It’s always cheaper and less time consuming to sell to your current customers and increase their Lifetime Value (LTV), than to acquire new customers. That’s why uncovering and executing on insurance cross-selling opportunities is vital to the health of your insurance agency sales performance.
Not sure where to start on your cross-selling strategy? We’ll cover the basics in this article. We’ll start with a conceptual understanding of the value of cross-selling and how to understand your customer’s needs and gaps so you know what insurance policies they need that they don’t currently have. We will also cover cross-selling strategies like policy bundling and providing social proof.
The Value of Insurance Cross-Selling
You’ve probably heard of The Pareto Principle: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. With the amount of time and money it takes to acquire new customers, it just makes sense to focus more attention on the long-term customers that statistically add more to your bottom line.
What if you could provide existing customers with information that would encourage them to take action, like switching their remaining insurance policies or buying a new one? That would be wildly more productive both from a time investment and customer LTV (lifetime value), since you don’t need to sell them on your agency (which you successfully did by selling them the first policy), but rather on deepening their relationship with your agency. That’s exactly what cross-selling does.
The larger your client base is, the larger your opportunity is to cross-sell to your customers. You can use this information to proactively offer them products that fit their needs. Insurance cross-selling is a popular strategy because It’s anywhere from five to 25x cheaper to retain an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one.
Understanding Your Customer’s Needs
We just mentioned that having access to your customer’s needs is critical to an effective insurance cross-selling opportunity. But just having this information isn’t enough. You need to thoroughly understand what insurance policies your customer needs, or that they could benefit from based on criteria like homeownership, number of cars, number of family members, and their age.
A Deloitte study shows that 60% of insurance consumers feel like their agents do not offer any value after the initial policy purchase. Take the time to check in with your customers regularly to keep a finger on the pulse of what’s going on in their lives. This could unlock some valuable cross-selling opportunities.
Find out about any changes to their property or any major life events going on, like a new baby or a son or daughter getting their learner’s permit. By asking these simple questions you can get a firm grasp of what additional or updated insurance policies your customers need.
After asking these questions and learning about your customer’s unique needs, it becomes much easier to offer them additional insurance policies that they need, not just want. It also allows you to recognize cross-selling opportunities you might have previously missed when they first signed on as a customer.
Insurance Policy Bundling
Insurance policy bundling is the most commonly used insurance cross-selling strategy since it provides immediate value to your customers through a savings which is often significant. A significant savings through insurance policy bundling is a big factor in an insurance customer’s decision to stay with an insurance provider for years, or even for life. Popular insurance policy bundles include combining home insurance and auto insurance, renters insurance and auto insurance, or adding on a life insurance policy.
By bundling insurance policies together your customers are able to save more money than if they purchased separate policies through different insurance agencies for their home and auto insurance or life insurance. Plus it’s only natural that you trust an agent who has years of experience caring for all your needs.
Whenever possible, you should offer your customers insurance policy bundles that can save them money while also providing all the coverage they need. The more value you offer your customers the happier they will be, and more loyal they will be to your agency.
Provide Social Proof Via Case Studies and Testimonials
Did you know that 79% of consumers say they trust website reviews just as much as a recommendation from a friend or family member? Incorporating reviews and testimonials into your website is a great way to show your customers how you’ve saved other clients money with bundled or upgraded insurance policies. Ask some of your best clients to write a testimonial on why they choose to stay with your business, and give all your customers the opportunity to leave a review on your website or social media pages.
For a more in-depth demonstration of how successful you can be at saving clients cash, write up case studies for some recent scenarios where you’ve been able to improve coverage and create discounts. These case studies and testimonials are known as “social proof.” Employing these tactics can help build your credibility and reinforce the customer’s trust in you. Since only 3% of buyers say they think salespeople and marketers are trustworthy, you can use all the help you can get.
Social proof is a great sales tool and selling strategy, but it’s even better when it’s at work out in your community. When your customers are happy with your services, they will talk about it. Whether that’s to their friends, family members, neighbors, or online via Google and Facebook reviews. Point being, do good by your customers and they will do good by you, and that social proof will become your best sales tool and strategy, and one that you don’t even have to manage.
Automated Email Marketing
Next to the phone, email is probably your best tool for reaching out to your current customers. Since it’s so easy to use, many businesses are using automated email through their insurance CRM to reach out to existing customers who could benefit from an additional or upgraded insurance policy.
Since these emails are automatically sent out based on set criteria, you can automate campaigns and not lose out on any potential opportunities. Plus it allows you to narrow down your email marketing list with ease, making sure you reach out only to those who meet the criteria that’s most important to your bottom line.
Uncovering Insurance Cross-Selling Opportunities With InsuredMine
InsuredMine is an insurance CRM that has a robust offering of automated reporting and analytics features that make uncovering insurance cross-selling opportunities a breeze. Specifically, an automated breeze.
Automated reporting and analytics is one of its most powerful features for insurance agencies as it allows for the ability to track your customer policies across all insurance types that your agency provides.
InsuredMine also provides a comprehensive list of insurance cross-selling opportunities that can generate thousands each month for your agency. In fact, once you’ve set up InsuredMine to find missing or unprotected insurance policies for your customers, it will do all the work on autopilot going forward. That includes sending out email marketing to your current customers so they know just how much they can be saving when they bundle their insurance policies with your agency.
Insurance agencies of any size can enjoy cross-selling amongst all their products and services with ease using InsuredMine.
Try InsuredMine for Free Today
Now that you understand the value of insurance cross-selling, and how to go about uncovering and executing on cross-selling opportunities – the next step is to bring on the insurance CRM that is best suited to boost your insurance agency sales. Come see the difference that the #1 Insurance CRM on the market makes when it comes to your insurance agency sales and insurance cross-selling. Try InsuredMine for free today.
