"Warm Renewal" Process

Contract renewals are the lifeblood of most insurance agencies and every agency has established procedures for notifying clients when their policies are due to expire and how to renew them. The 60 to 90-day lead up period to the renewal date is when the agency is most at risk of losing the client. blueButler can help your staff ensure that more clients renew their policies by emphasizing the “personal touch” service that you provide during the critical renewal period. The recommended practice in blueButler includes the following processes.

blueButler affords the opportunity to fully automate the lead generation process by addressing all key aspects of the process including:

• Management’s ability to set and measure individual and group performance against weekly or monthly lead targets using scheduled Lead Summary Reports
• Pop-up campaign reminders and suggestions that help CSRs identify leads
• Simplified click-to-tag lead identification and notes (with link to recorded call with client) that minimize the effort required to identify and forward a lead
• Scheduled daily Lead Reports that are automatically emailed to Sales Management for review where actual conversations can be played back to evaluate and prioritize each lead

The recommended practice in blueButler for automating lead generation follows.

Training

Train staff on how to sell value and benefits and not features using the Sales Training material included in blueButler. In particular, focus on which options they should review with each client to help them understand that insurance isn’t a commodity product but rather one that is tailored to their needs.

Client Renewal Calls

CSRs should call each client and review any changes that may have occurred since the policy was issued to show the “personal touch” that you offer. The call should happen as early as possible in the renewal period. Try to avoid using voicemail exchanges to convey information; if possible have a conversation with the client at a time that is convenient for them in order to establish rapport and a personal connection with your agency. During the client call, use blueButler pop-up reminders and suggestions to help CSRs identify client needs and focus the conversation on the most popular policy options.

It may not be possible to call every client prior to their renewal date. In those cases, identify the policies that are deemed most at risk and build your renewal campaign around them. As time permits, extend the procedure to other client groups.

Use Audio Signatures to Secure the Renewal

Whenever possible, use the audio signature script to capture the client’s consent to renew. This should be done whether or not a carrier accepts an audio signature. Using this process will cause most clients to conclude that their insurance is taken care of for another year so that they don’t have to spend additional time on it. The Consent Script, tags the recording making it easy to locate in the database. Audio Signature recordings should be linked to an activity record in your AMS/BMS system to comply with your insurance carrier’s audit procedures.

IMPORTANT – clients who decline the audio signature are potentially at risk of not renewing with your agency. CSRs should tag these call as an at-risk renewal and have the Producer follow up to address any concerns.

Peer-to-peer Training

To boost performance and encourage peer-to-peer training, implement call-of-the-week campaigns where CSRs identify calls where they encountered difficulties or were successful in overcoming objections. Review these calls and share the best calls with the team at regular staff meetings to enforce a culture of continuous performance enhancement and best practices.

CSRs can simply Bookmark calls that they would like to review in the database. Managers then use the Bookmark filter to identify these calls and can further segment these calls using additional database fields.

Additional Information



• blueButler Brochure
• PCI-DSS Compliance