Selling Price Increases

I was in a meeting the other day with a number of insurance agency owners talking about sales and the importance of de-commoditizing our industry.  I noticed an overwhelming concern from the meeting members that inexperienced agents are focused on trying to sell strictly on price rather than presenting the value they bring to the […]

Flex Work Schedules

I came across an article about an interesting study released by Mom Corps on work schedule preferences.  After polling more than 1,000 workers, the study showed that approximately 2 in 5 people are willing to sacrifice pay for a more flexible work schedule. The study also showed that the 18-34 age group is three times […]

Creativity Quiz

Stemming from last week’s posts about creative customer service and the proper ways to hire employees to accomplish this, I came across a quiz to measure your individual creativity from Mind Tools.  The quiz is only 16 questions long, but it can provide some very valuable insight into your ability to be able to creatively […]

Training New Employees

Today we bring you our fourth installment in our series on improving customer service through your employees. Here we offer you a few detailed ideas on training your employees.  Personalize the Training Process– All of your employees are different, so you should be training them all differently. After going through the normal company training program, […]

Seeing the Big Picture

Earlier in the week we shared a post with you about steps you can take to improve your company’s customer service reputation. We followed that up yesterday with a post about Hiring the Right Employees. Today is our third part of our series on improving customer service through your employees. Here now are a few […]

Hiring the Right Employees

Yesterday we shared a post with you about steps you can take to improve your company’s customer service reputation. Over the next few days we want to share a few detailed ideas on how you can put those steps into action in your business. We’ll start with hiring the right employees, as bringing in the […]

Creative Customer Service

I noticed this article (Customer Hall of Shame), and it got me thinking about why some companies have such terrible reputations for customer service.   To me it seems that many companies get so caught up in following the correct policies and procedures that employees’ ability to creatively solve customer services issues has been taken away. […]

Commodity Image

Stop Being a Commodity

We’ve allowed ourselves to become a commodity. As insurance agents, we have allowed the online direct carriers to sell exclusively on price, and we have turned our products into commodities while it couldn’t be more the opposite. Insurance can be complicated, confusing, and frustrating. Consumers want some guidance in purchasing insurance; but, we are not […]

Generating New Ideas

In my dealings, employers generally do a terrible job of creating an environment where employees consistently are willing to share new ideas. If employees are not rewarded for their new ideas, there is a good chance they are not going to be willing to share them. Here’s what kills me: what could a really good […]