Money well spent

Rough Notes, Mar 2003 by Ashenhurst, John

Inexpensive advertising

Angelyn Treutel at Treutel Insurance Agency, Inc. (www.treutel.com) offered that her Web site is an inexpensive way to advertise (and more generally, market) the agency and its services. The agency uses the site to supplement agency print advertising-which is expensive and always inadequate to tell the complete agency story. Advertising leads prospects to the Web site and the Web site tells the agency story.

Treutel explained that the agency Web site makes it possible to provide 24/7 service, customer and prospect agency e-mail access, a feedback form, a quarterly newsletter and other response elements that should be part of an agency's repertoire. The Web site isn't intended to replace person-to-- person contact, but it is intended to be and does successfully function as a supplement to that contact.

The point, according to Truetel, is to give customers what they wantand that means choice-to stop in, call, e-mail, or use the Web site for information, service requests and the like. In the future, Truetel intends to provide more extensive self-service via links to carrier sites that have that functionality.

Substance rather than fluff

Peter Anderson at Anderson Insurance Services, Inc. (www.insuremass.com) aims to provide customers and prospects with what's really important and valuable to them. So, the site provides real-time customer self-service, including the ability to retrieve policy information, print ID cards, fax certificates, and enter a first notice of loss.

Anderson thinks that some agency sites emphasize information that's not particularly useful when they should focus on day-to-day substantive customer needs. Frequently, when Anderson agency customers are car shopping, they want to know the insurance implications of a potential purchase. The Anderson Web site now provides forms for customers (or prospects) to request quotes.

Although Anderson admits that his customers have not clamored for online self-service, follow-up surveys show that in fact they are pleased to have that choice and do use it. Online self-service certificate requests have been a hit with some customers. Anderson believes that prospects are more likely to do business with his agency, and existing customers will stick around because of the value the agency Web site provides them.

Individual independent agents can use their Web sites to differentiate themselves from other independent agents, but a larger issue is the need for the independent agents in general to respond to the challenges of some direct writers-that are doing a very good job of providing their customers with online self-service options.

Stage one

Warren Wheeler at Hunter Insurance (www.hunterins.com) acknowledges that so far his site receives modest visitation by prospects and customers. But some of those visits have resulted in sales. For instance, a consumer moving from Florida, looking for an Ohio agent, found the site and eventually bought insurance-with the comment that she wouldn't deal with an agency that wasn't progressive enough to have a site. A local commercial framing contractor, dissatisfied with his current agent, found Hunter Insurance through the Internet, not bothering with paper Yellow Pages. The account resulted in $30,000 in new premium to Hunter Insurance.