
Seek feedback and address the negatives.
Ask your new policyholders for feedback. Reviews of the agency and of you as their agent are invaluable to improving your services. If an aspect of the customer experience arises often in feedback, focus on making changes to improve your services. Online reviews are helpful in advertising your agency, but getting specific feedback directly from your policyholders can be more beneficial in improving your overall service. Consider sending a brief survey to all new policyholders during their first 90 days with your agency.
Try journey mapping the customer experience.
One way to improve your customer’s first 90 days is to map the journey from their perspective. Consider how the steps to purchase insurance would feel to a customer — and look at delays, frustrations, and bottlenecks in your workflow. Using journey and process mapping can help you see your workflows in a new way, highlighting areas to improve or eliminate altogether. There is likely wasted time or energy in your workflow you can work to remove, which in turn improves the customer experience.
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To get to the first 90 days with a new policyholder, you must first write new business. Try exclusive lead generation and nurturing programs from the American Agents Alliance to help you find new customers.
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