How to End Telephone Price Shopping
Is too much of your staff’s time being spent responding to telephone requests for auto quotes? One agency getting 80 calls a day seeks a way out and the VU faculty deliver.
Author: VU Faculty
“I recently purchased an insurance agency that has a mix of both standard and nonstandard clients and an overall of 80% personal lines and 20% commercial lines. The agency has been in business for almost 50 years and has been primarily a nonstandard auto agency for a majority of those years. My goal is to bring the agency forward into a multi-line, multi-policy agency with an eye towards a more rounded 60% personal lines (standard only) and 40% small and mid-sized commercial book of business. “One of my biggest hurdles thus far has been the call volume for price quotes over the phone. We receive nearly 80 calls per day wanting a quote over the phone. Out of that, we are learning that only 1 in 10 calls are from someone that would be qualified as a standard lines client. The rest are non-standard auto price shoppers. We are having to spend a good bit of resources answering phones instead of cross-selling and providing service to our A & B clients. “What can I do to implement a strategy to weed out these price shoppers so that our personal lines agency staff can focus on cross-selling the standard customers we already have and to focus on acquiring the few qualified risks that call in? Is there a particular script/recording to use stating that we no longer offer price quotes over the phone? What would be my best solution?”
 Here’s onereply followed by a couple of practical “objections” and replies to theobjections: Agency: “Thanks you for calling us for a quotation. While weformerly provided telephone quotations, our experience is that the bestcombination of price and value are achieved for your benefit when we have theopportunity to sit down with you and make a complete assessment of the risks ofloss that you face and then develop a comprehensive plan that will allow you tohave all of your coverages placed in a one stop shop for your benefit.” Caller: “Can you just give me an estimate of how much it will be?” Agency: “The rating for automobile insurance has actually becomevery complicated and so it is not possible to give you just an estimate that wouldbe reliable.”” Caller: “You mean you are REFUSING to provide me a telephonequotation?” Agency: “We would like to have your business but we areunfortunately indeed unable to provide you a telephone quotation. We appreciateyour understanding. Would you like to schedule an appointment?” Caller: “You people really need to get a life. Lots of otheragents will give me a quotation over the phone.” Agency: “Well, I’m glad to hear that you have other alternativesthat will perhaps serve you on your terms at this time. Our new focus is tomake sure that you have a good outcome at the time of a claim and that is thereason for our policy position regarding telephone quotations. Thisgeneral area is my forte having built an agency over 40 years upon the valueconcept. The above are just warm-ups for me. There are a thousand ways toconvert to a value based agency and the above will give you a start on how toshut down the telephone wasted time. Pleasego to our website, www.agencyconsulting.comto our archives and search for “Asset Protection Model of Relationship Selling.”It is made to respond to your exact question by stopping useless quoting. Inour personal lines agencies who have adapted and moved from the Quote/PriceModel of sales, any caller requesting a quote is invited in for a consultationwith one of our representatives to make sure the prospect is properlyprotected. As you can imagine most people will not agree to this since theirgoal is simply to drive a quote to see if they have a good deal now or if theyshould jump to your (or someone else’s) policy until their next renewal,something you probably don’t want to do anyway….Those who come into your officeare good potential clients.
Next,come up with a brief list of questions for your receptionist to ask “prospects.”Four or five questions should do, and they can do an initial qualifying, suchas: 1)How did you hear about our agency? 2)Who is your current agent/company? 3)How long have you been with them? 4)When you chose them, what was that decision based on? 5)Other than price, is there a reason you are thinking of leavingthem? Ifyou get the “wrong” answers, the receptionist can simply say, “It seems asthough you are looking for a lower price for your insurance, and frankly wehave found that our customers end up spending even more money when they buyfrom us because we are focused on tailoring their insurance program to meettheir financial objectives. I’m happy to transfer you to one of our personalinsurance specialists who will spend about 30 minutes determining if what wehave to offer is a good option for you.” That should put an end to the price-onlyshopper since they know it should NEVER take more than 15 minutes to save them15%!
Remove** ALL** advertising in the public domain that allows the buyer to perceive youas a non-standard market. When callers request a quote, inquire as to what theydesire, such as an FR bond, or the lowest limits you will offer are 100/300 forexample. Changing the mindset will take time but the rewards will produce thedividends you are seeking. Advise that you no longer accept late payments thruan afterhours mail slot…this would also include not accepting payments forthose markets by the agency staff. You risking and accepting a potential E&Orisk as THEIR rules do not bend for late payments! Finally, you could requirethat they must make an appointment for such a request. This will then determinetheir desire for a professional client for your new business model. Thealternative is to open a second shop where you would cater to the buy-here/pay-herementality. This can be very lucrative when managed properly. LastUpdated: July27, 2016? |
