One important office procedure done in our agency is making sure that the downloads are done daily and worked on diligently. Our compliance department knows which carriers download and which carriers must be updated manually. So, we address all our business and nurture our customers with the tools we have.
Process the Download
Go to Tasks ->Downloads. Run your downloads for the day and make sure all is well. After we finish the downloads, we close the download file. Then on the Main Start screen, we refresh the screen with an F5, this will update any and all Unmatched Documents in the Inbox that were in the downloads today. Our agency does not experience many unmatched files, but the ones we do have are addressed immediately.
Send Batch Emails
The next procedure is going back to open the Download Report to start with manual drip marketing.
- Go to Reports on the top left bar of HawkSoft
- Open up Download Reports and select Last Processed
- Once it appears, go straight to Transaction Purpose on the top of the report. Click this title heading to sort the transactions alphabetically – cancellation, endorsement, new business, reinstatements, renewals, etc. Every one of our transactions are looked at and addressed accordingly.
- Highlight the client renewals in preparation for a batch email blast. Right click on the in the blue area and select Send Email. We have several email templates available that we use for new business, renewals, cancellations and so on.
Below is a sample email template that goes out to all renewal policies.
Text Rate Changes
Our next agency procedure is addressing the rate changes on the renewal downloads. Yes, the customers will get our normal email Annual Policy Review Request, but any account that has a 12% or higher rate change will also get a text from HawkSoft requesting a review. What’s great about our text message is that it gives the insured an opportunity to interact back with the agency. The interaction has been very favorable with the agency.
We text our clients individually, accessing their record via the report. Our agency uses Message Media for texting.
Renewal Reminder Text Template:
From Raymond Longoria Agency. Just a courtesy reminder that your <<Pol_title>> insurance policy will be renewing soon. Call us to set up a policy review. Save $$$$ now with a phone call to 956.581.1034. Remember we are “Insurance Brokers” and we represent over 50 major insurance companies, SO LET US DO THE SHOPPING FOR YOU. Reply with a “C” if you want us to REQUOTE YOUR INSURANCE.
In conclusion, it’s very important in our agency to process the download on daily basis and use the reports generated to communicate with our clients. This helps us retain our business. The benefit of using the texting feature is the ability to immediately interact with the customer once we know he or she has a sizeable increase. We all know that clients tend to start shopping around when those increases come. Since we are the insurance brokers, let us do the shopping.
Raymond Longoria
Raymond Longoria Insurance
Mission, TX
www.1800insure.com ray@RLIgroup.com
Phone: (956) 581-1034
Raymond,
Would you mind sharing the steps for running the report with the Rate Change?
Yes, I would love to see that too!
No Problem, send me your E-mail and I will send you a video. Raymond Longoria 956.581.1034 My E-mail ray@rligroup.com Thanks RL
Love this article! Thank you for sharing!We are implementing right away!
Thanks, Raymond Longoria 956.581.1034
Would you mind sharing what your agency retention percentage is?
88.6% We just initiated this style of communication with our customer. It’s really working for us, and my compliance department does this daily. Raymond Longoria 956.581.1034
Hi Ray – I just wanted to share my experience with you as you go down the shopping road. In my years as a territory manager for a major PL carrier, I dealt with hundreds of agents and several started similar campaigns to yours (though not as well automated, nicely done!). Almost all ran into retention problems 24 – 36 months after they started their programs. As best as we could figure, most of their customers weren’t really thinking about shopping before they received the emails. But the ‘if you’d like us to shop’ language planted a seed. After a couple of years they started checking Geico, Progressive, State Farm, etc. And/or they simply ended up re-shopping so many customers they cut their revenue dramatically (I had one agency where the customers embraced the remarketing so much that they were down 18% in revenue at the 2 year mark, in spite of being up 8% in policy count – You don’t usually notice the first year because the higher NB commissions offset the decrease in premium).
That being said, a similar alternate approach that had awesome results year-after-year was to communicate with the insured BEFORE the renewal was released and noted that the agency wanted to go over their coverage and circumstances to make sure the renewal is accurate. I was working in West TN where the average home increase was 18% – 22% at the time and usually there was some wording along the lines of ‘an increase in your renewal premium is normal and to be expected in response to the weather and increased losses on the part of insurance companies, however please contact us if you have any questions or concerns!’
Basically they skipped past the shopping wording and got ahead of the renewal. The agencies would still individually contact customers above a certain % and/or $ amount increase in renewal, but trying to avoid offering shopping.
All that being said, I’m not knocking what you have going on . . . in fact I LOVE the customer communication and automation. I think you’re absolutely on the right track and really, really, really appreciate your sharing the process with the rest of us!! I just thought I’d share my experience with renewal communication after seeing dozens of agencies take different approaches. Best of wishes, if you’re ever up in the Boston area I’ll buy you a drink!
Good Stuff! Will be implementing tomorrow. Thanks Raymond!!!