Last week I looked at the websites of 9 local brokers to see what they had to say. If you haven’t seen the post; check it out here.
I looked at their general positioning, although there were 3 comments with some some more specific detail that I said I’d look at a little further. Here they are again:
- “We specialise in general insurance products and we are not a call centre!”
- “We give each of our clients a dedicated point of contact who is supported by their colleagues in the commercial team.”
- “We’re used to removing the jargon to make sure you get cover that’s right for you – and that you understand”
Let’s take a look at each in turn.
- “We specialise in general insurance products and we are not a call centre!”
This essentially has two parts. A) “We specialise in general insurance”, and B) “we are not a call centre”.
Now part (A) – though it may very well work well (I’ve not tested it) – does set a few warning bells ringing for me, but I feel part (B) is on to something. I’ll explain why for both.
First, (A) just seems inherently odd to me. How can you specialise in something general? To the average person, is a ‘specialist generalist’ not an oxymoron?
“I am a Jack of all trades, but I’m the best Jack of the lot!”
Of course it is clear what the broker is trying to say (I think). They are insurance specialists. And they can cater for all your non life-insurance needs.
So they are not so much a jack of all trades, but a jack of everything insurance.
My uneasiness with this is three fold –
First, we expect you to be an insurance specialist, after all, you are an insurance broker – so no need to tell us that (though you would be wise to prove it with testimonials!).
Second, I’d be sceptical that the term ‘general insurance’ turns your target audience on, but it might. (120 Google searches last year in West Sussex)
And third, if you are a specialist in ‘general insurance’, does that mean that you cannot cater for my specialist needs?
Potential clients who are looking for a more tailored solution are likely to walk away right there.
To avoid this potential confusion we might say something like:
“As your local insurance broker, we have the solution for all your insurance needs”
And if they call about life insurance we can just connect them to a partner company, potentially for a referral fee.
Now I do like Part (B). Why?
From a business perspective there are simply too many brokers phoning companies and it is causing businesses serious headache. I’ve even written a post on this here – ‘Insurance Telemarketing is Dead, Long Live Insurance Telemarketing‘.
It would be great if we could make this comment even stronger, perhaps; “We will never cold call you. Ever.”
From a consumer perspective (and we are all consumers), we hate being connected to useless call centres. We want to be put through to someone intelligent who we can understand, and who understands us.
This leads us neatly onto comment 2:
2. “We give each of our clients a dedicated point of contact who is supported by their colleagues in the commercial team.”
I like this because rather than just saying, “we offer a personal service”, it goes into a little more detail about the level of service you can actually expect from this broker. A dedicated point of contact is a good start.
Most brokers offer this of course, but I only spotted this comment on one site of the 9. For the prospect comparing brokers side by side, if personal service is what they’re after; I’d wager they’d call this company before the other 8.
Can we make this any stronger? Yes we can (if your service policy allows it!). Here are some ideas:
Do your dedicated contacts give out their personal e-mail and mobile numbers?
At what time’s can they be reached?
Do you have a manned 24/7 helpline?
How quick is your response time?
If you have a powerful service policy, then make sure you ‘show so’ on your website.
And finally comment 3:
3. “We’re used to removing the jargon to make sure you get cover that’s right for you – and that you understand”
This is great. Making tough subjects simple for those that don’t have the time to ‘get technical’ is always a very valuable service.
Take a basic term which you and I use every day: ‘Premium’.
According to BIBA this means; ‘The consideration paid for a contract of insurance.’
For most people ‘premium’ means ‘something extra’ or ‘special’.
If the client understands you then they can feel more secure, knowing that they have the right cover and that their broker is providing an excellent service. It also allows them to make informed decisions, rather than just handing everything over to their broker.
Ok so this won’t be for everyone, but there is definitely a significant market who do not want to be kept in the dark.
This of course links to transparency. If your client can understand some of the detail, they are less likely to feel that they are being taken advantage of.
To make comment 3 even stronger we could back it up with relevant testimonials and perhaps a glossary of terms that really does make insurance terms easy to understand. (The BIBA version is a good place to start but does need some work – I’ve done a copy myself – e-mail me at insurance@thekey2growth.co.uk if you are interested)
The key 2 Growth are a specialist sales & marketing agency focused on providing organic growth consultancy and solutions to the customer centred insurance broker working within the commercial mid-market space.
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