Page 54 - The UnCaptive Agent

WHAT KIND OF AGENCY DO YOU WANT TO START? 27

One of the critical areas of change in our industry
is customer expectations. In the past, we have largely
operated based on what was convenient to the agency.
Today, customers are accustomed to being king and
want the customer experience that they want, not the
one you want to give them. The wise agency founder is
a student of what is happening with other businesses in
this regard. He is a careful observer of Amazon™ and
other customer experience leaders and seeks to model
as much of his client’s experience as possible after their
approach.
One of the huge disconnects I see between the insur-
ance agency industry and practically every other kind
of selling is that agents don’t ask their clients what they
want. Further, they almost never survey the clients for
how the client experience measured up to expectation.
The technology for surveying is widely available at little
or no cost. SurveyMonkey™ is easy to use and free. It
can be used to ask current and prospective clients any-
thing you want to know more about. Using customer
relationship management (CRM) software allows you
to survey every client interaction with your business
easily, quickly, and at essentially no cost. Failure to do
so will mean you don’t reach your full potential and is
practically management malpractice today.

Is Commercial Insurance in Your Future?

If you have a personal insurance weighted book of
business, it would be wise to think about how you can
increasingly change your business mix. Small commer-
cial insurance represents a $143 billion market in the
United States. Larger agencies find this business to be
too expensive to write profitably. Their cost structures
are designed around the production of accounts that