How to Personalize Client Communication as an Insurance Agent

Today’s consumers don’t just desire personal attention; they demand it.  This behavior has made it incumbent on all businesses to personalize the customer experience to each individual as much as possible. Statistics have shown that personalization can lead to improvements in customer loyalty and engagement, increased sales, and improved customer experience and brand perception.  Personalization is something that can be done in various aspects of business. In this article, we’ll discuss how independent insurance agents can personalize client communication, which is often the first step in building a successful agency. 

Understand Your Customer Personas 

If you want to personalize client communication, you need to know who it is you’re communicating to. In other words, you need to understand your customers.  Insurance agents often encounter various types of customers, from single individuals living in apartments, to young couples buying a home for the first time, to established professionals with multiple children.   Each of these different customer segments has significantly different needs and preferences, even if they require similar insurance products.   By understanding your customers, you can effectively create different persona “buckets,” which you can then use to personalize communications so your messages are more effective. 

Get to Know Your Individual Customers 

Many clients today want to be known and treated as individuals and not as policy numbers. If they’re seeking out an independent insurance agent, rather than going through a faceless corporate website or telephone service, it’s likely because they value that personal relationship that only an independent agent can provide.  It’s on you to give them what they want and get to know them on a more personal level. This will require you to dive deeper than just what customer persona they fit into.  It’s great to know, for example, that a customer is a young married couple with a child on the way who are purchasing their first home. You can take your service a step further by getting to know where they work, where they went to school, what they like to do, whether they have animals (and what their names are) and what type of home they’re searching for.  All of this information will allow you to personalize your service to them. This includes sending them personalized communications via email, for example, suggesting different insurance coverage when they purchase that home or when their child is born.  Knowing your customers on a more human level gives you the ability to really customize your communications to them. 

Act Outside the Box 

Personalizing client communication is nothing new, and many customers are actually getting used to it. When they see their name at the top of an email they receive from a company, for example, it doesn’t really even stand out anymore, as it’s something they’ve come to expect.  Yet, many of these “personalization” tactics aren’t very human at all. It’s very likely, in fact, that they were generated using technology that just pulls their name from a list.  As an independent insurance agent, you can really stand out by acting outside this box and doing something your customers may not expect. One idea could be sending a handwritten card to your new customers to thank them for their business, or even sending a birthday card to them every year.   These are small gestures, but they can really brighten someone’s day and leave a positive impression that will last a long time.  

Be Clear 

An overlooked form of personalizing client communication is talking to your customers like you would talk to your family and friends. Recognize that they aren’t insurance professionals like you are, so they often need things explained to them in easy-to-understand ways.  It’s essential to always communicate as clearly as possible, and avoid using jargon as much as possible, as it can confuse people. Speak and write using as simple and clear language as you can, regardless of whether you’re making the first contact with a prospective customer or talking with a long-time customer.  Even when you’re explaining the minute details of complicated insurance policies, it’s important to explain things in a way in which your customers can understand. Providing examples or analogies can be very helpful, especially when you can relate it to something you know they have experience and/or interest in.  Clear communication is a major form of personalized client communication, and it’s something you shouldn’t ignore. 

Discover the Good Life

At Good Life Insurance Associates, our experienced insurance sales associates are here to provide support and training for both new and experienced agents. To learn more about us, remember to explore our business support services. Or, to speak with a member of our team about your journey to becoming an independent agent, contact us today!