The ideal journey for your insurance agency sees your brand growing steadily over months and years. Even if you start small, you want to build a loyal client base and a strong reputation for excellent products and service.

This growth, however, won’t happen without a few growing pains. As your agency grows and expands, it becomes more complex to manage. Scaling your insurance agency from a handful of staff to a an instantly recognizable brand comes with its own challenges.

Here are a few tips to help you work through your agency’s growing pains while ensuring customer service does not suffer.

Recognizing Signs of Growth

First of all, encountering growing pains is a good sign. It means your agency is achieving success. But it also means that your agency has outgrown its current way of doing things. You may notice some of the following signs at this point:

• Your team is constantly overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with data capturing, insurance renewals, and staying in touch with customers.
• It is becoming difficult to balance work and resources, which may lead to unnecessary errors.
• You are onboarding more clients than your team can handle.
• Your management system struggles to handle the sudden influx of client information and data.
• There is an unexpected breakdown in internal communication, which can lead to customer frustration.

If one or more of these things are happening in your agency, it is time to take a step back and adjust your current strategy.

Adjusting Your Strategy

Scaling your insurance agency requires a completely new approach. This is where adjusting your strategy will have the most impact.

For example, you must implement consistent steps and workflows for important tasks like client onboarding, policy renewals, and claims processing. Doing this will help save your team time and cut down on mistakes.

Your team will also grow because you need more agents to handle client growth. Empower specific team members to take ownership of certain areas in your agency. This will give you more time to plan and build client relationships.

Automation is more important than ever in the insurance industry. Use technology to automate data entry and appointment bookings. This will give your team more time to focus on more complex tasks.

Moreover, JenesisSoftware is one of the most powerful tools you can invest in to manage your agency’s growth. The JenesisNow insurance agency management system allows you to automate various tasks to streamline your team’s workflow.

Jenesis provides a central information hub for client and policy data. You will no longer need to rely on multiple spreadsheets and broken silos. Your team will enjoy functionalities like automatic quote generation, policy renewal reminders, and automated commission calculations.

The JenesisNow system also offers detailed analytics to help you identify growth trends and track team performance. Ultimately, Jenesis will encourage team communication and collaboration, which is the foundation of a successful agency.

Infrastructure and Technology Upgrades

Investing in technology is non-negotiable if you want to sustain your agency’s growth. Jenesis can help you accommodate a growing IT infrastructure, which includes an expanding team and customer data volumes. Jenesis is a cloud-based solution, making flexibility and scalability much easier.

Furthermore, as your agency grows, so should your cybersecurity measures. Protect your customer data and your IT infrastructure with data encryption and firewalls. Your agents should also receive cybersecurity training.

Insurance agency technology also extends to self-service options for customers. Implement online portals allowing clients to access their information, make payments, and submit claims. As your client base grows, self-service portals will reduce the administrative burden on your team.

Maintaining Quality Service

As your insurance agency transitions from a small company to a mid-size corporation, it is crucial to maintain excellent customer service. Here are some steps you can take to ensure there is no service decline while you scale your agency:

• Provide your team with ongoing training on new systems and technologies you implement. Also, round off this training by explaining and enforcing best practices.
• Make sure your clients stay in the loop throughout all the changes in your agency. Keep them updated about new technologies and upcoming client portals. If you receive inquiries, answer each one as quickly as possible. If your clients feel left out, you risk losing them altogether. Always be transparent about what is happening in your agency and how it will benefit customers in the long run.
• Always keep customer relationships front of mind. It does not matter how many new strategies you implement, customer service should be your goal.

Partner With Jenesis To Grow Your Agency

Growing and scaling your insurance agency is an exciting prospect, isn’t it? If you use the right technology and tools, you will get through the initial growing pains and cement your place as a trusted provider. Jenesis Software can be your partner throughout this journey, helping you streamline operations and maintain the customer service your clients deserve. Interested in learning more? Request a demo, today!

2024 is shaping up to be a tough one for insurance agencies. GDP growth and increasing inflation will continue to impact the insurance sector. There is a 3.9% unemployment rate to consider and shifting consumer sentiment. These factors may have played a big role if you struggled to keep your agency on track this year. This means it is time to re-focus your daily operations around your existing customers.

For your insurance agency, customer retention is the key to success during tough times. You still need to acquire new accounts, but when you retain your existing customers, it’s easier to weather the coming storms.

This is especially important, considering that modern insurance customers have many choices. They do not have to stay loyal to you because another insurance agency can provide the same coverage. And they could even receive that coverage at a lower premium. So, how do you build loyalty by retaining customers? An often-overlooked strategy is sending out automated renewal reminders. Something as simple as sending out a reminder on time can help retain customers without doing anything more.

Customer Retention Is a Challenge In the Insurance Industry

Customer churn (losing customers) has always been a challenge in the industry. Additionally, it costs agencies five times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. This shows how serious this situation can become. If you start losing customers and have to fork out more money to attract new ones, you will soon have a massive problem.

Customers leave insurance agencies for several reasons. These include the following:

• Price: When economic times are tough, people tend to scale down on insurance. This means they will start looking for cheaper options and switch to another provider if they offer a better deal.
• Radio silence: This is very common in the insurance sector. Once a customer is signed up and their first premium goes off, they do not hear from the provider again. Until the renewal date comes around, that is.
• Complicated renewal process: Some agencies have not upgraded their systems to include an automated renewal process. This can lead to frustration because customers cannot renew their coverage easily. Instead, they have to go through a long-winded process, which may cause them to go elsewhere.
• Poor customer service: This is another big reason why customers jump ship. A single negative customer service experience can cause a customer to cancel their policy and find another provider.

 

The Importance of Automated Renewal Reminders

This is why automated renewal reminders are crucial for your agency. You can offer your customers something new (and affordable) each time they upgrade. It gives them more value for money. You can also simplify the renewal process, reducing frustration. Automated reminders typically come as a feature of a modern agency management system. So, if you upgrade your outdated system, you will get this functionality at no extra cost.

When you offer your customers a modern insurance experience, you motivate them to support you. This means by having something as straightforward as a timely renewal reminder, you can:

• Increase renewals: Reminders are a friendly notification to customers to continue with their existing policy. Your customers are busy people, too, and they will appreciate the nudge to prevent an unintentional insurance lapse.
• Boost engagement: You can use automated reminders as a channel to stay in contact with your customers. You do not only have to remind them to keep paying once a year. Employ these reminders as marketing messages to promote time-sensitive and limited insurance offers. Or use them to remind customers how your claims process works. Subtle changes to reminders can make all the difference to customer engagement.
• Reduce the cost of admin: Automation will allow your agents to focus on other tasks.
• Upsell when appropriate: When introducing new products with your renewal reminder, you increase the chances of upselling.

 

How To Make The Most Of Automated Renewal Reminders

Sending reminders does not mean sending a bulk email to your customer base. You have to personalize each reminder according to each customer. Using the right insurance agency management system makes this easy. Management systems constantly analyze data to help you tailor your reminders. You have all the information you need, like existing coverage and previous claims, to help you generate the perfect reminder. You can use email, text, or even a good old-fashioned telephone call to remind your customers their renewal date is coming up. When it comes to communicating with your customers, using the right channel at the right time is crucial.

The Best Time To Start Using Renewal Reminders is Now

If you have not yet upgraded to an insurance agency management system with the ability to automate these reminders, now is the time. JenesisNow is one of the most trusted and reliable management systems available today. You can use it to create automated reminders on time while enjoying several other exciting features. With the right system, you can improve customer retention and ultimately help your agency succeed. Interested in seeing more? Request a demo, today!