Customer Service Legends – Is Nordstrom Still Nordstrom?

It is very under emphasized the importance of learning customer service skills to maintain top insurance clients. Without customer service support there is no reason for the insurance customer to give an agent additional business or referrals. See how insurance customer service skills apply to your sales. Selling insurance to a new client is never a one shot deal. Do not miss the boat.

Building insurance customer service skills begin before you leave your new client’s home. You can start this by giving your client the feeling of being able to rely on you. That means you leave all the means of receiving customer service with your client. This includes your email address, website address, business phone number, business address, and your cell phone number if you have one devoted to insurance business. You should have this all pre-printed on a note sheet you give them.

Better yet is worthwhile to have a small brochure made up with your insurance specialization on it, and describe the MAIN benefits you provide. A new client is very likely to lose a business card, but will take care to file your brochure with the new insurance policy. Here is an insurance customer service skill your competitors do not use and you should. On your brochure front-page headline print boldly, “Do not let another insurance agent replace this policy, call me first.” You would be surprised how much fear this will impose in a competitor sneaking in and knocking out your coverage. They know that attempting to do so means the policy owner may contact you, giving you the opportunity to save the work you have done. Moreover, I doubt your competitors have a similar astonishing awareness signal on their card, flyer, or brochure.

The next phase of mastering customer service skills requires the use of transparent recognition and selling. This means communicating with your insurance clients in a timely, consistent manner. There are two key ways to do this. First, is thru mailing and second is with emailing. You can pester and irate clients by too much time consuming pressure phone calling. However, it is very difficult to kill a customer with kindness. Kindness is portrayed by a genuine caring about your client, and providing helpful information.

Mailing to Clients As your insurance sales career progresses, the more valuable you will see your present clients are to you. It is not usual for additional business from the client and their family to account for 20% of your new sales. Using these two additional customer service skills of communication it will raise much higher. You determine exactly how many times a year you mail your client a card. NOT on suggesting, they buy more insurance because they are getting older. You have their birthday, New Years, Fourth of July, Labor Day to just name four. This is not overkill; always just include your card, nothing more. This lets them know you are still in the insurance business, and automatically to call you instead of someone else if an insurance need arises.

Emailing your Clients A newsletter is easy to produce. It should be used to provide clients information they may not know about. If you find it hard to write, simply use a helpful insurance, motivational, or inspirational article. Suggest they visit your revised website, and provide a link. The website is where you do your reasons why clients need and benefit from this or that insurance. Keep the communication links flowing by emails and cards. In turn, requests for additional coverage opportunities will come to you, along with a few referrals.

Customer Service Support It is amazing, that after a commission is earned how few sales people want to provide customer service. It must be, an agent thinks of a complaint as a personal attack. While the client is not always right, think of what the loss of this customer can cause. It is very true that making a client mad can cost you 20 sales. Especially if the client has internet knowledge on how to get a complaint article posted right underneath the agents internet site. I was sold an expensive excavator for my property and inquired about service support. Their feedback was negative. When I spoke to the sales agent and his supervisor about the damage I could cause with just an article, they asked me if it was a threat. I told them no, but to view it as a reality. Immediately they had an attitude adjustment. My customer service support is now being handled to my satisfaction, as the company realizes the potential reputation damage they could suffer.

Your customer does not want to hang you. You just calmly use negotiation skills. Saying, “What could I do to resolve this problem?” “Please help me by naming three things.” The problem could be a misunderstanding of coverage or premium costs, or often merely bad advice comments from a relative. Do not procrastinate to settle the problem. (I rename problems as misunderstandings) Service satisfaction actually means you now have a stronger client than you ever had. If you provide the proper support, take the challenge of turning a complaint into a selling situation. It could be as simple as an increase in term insurance premiums, where you now give a cash value and term insurance solution.

It is great to gain selling skills where you can write new policies on new clients consistently. You have to remember however that you have just laid out potential food for a preying competitive insurance agent. Treating your customers with top notch mail and email service support will keep the wolves away. Your current customers are your next top insurance clients.

Well published author, Don Yerke likes to concentrate on what you don’t know or what no one else dares to print. Tell it like it is.

Watch for his new paperback book debuting on Amazon early this summer. It is loaded with great insurance marketing and recruiting information.

Come and get your FREE “Think and Grow Rich” Ebook by Napoleon Hill instantly. The website address is http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com

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I was having a delightful conversation with a client the other day when she mentioned that she and her semi-rural neighbors “Think nothing of driving an hour or an hour and a half to get to a Nordstrom store.”

The reason: “We know we’ll be treated right when we arrive, unlike what happens when we visit local retailers.”

I smiled broadly but invisibly because we were chatting over the phone.

She was unwittingly adding to the “Nordstrom Legend.”

Lots of folks do that.

Yes, compared to her local retailers, those hard working but rather unpolished Mom & Pops, Nordstrom is still a refreshing oasis in the Sahara.

But in my view, it is not as sharp as it was in providing expert service, and it was probably never as Olympian as its legend represented.

The keystone to Nordstrom’s reputation was its commitment to guaranteeing customer satisfaction, which has eroded over time, and is today less unequivocal and comprehensive than what is offered by Costco, one of the most successful “warehouse” discount store chains.

Nordstrom Legend, often repeated in dewy eyed customer service books and articles, held that one of the company’s original stores actually provided a cash refund for a truck tire that it never sold, simply to create a happy client.

And for several years, you could get a complete refund if your white dress shirts shrunk “to doll size,” as mine did after several months of washing. I told my readers about this episode in my book, MONITORING, MEASURING & MANAGING CUSTOMER SERVICE.

However, those days have passed, at least in some stores, dealing with certain clerks, who seem to be “empowered” to not honor the guarantee, or to make it difficult to invoke. I asked a local Nordstrom associate if the policy had been altered. She whispered that some customers took unfair advantage of it and things had changed, but unofficially.

Compare this to Costco’s unbelievable offer, which ISN’T widely publicized. Let’s say you buy a $500 video camera or $3,500 plasma TV today, that you believe becomes obsolete in three years. Bring the camera or TV back, with receipt in hand, and you’ll get a complete refund.

Will they give you a refund on a $7,000 baby grand piano?

When I asked, the answer I received was, “Yes.”

It’s convenient and useful to have icons of success to which we can point, exemplars of the good, better, and best in customer service. However, it pays to check to see if the reputation still fits.

Today’s Cosco may not be tomorrow’s.

Remember that sensational Tom Peters book, IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE that came out in the 1980’s? He listed over 40 companies that were at the top of their game.

Where are they now?

Look closely, and you’ll discover most of them fell from grace, while others disappeared totally, long ago.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is the best-selling author of 12 books and more than a thousand articles. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is quoted often in prominent publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. His seminars and training programs are sponsored internationally and he is a top-rated faculty member at more than 40 universities. Dynamic, experienced, and lots of fun, Gary brings more than two decades of solid management and consulting experience to the table, along with the best academic preparation and credentials in the speaking and training industry. Holder of a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School For Communication at USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a law degree from Loyola, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies along with successful family owned and operated firms. Much more than a “talking head,” Gary is a top mind that you’ll enjoy working with and putting to use. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com
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