Campaigning and Serving

It’s political campaign season and in my house this is a subject of a great deal of attention as my wife is a political consultant.  While we discuss politics and campaigns of politicians quite a bit we also discuss the performance in office of politicians.

This morning I read an article that quoted recent polling on the lack of confidence of citizens in government at all levels.  This interested me because of the timing of the juxtaposition of political promises from campaigns and the voter’s evaluation of performance.  In short voters are dissatisfied and politicians continue to compete to out promise each other.

What does this have to do with insurance? 

In our business the campaign never ends.  We are constantly “campaigning” for new customers.  We are in the arena with other agents making claims and promises that we will do better than the incumbent.  Just like politicians!

The insurance buyer on the other hand is dissatisfied.  Every single survey conducted bears this out.  They think all agents over promise and under deliver.  They are highly skeptical and therefore reject the promises made during the “campaign” as unbelievable.   This is why, even though they are dissatisfied, they don’t switch.  Just like politics.

Most politicians are good salespeople or they wouldn’t get elected.  They are poor performers in office or they would get more done.  Fact.  Insurance agents are similar.  Good sales people.  Poor service deliverers.  Like politicians the only thing that saves them is inertia.

If voters could get better performance without politicians do you think they’d eliminate them?  I do.  I think the same thing exists with agents.  In spades.  And the market research backs me up.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Some politicos actually do perform.  And they are very popular and they get promoted.  If agents actually do overwhelm their customers with positive service they have the same opportunity.

The difference is in the coming insurance market place consumers will be able to have insurance without agents.  And they will make this election in droves.  Unless they are convinced otherwise but actual performance.

This is a very real threat to every agents business.  Most agents have no idea what their customers really think.  And most don’t deliver what they promise.  However, there is time to find out where you stand, and make the changes necessary to survive.  But there isn’t a lot of time.  Poll your customers.  Face the truth.  Change your business practices to accommodate your customer’s reality.

Time is short.  Soon customers will have more and different candidates for their business.  Will you be re elected?