MARKETING AGENCY OF THE MONTH
Peel & Holland's focus on sales improves service to customers
By Dennis Pillsbury
Peel & Holland's executive team: (standing from the left) Gregory Carlton, CLU, CFS, ChFC; Keith B. Riley, AAI; Roy Riley, CPCU, AAI; (sitting) L.B. "Brad" Colson, AAI; and R.C. Riley, CPCU.
Peel & Holland Financial Group, Benton, Kentucky, has a habit of passing the baton to younger people in its continual drive toward improvement. Founded in 1924, the agency has grown to $3.6 million in revenue in a marketing area with fewer than 175,000 people. There are 34 employees in four offices in western Kentucky. In addition to the main office in Benton, Peel & Holland also has offices in Mayfield, Murray and Paducah. They also have a new account executive based in the central Kentucky area in Richmond.
One part of the "youth movement" occurred in 1965 when the agency's current president and CEO, R.C. Riley, joined directly out of college after being recruited by Woodrow Holland. "He was a family friend and, when I was a sophomore in high school, he asked me what I wanted to do," R.C. remembers. "Because of him, I majored in business administration. I have been very fortunate and have a warm spot in my heart for any agency owner who is willing to give a young person an opportunity."
Three years later, R.C. became a partner in the agency, and it was under his guidance that one of the agency's "great leaps forward" occurred. "Through R.C.'s leadership, we branched out from a small property/casualty agency into middle market and large commercial lines. This was followed later by financial services, including employee benefits and investments," notes Keith Riley, chief marketing officer and one of the members of the more recent "youth movement."
R.C. honored Mr. Holland's philosophy over the years by recognizing the need to recruit young talent--Brad Colson began his career with Peel & Holland in 1976.
The current "strategic management" of the organization began in the early 1990s. Roy Riley, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, became a part of Peel & Holland in 1991, his brother Keith in 1993. Greg Carlton, president-financial services, joined in 1994. This strategic management team initiated the latest "great leap forward." This has involved instilling "a culture of trying to consistently improve ourselves," Keith says. He adds that this included a transition from a "service to a sales organization. We looked really hard at ourselves and realized that we were a service-oriented company that happened to sell insurance."
Keith continues: "You have to look at it from a variety of perspectives. The culture for the agency had to be one that responded to the needs of our customers, our insurance companies and fellow employees."
Stronger sales, stronger service
The result of this change in focus was almost counterintuitive: moving from a service-oriented organization to a sales-oriented organization resulted in better service to clients and companies.
The strategic decision came out of an initial effort to more clearly define to the public what Peel & Holland did. Says Keith: "The agency went through a branding effort that started in 2000, with an upgrade to our name and logo. The problem was that our name did not in any way indicate what type of business we were in. As I mentioned earlier, we were now involved in a range of financial services and it turned out that 'financial' was a word that meant something to the public. After nearly a year of debate, we finally came up with our current name and logo. We kept Peel & Holland because it was well known in our marketing territory and added Financial Group."
Keith the "rainmaker" looks over Roy's plans for where to put the rain.
"That was the easy part," Keith continues, with just a touch of hyperbole. "We advertise and that helps, but branding is much more than just advertising. What we came to realize was that branding involved creating a culture that spreads to clients and companies and then to the general public. A lot of that was my responsibility, so I looked around for guidance. I attended a seminar conducted by Roger Sitkins and was extremely impressed and excited. I kept going back to Roger and eventually joined the Sitkins 100. This membership has provided us with a roadmap for developing into a sales culture. Last year, we launched our true culture change."
The agency had "all the pieces of the puzzle," Roy says, "but it wasn't put together in the most effective way. We took those pieces and threw them up in the air and tried putting it back together in a way that would best utilize the talents of each of our people. We had every one of our employees take a Kolbe test to determine their natural abilities. There were some surprises. It slotted some of our people in places where we didn't realize they fit. So we made some changes to take that into account." All CSRs became members of high-performance teams, which now consist of an account manager who deals with clients, an account administrator who handles processing, and an account executive (the producer). "We used the Kolbe to put the people in the right positions," explains Keith.
For example, Keith turned out to be an innovator, which is a 10 on quick start, but a two on follow-through, while Roy is a strategic planner who is strong on fact finding and follow-through. That's why they hold their respective positions at the agency. As R.C. puts it: "Keith is a rainmaker and Roy makes certain the rain gets where it's needed with no leaks."
Of course, once the teams were in place, "we had to go and talk to the clients to let them know that the account manager was the best person to call for day-to-day assistance," Keith says, adding that, "The transition wasn't easy. There was definitely some resistance from our people, but they adapted and they've improved themselves individually and collectively. Client concerns also had to be addressed," Keith continues. "But most clients now admit that they're receiving a better level of service than before. When they call the account manager, changes are input directly into the computer. It's one and done. And the account executives actually are freed up to go out and build on current and new relationships. People are doing what they are uniquely talented to do."
Relationships are emphasized
One of the principal reasons Peel & Holland has been able to continue and strengthen its relationship with clients has been improved consistency. "Everyone agreed that we had strong relationships with our clients," Keith points out. "What we were not doing was being proactive about those relationships on a consistent basis."
The next step in the agency's cultural development was to implement CRM (customer relationship management). "We created a business development center that tracked our client meetings," Keith says. He points out that a producer might overlook some clients so they only wind up seeing someone when there's a claim or at renewal time. "With CRM and the business development center, we are committed to visit clients on a regular basis. I might get a notice from the center that I'm to meet with five particular clients during the week and I am expected to do so. It's really streamlined the process and, at the same time, has made us proactive rather than reactive."
R. C. Riley sits in front of the portrait of agency founder Woodrow Holland, the man who gave R. C. his chance to break into the business.
"It's really been the entire staff working together as a team that has allowed us to achieve our goals to date."
--R.C. Riley
Roy adds: "We had felt as if we were short-changing everything. The realignment of our people and their responsibilities let us accomplish much more by emphasizing each individual's strengths. We're committed to finding ways to work smarter, not harder."
The strong relationship with clients that Peel & Holland has nurtured over the years and enhanced more recently has grown to be even more important during the current hard market. "It has been difficult," Keith says, "but the relationship we have with our customers is helping us through this market. Our clients trust us. Our reputation for absolute integrity is really important. We have to balance the needs of our companies and clients and we have always been up front about this with our clients. When we tell them now that the needs of the companies have to be met and explain where the industry has been and why we're where we are, they believe us. They may not like it, but they understand it and they stick with us. We also help them with the things that can help improve their rate increases. We'll work with them to improve their risk management, to transfer risk creatively and to assume certain risks where that makes sense."
Niches grow out of the changeover
"When we started the transition to a sales culture," Keith says, "one of our efforts involved finding out what each member of the sales force enjoyed. And out of that grew a focus on certain niche markets that fit well with a particular producer." For example, one account executive had a number of moving and storage accounts and had a real rapport with that industry. "Now he's grown that book to become 80% of his business. We have one of the major market shares in that industry in Kentucky and Tennessee." Another account executive deals with municipalities. Another really liked working with small businesses. "We had to move small business accounts to a different level and he is talented in managing those accounts, so he took over that sector," Keith explains.
Brad Colson, executive vice president, focuses on the farm market and also does a great deal with personal lines. "I was born and raised on a farm," Brad points out. "It was natural for me to work on this market. The farm market is unique," he continues, explaining that it is "neither personal nor commercial. It's a mixture of both, really a line of insurance all its own."
Brad started out writing mostly personal lines and small farms. However, "the small farm is going away and being taken over by larger enterprises. As that happened, farms became a niche that was worth going after and we went after it." Today, more than 75% of Brad's business comes from referrals from other farmers.
Greg Carlton's position on the strategic management team arose from his original responsibility of developing and heading the employee benefits and investment division. "It is a niche within the agency's customer products with great success and future promise," said Greg. "We wanted to position the agency to effectively compete in the new arena of integrated financial services, and that decision has proven to be the right one."
Niches, however, were a good news, bad news type of thing. "They were great but also took some major people out of production of other targeted classes of business," Keith says. "We needed to add good producers to pick up the general business. "As a result we're participating in the Sitkins Producer Recruiting Program and have added two new account executives this year--one in property/casualty and the other in employee benefits/investments. They're working in very well. I'm really proud of these new guys we've brought along. This will be a continuing process," he adds. "We're going to have to be recruiting today to find the talent we'll need two or three years from now."
24/7 customer service enhances the relationship
Although a great deal of the relationship with clients involves proactive visits from the account executive, there continue to be those moments when you have to be reactive, according to Roy. You not only have to be quick about it but you must also give your client the choice of how and when to obtain service.
"We've tried to design all of our processes around our customers. We want there to be compelling reasons for our customers to do business with us," Roy says. One of those "compelling reasons" is true 24/7 service. "We've accomplished that through automation. Our customers can access us via the Internet, but we also have 24-hour phone support, both of which are provided through the CSR24 product. That's an outsourced after-hours Internet and phone support system. The client reaches a 24-hour customer care center, which answers the phone as Peel & Holland and has access to our client data. They also have access to all of us in cases of serious claims."
For example, "we had a petroleum tanker explode at 9:30 on a Sunday morning. There was heavy property damage in addition to bodily injury. The policyholder called one of our offices' local numbers that Sunday morning and immediately was in contact with Peel & Holland's Customer Care Center and they reached the account exec on his cell phone. He was on the scene by 10:30.
"Another time, I was at my mother-in-law's house for Christmas Eve when I got a call from our 24-hour Call Center telling me that a client's home had a total fire loss," Roy remembers. "I was able to get the family settled into a hotel and arranged for an adjuster to meet with them on December 26th."
Continuing the process
A plethora of initiatives is in the works. As Keith explains: "We have so far to go, but it's great how far we've come. I'm going to be doing this for the next 30 years, so I figure I might as well try to do it right. But to do that, we need to constantly move forward."
He continues: "We've instilled the new culture and are in the process of bringing that to our clients. Our next step is to meet with our company partners and explain where we are going and see if they want to be a part of it and join us.
"We also are working on becoming one unit. We found that we had to tear down walls within our own agency. Most of our clients have needs in all the financial areas, but we weren't delivering that. Multiple layers of individuals within our organization should have good relationships with multiple layers within our clients' organizations. We're working toward that. We're in the process now of identifying what we do and don't do for each. We'll soon be purchasing a new automated marketing system, once we find the one that answers our needs. We want to be able to determine both the penetrated value for each of our clients and the potential value in order to focus our cross-selling effort."
Roy adds: "Our five-year goal is to reach $200,000 in revenue per employee, 100% controlled retention and a 90% new business hit ratio. We're tracking these indicators and have been hitting our benchmarks along the way."
R.C. continues: "This agency today is far more efficient and effective than it's ever been. I thought I ran a good agency, and I did, but the organization today is much better than where we were a few short years ago. I've been very blessed that both my sons wanted to go into insurance and that they've done such a great job at it. They both majored in insurance in college. (Roy went to the University of Memphis and Keith went to Eastern Kentucky University.) But it's really been the entire staff working together as a team that has allowed us to achieve our goals to date. They have embraced the new vision and responded so enthusiastically, and together, we will continue to excel."
He concludes: "I'm just blown away by the 24/7 service that we have for our customers. The Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate with each other, our customers, and our companies. It's exciting to imagine where this will all be in five or 10 years. How will the new world of financial integration play out? Where will automation take us? It's exciting and I'm convinced that there is more opportunity for insurance agents today than ever before. And there's no better business than being an independent agent. It's rewarding personally and financially, I'm still having fun." *