As an insurance agent, you are constantly looking for ways to boost your lead generation, increase efficiency and productivity, and build strong relationships with your customers. In a world where technology dominates, adopting digital technology into your workflow process can make all the difference. But how do you do that? What is CRM and why should you consider CRM for your insurance business? Customer relationship management software (CRM) is a powerful tool that can help insurance brokers boost their sales, lead generation, and customer relationships, all at the touch of your fingers.
The current status of the Insurance industry
In the insurance industry, agents and brokers have focused on a much more personal approach for generations. In this case, they have been behind when it comes to turning to the digital world. Unfortunately, as the new generations, dominated by technology, emerge as customers, they are looking for increased digital interaction and insurance companies need to understand this change. Implementing a quality insurance CRM that is insurance industry focused is the ideal way to move more toward the digital generations and increase your customer engagement and relationship strength.
Improving business ROI with CRM Insurance system
You may question whether investing in a CRM platform is really beneficial for your business. The fact is in the numbers. According to Nucleus Research, the average return on investment (ROI) when implementing a CRM ranges between $5.60 and $8.71 for every dollar spent. In addition, CRM can increase sales by up to 29%, improve productivity by as much as 34%, and boost forecast accuracy by 40%.
Challenges brokers regularly face
The insurance industry is a competitive market and brokers face multiple challenges on a daily basis when it comes to working with customers. Here we take a closer look at some of the most common challenges insurance agents face and how CRM implementation may help.
Competition
Competition is tough in the insurance industry. With today’s prospects wanting answers and results immediately, staying on top of the competition can be even harder than it used to be. The times when you could return an inquiry the next day are gone as leads want information now. Delaying just a single day often means your prospect has moved to another agent before you have time to return a call. Implementing a CRM and its automation tools can help ensure you provide the answers and information when your leads are looking for it.
Inefficient workflow
Manual tasks in the insurance industry take up much of your valuable time, resulting in lost revenue, low productivity, and an inefficient workflow. Whether you are looking at things like sending our renewals, making follow-up calls, or sending emails, these tasks can quickly take up all the hours in your day. Implementing a CRM allows you to automate many of these manual tasks, freeing up valuable time, improving your productivity, and improving customer satisfaction.
Fragmented sales process
While spreadsheets were a powerful tool in their time when it came to managing data, they have their faults. Missing data that wasn’t implemented or updated can leave you with incorrect information that can slow down your sales process and, in the long run, keep you from making a sale.
Lead generation
Lead generation is not what it used to be. When a person showed interest in a policy, you had time to gather information and get back to them. In today’s world, leads want their information immediately and, if they have to wait too long or go through too many steps, they are more likely to move on to the competition where they can get immediate results. A quality CRM can help you implement a strategy that provides immediate gratification to leads and helps you convert those leads into policies.
Client retention
Client retention is essential in the insurance industry and, with so much competition, it is important that you make your clients feel appreciated and work to grow a strong client relationship. A quality CRM allows you to better manage your customer data and stay on top of all interactions between all agency members and the client. It allows for automated renewal notices and more to help ensure your clients are regularly engaged and feel the benefits of a relationship with your agency.
Benefits of CRM for insurance brokers
While you can see how a CRM can make a difference in many aspects of your insurance agency, the benefits do not stop there. Here we look at some of the top benefits you can expect when you implement a CRM.
Improve customer experience
The customer experience is essential in the insurance industry, from initial engagement to customer retention. CRM implementation can help better manage customer data by efficiently organizing the data, maintaining its accuracy, and providing your team with an instant snapshot of all customer interactions in one centralized location.
Improve prospecting
Years ago, insurance brokers relied on cold calls for lead generation. However, these days it is all about the internet and immediate contact. With a CRM, you can integrate your website contact forms directly into the CRM, meaning information is immediately entered into the system and into a sales pipeline that can trigger task assignments to make immediate contact with the prospect. This eliminates the time necessary for data entry and ensures you are addressing your prospect’s inquiries in real-time.
Automated manual tasks
A CRM allows you to automate many different manual tasks, including the submission of documents, marketing emails, renewal emails, and the ability to trigger tasks for team members based on specific parameters.
Improve communication and collaboration
Working with multiple insurance companies, as well as customers, it is very easy to lose the ability to coordinate between teams and contacts. With a CRM in place, all team members have access to all the necessary data to stay on top of interactions, create team collaborations, and much more This helps to ensure that the needs of your clients are taken care of by every member of the team as needed.
Strengthen data security
Insurance agencies maintain a wealth of data that, when improperly managed, is at risk of a security breach. With many businesses facing security breaches, it is important that you do everything possible to protect your client’s information. CRM platforms have built-in security measures that help to protect your data from unauthorized access.
Better quality data
Implementing a CRM will help you better determine what data is essential for your business to run most efficiently and best manage and provide for your clients. Accurate and relevant data helps you better qualify prospects and move them efficiently through the sales process.
Improve renewal rates
Lost renewals can cost insurance brokers a lot of business every year, so helping to boost your renewal rates is essential. With a CRM, automated reminders and tasks are built into the sales process, helping to ensure you stay on top of renewals throughout the year.
Boost Your Business with a CRM
In today’s technology-focused world, it is essential that insurance brokers embrace the changes in order to rise above their competition. By implementing a CRM, you can not only help improve your efficiency and productivity, but you can better meet the needs and expectations of your prospects and clients.
At Better Agency, we understand the unique demands of the insurance industry. As former agents, we created a CRM for insurance agencies with the industry in mind, ensuring that our platform meets the unique needs this industry creates. To learn more about how our CRM can help your business, schedule a call today.
