Insurance is not just about the coverage you provide for your clients—it’s about how you make an impact on their journey along the way.
As an independent insurance agency, you know that client relationships are at the heart of your business. However, at times, we can get tunnel vision and focus only on the insurance policies someone has now, rather than the larger picture.
Life happens, and your clients’ needs may change during their time with you. So rather than looking at the destination, look at what your clients are going through to help you establish a process of your own to curate a client journey that aligns with their needs.
I’ve found that agencies that take the time to create a client journey that reflects both their goals and their clients’ needs often achieve higher retention rates and increased policy count and premium growth over time.
Want to learn how you can accomplish that for your agency? Let’s dive into the strategies insurance agencies can take to curate the perfect client journey.
What is a client journey?
From the moment a client signs up with your agency, they become part of a journey you control, shaping the relationship moving forward.
If you think of it that way, every interaction with your client becomes a stepping stone—and ultimately, milestones that you can leverage for mutual benefit.
Let’s map out the typical milestones that agencies of any type or size can clearly define:
- New client onboarding.
- First claim filed.
- Policy renewal process.
- Policy change or update request.
- An additional policy is purchased.
In each of these scenarios, there are opportunities for client communication that can incorporate a journey—from a service-oriented perspective, as well as an account rounding one.
1. What does a service-oriented journey look like?
For example, when a new client first signs up, what is your current process for communication?
If the answer is, “Whenever they call” or “When their policy is up for renewal,” that is not enough to facilitate a meaningful journey and client relationship.
An ideal journey in this case would be something like this:
- Two days after signing up, send an email that welcomes them, thanks them for their business, and explains how they can contact your agency moving forward.
- One week from after signing up, send an email from the account manager that clearly establishes their main point of contact at the agency moving forward.
- Two weeks after signing up, send an email with educational information on insurance, the claims process, and any other details that relate to their policy.
- Two months after signing up, send a check-in email to see if they have any questions about their policy and remind them to contact your agency if they need anything.
- Three months after signing up, send them an email that asks about their experience with your agency so far, and see if they have anyone they might like to refer.
- Six months after signing up, send them an email asking about life changes to see if there is a need (or an upcoming one) for additional coverage or for updating their existing policies well in advance.
In between, you can consider other communications outside of emails, like text messages or phone calls, to stay connected with your clients.
This is just an example of a specific journey a new client can go through when they are onboarded by your agency, with the option to reconnect with you if they choose.
Even those who do not engage with these communications often find that it proves to them that your agency has a pulse and is there for them should they need help with a policy question or even a claim.
2. What does a sales-oriented journey look like?
Similar to the journey above, you can set up a journey to guide clients to applicable coverage options based on their needs and current coverage. Typically, you’ll see this referred to as a cross-sell or account rounding strategy.
One of the most common ways to set up this type of journey is to identify who in your book of business fits a certain criteria, such as a home insurance client without an auto insurance policy through your agency.
You can set up a journey that speaks to an opportunity to bundle coverage under one provider and the benefits that come with that to grow trust and establish a stronger relationship.
Here’s what a client journey can look like for a cross-sell opportunity for a client with one policy but not another:
- Four months before their policy renewal, send an informational email that outlines their current coverage and the benefits of bundling with an additional, related policy.
- Three months before their policy renewal, send an email that asks relevant questions to uncover if they have gaps in their coverage and might be in need of an additional policy.
- Two months before their policy renewal, send a reminder email about the benefits of bundling coverage and direct them to your website page to learn more.
Again, as with the journey above, additional communications from your agency are encouraged, but this is one track of the greater client journey you are creating.
Best practices for creating a client journey.
Now that you know what a client journey is and how they can look depending on the strategy, let’s go over some of the best practices to keep in mind when developing your own.
1. Identify opportunities to improve the client journey.
The first point is our team. Not to be cliché, but they are who make us who we are as a brand and our position as leaders in the insurance marketing space.
The best place to start is to consider what you are currently doing to build your client journey. This involves reviewing the key milestones mentioned above, as well as the rest of the experience you have created for your client communications.
From those milestones, create a list of goals that you would like your clients to achieve along that journey.
Based on the two examples above, the goals would be to establish an onboarding process that builds confidence and trust in your agency, and to enhance their coverage and fill in gaps with an additional policy.
Now that you have the goals in place, the next step is clear—it’s time to design the journey you’ll take them on to get to that destination.
2. Design the perfect client journey.
The path your clients will take with your agency can be clearly defined by mapping out a journey. The journey can follow the same, consistent standards from client to client, but the interactions and scenarios will vary.
With this in mind, you need to create a standard journey that virtually any client can follow to achieve the goal, while also building the relationship.
Here are some tips to consider when setting up a client journey:
- How does your agency currently communicate (phone, email, text message, in-person)? Work this into your strategy to stay consistent with client expectations.
- What key touchpoints can you communicate about to make the most significant impact? Consider creating a timeline like the examples above to outline what you will send and when.
- What kind of engagement are you expecting to get from these communications? Set internal goals to measure how effective your client journey is working based on the actual engagement you see from these campaigns.
- Who should be a part of the client journey? For each client journey you create, identify who from your book of business fits the category best so you can reach out to the right people at the right time.
With these strategies in mind, you have the start of a great journey that you can apply.
Now, we’ll show you how to implement a client journey using technology, such as marketing automation, to put in motion an effective, efficient communication strategy that gets results.
How to maximize automation in a client journey.
To show you how to leverage automation in order to put your plans into action without adding additional manual work for your agency, we’ll use our Fuse marketing automation platform as an example.
Within our platform, we have a content library of marketing campaigns that enable agencies to send communications to their book of business through automated emails, text messages, and direct mail.
There is also a feature called Pipeline Journeys, which empowers agencies to use a pre-set journey that agencies can use to send right-time, right-place messages at key milestones.
Each of these Pipeline Journeys consists of different messaging that will send out depending on which stage of their journey they are in, so your agency can simply manage the high-level process while communications are automated for you in the background.
This enables your team to follow-up on sales or service requests related to the journey you’ve established, and instead of having to manually email or reach out to the clients in that category, the system uses AMS data and smart automation to simply send out messages when it makes sense based on the parameters you can set.
Using a system like Pipeline Journeys puts your agency in the driver’s seat, but instead of having to do all the busy work that automations handle, you are simply giving the direction and engaging with clients who follow-up with you so you can carry on a one-to-one conversation.
In the end, your client journey is only as powerful as the technology solutions you have to back it (and your team) up. With this advice, you’ll have what you need to map out a client journey that can make a true impact on your business, all while empowering you to be an advocate and consultant for your clients.
If you want to learn more about leveraging marketing automation to improve your client communication, be sure to read our guide on Email Marketing Best Practices for Insurance Agencies.
Want to learn more?
If you’re ready to take the next step, our complete insurance marketing platform offers the tools and features your agency needs to stand out and succeed.
From marketing automation that keeps you connected with clients and boosts retention, to insurance websites designed to drive growth, and a suite of marketing tools to meet your needs, Agency Revolution is everything you need after your AMS.
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