Did you know that it costs five times as much to attract a new client than to retain an existing one? This is especially true when selling insurance, where you have the potential to make unlimited renewal income.
According to research done by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, increasing client retention by 5% increases profits by a whopping 25% to 95%!
You should always be pursuing new leads, but the most successful agents know to scale their operation through retention and referrals.
Here are 5 things you should be doing to retain your Medicare clients:
Quarterly Phone Calls
Nothing replaces the human touch. In today’s digital world, the opportunity to speak to a human being in real life or over the phone is becoming rare.
Reach out to your new member to see if they have received their welcome letter or welcome call from the new company.
- Make sure they have received their ID card and if the correct Doctor is listed on the card.
- Check to see if they have any questions about using the plan.
- Ask if they have seen their doctor on the plan, especially if they have changed doctors.
- Check to see if they have been able to get their prescriptions filled.
- Remind them about the mail order option, if there is one on their plan.
Email Marketing
Did you know that at least 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis?
Email marketing is a highly effective online marketing strategy for sending emails to prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails convert one-time buyers into loyal fans.
You can segment your clients based on their insurance products and interests to ensure you are sending relevant content. We recommend you put together just one or two messages per month and only send emails if they are helpful.
Never send crappy emails just to check it off your list.
Greeting Cards
Who doesn’t love receiving a handwritten card in the mail?
A greeting card is like no other medium in the way it enables one person to convey their wishes and feelings to another.
Consider setting up reminders in your CRM leading up to each client’s birthday to send them a happy birthday card. You might also want to send thank you cards and renewal reminder cards.
Is your book of business so large that you want to automate this process?
These services send greeting cards for you automatically. You can personalize them for clients with logos, photos, and more.
Social Media
We all know that social media is an increasingly important part of keeping in touch with your clients, but you’ve got a business to run and only so much time on your hands.
That’s why we recommend you implement a Minimalist Social Media Strategy.
There is no magic formula for using social media to sell insurance, so it is important to be realistic in your approach. Your primary objective is building a community.
Take a moment to research one or two platforms that your clients interact with, create a consistent social media schedule, post great content, and sit down once per quarter to analyze which content yielded the most engagement.
Running a minimalist social media strategy helps you get the most out of your resources while maintaining client engagement.
Make Yourself Available
It’s almost impossible to maintain a book of business without some problems along the way, such as issues with claims or inaccurate plan documents. While these issues may be out of your control, passing the blame is almost never good for business.
When your clients contact you with a complaint, get back to them as quickly as possible and reassure them that you will do whatever you can to ensure the problem does not happen again.
Relationships are everything in the insurance industry. If you want to keep your clients, then you need to make sure you’re providing the highest level of service possible.
Conclusion
In the Medicare business, your real money is made through client retention.
You can hustle all day long during AEP, but if you are not prepared to service those new clients then you run the risk of charge-backs and member dissatisfaction.
Hopefully, you can take this list of retention strategies and implement them into your Medicare Business Plan right away.
