Blending the old and the new
[K]eep your eye on what is changing in your environment, how educating the next generation
of service professionals is best done, and fighting to protect the quality of customer service that your agency provides.
By Paul Martin, CPCU
Providing quality customer service can be dependent on many different things. Some are traditional, but others are changing all around us. Consider these three areas where your customer service efforts need to be watched.
Staying up to date
Customer service is dependent on staying on top of the latest insurance forms or carrier pricing trends. It means more than using technology to communicate with customers. Account managers and service representatives need to stay abreast of what customers are buying and what needs protection.
The New Year is a good time to inquire. What new toys has a family purchased? Does anything need special protection such as watches or jewelry? Has the accumulation of property over the years significantly altered the proper replacement value of personal property on the homeowners? Communication about what is changing in the family is just the first step in staying up to date.
Have your customers changed the way they use their property? Customers may have started new hobbies, joined new groups, or taken on new volunteer activities. These kinds of changes may not present coverage problems on their homeowners or auto policy, but they may trigger important risk management advice that the agency likes to provide.
For example, if a customer has taken on a role as a board member of a nonprofit organization or a homeowners’ association, they may wish to explore more fully the protection the organization is providing for board members, such as directors and officers coverage.
Perhaps customers have made changes since the last time you talked about how they are making money. Every day someone new seems to post a video on how to make money easily using social media or new shopping websites. If so, is your customer aware of the limitations in the property section of the homeowners policy? Do they know about the business pursuits exclusion in the liability section of the homeowners?
Some personal lines customers may be prospects for commercial insurance that your agency can provide. This is a good time to be reminded that the personal auto policy form promulgated by the Insurance Services Office (ISO) doesn’t prove problematic for simple business use by the insured of their covered auto but does have some important limits.
For example, livery, or carrying people or property for a fee is excluded. Think Uber or Lyft. If your insured is participating in ridesharing, it doesn’t mean all is lost. The ridesharing companies have figured out how to complement the coverage found in the personal auto policy, but insureds need to know how it all works and the limits that apply.
Training the next generation
Another area that agencies need to watch is training. This author isn’t the only one who has noticed that the youngest generation working in our agencies may have excellent training both in agency operations and technical insurance training, but they may be lacking inter-generational knowledge. Not only do service representatives need to know what to do in their job and the various actors within the insurance industry, but they need to know how things got to where they are and why.
Do they know who ISO is—why they were formed and how important they are to what we sell? Do they have a basic understanding of the regulatory process for insurance companies, the forms that are used, and the pricing they are allowed to use in their state?
All the historical trivia isn’t always trivial. Sometimes the stories that more experienced agency professionals share with the next generation are vital context to the steps they take in their work or to what customer service representatives do or don’t tell the customer. Have they been seriously educated (not scared) about errors and omissions claims made against agents? Perhaps that is a class they need in the New Year.
Recently, I had the pleasure of educating new underwriters for an insurance company. I was amazed at how little they knew about how 9/11 impacted the insurance industry. Then I remembered: They were only toddlers, if even born yet, when the twin towers came down. It reminded me how important the stories are to our understanding of our industry.
Protecting the agency culture of service
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted us all in different ways, but one thing that has shaken the industry is the way we work. Some work from home, some work in the office, and some work in a hybrid environment. Not recognizing how this shift can impact the culture of the service an agency provides would be a big mistake.
After agencies figured out how to work from home, they probably saw a shift. Some employees didn’t miss a beat. Many worked even longer hours than they did before the pandemic. They got their commute time back. Many hated the distractions and hassles of working from home and the lack of camaraderie of the office. It impacted the methods of service they provided. The face-to-face consultative conversations were gone. The friendly, trust-building moments were changed to phone calls.
Because of these changes, agencies have shifted in the way they hire. Many agencies today are very slow to interview and hire for positions because of the uncertainties involved in selecting teammates. Will they work well from home? Can we still build a culture of service using employees scattered all over the state, or the country for that matter? How do we train them effectively in our agency’s procedures and standards? How flexible can they be with the new dynamic?
It’s not just the insurance industry that is affected by the workplace changes. You can see it everywhere. Providing great service today requires a different mix of skills and talents, a different kind of patience, and a different kind of service professional.
Have a conversation with your team about your hiring, training, and management of new and existing staff and consider making changes that will protect the culture of the service you want to deliver.
Succeeding in the future means preparing for it. Quality customer service demands that you keep your eye on what is changing in your environment, how educating the next generation of service professionals is best done, and fighting to protect the quality of customer service that your agency provides.
The author
Paul Martin, CPCU, is director of academic content at The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research headquartered in Austin, Texas. Paul works to develop, maintain, and deliver quality educational programs for the organization. Paul has over three decades in the insurance and risk management industry.
