Maintaining communication with your clients is essential to creating and maintaining outstanding client relationships. As clients’ personal circumstances change due to COVID-19, they may need to connect with you to change their insurance. For instance, families that are downsizing will need new insurance coverage. In this emotionally-charged time, handling communication well is particularly important.
Maintain Your Communication Infrastructure
Like many companies, your insurance agency has probably experienced changes in the workplace. People are working from home, their hours are different, and their attention is more fractured. However, even though communication is challenging, you still need to maintain a strong ability to connect with your clients.
According to Biz Fluent, “customers believe up to 24 hours is reasonable for an email response. However, a quicker response is a good way to stand out from the competition on this important service attribute.” If you’re having a hard time managing communication and you need to stay on top of simple questions, you could implement a FAQ or add a chatbot to act as an initial response for clients so that they can get an immediate answer at any time of the day. Set clear expectations for communication if your agency happens to be overwhelmed with calls and emails so that your clients know what to expect.
Be Calm and Concise
There is a deluge of information out there, and your clients are probably already overwhelmed on a daily basis. They don’t need an overwhelming amount of information from your insurance agency. However, they do need a calm and concise summary of what you can offer them right now. Act as the summarizer and purveyor of needed and wanted information, rather than contributing to the din.
Follow Up
If you notice that your clients aren’t responding to essential communication, consider adding extra follow-up during this particularly challenging time. It could be that they have had to move or have a loved one undergoing medical treatment, or they may be completely overwhelmed with their own home or work lives. Take this into consideration and add an extra layer of follow-up to essential communications such as insurance renewals whenever possible.
Be Compassionate
As your clients call your insurance agency to make regular changes or changes due to the pandemic, they will likely feel emotionally overwhelmed to some degree, and some of those clients may sound frustrated or even angry at your employees for no apparent reason. Remind your employees to be compassionate during this time. If your clients are angry, don’t react in kind: “maintain control of yourself, even if the customer’s tirade makes you feel like yelling yourself,” according to Forbes. The client’s anger isn’t personal – it never is. A client might be upset at your business or your products or simply be having a bad day. During a pandemic, everyone is frustrated, and so it’s important to focus even more on listening to clients in a compassionate manner.
Are you looking for an ally in the insurance business? Talk with us at American Agents Alliance. We can help you create a stronger insurance agency: Contact us today.
