Competition is fierce in the broker world, especially when it comes to managing customer relationships. Improving client relationships can protect your business and lead to success. So, the next time you land a client, don’t stop the “selling process” –continue to execute the strategies and approaches that landed you the client while listening to their needs and deepening your relationship. This post lists five ways to help you do that—and best of all, many of client relationship management and improvement strategies also work as client acquisition strategies!
1. Don’t Underestimate Your Value
As a broker, you’re certainly faced with challenges and pressures. Healthcare laws are changing, clients are recoiling from high healthcare costs, employees are frustrated with their work environments, and you aren’t sure where the future will take you.
There’s no doubt about it—it’s easy to feel unsure and be timid as a result. But, it’s a mistake to let feelings of uncertainty and doubt hold you back from success.
A stronger client-broker relationship starts with confidence and an appropriate valuation of your skills and abilities and what you offer clients.
Correctly valuing your abilities will give you the confidence you need to consistently deliver. Clients will start to notice you’re capable of out-of-the-box solutions, and they will keep coming to you for help. This will deepen your client and customer relationships.
If you need some encouragement to get started, consider this:
• Appropriately valuing your skills and expertise starts with taking control of self-doubt. According to Dr. Gruenfeld, the Moghadam Family Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, this means honestly assessing your abilities and shortcomings.1
• You’d be surprised how freeing it feels to hold an objective and accurate appraisal of yourself as a broker. With an accurate view of your strengths and weaknesses, you have a platform to stand on, and a direction for the future—you can develop your weaknesses, turning them into strengths, and use your abilities to your advantage.
The bottom line? Clients get the best service when brokers appropriately value what they offer and feel confident delivering services, and better service cultivates stronger client-broker relationships.
2. Do your homework
If you’re like most brokers, you’ve probably wondered how extremely successful brokers do it. According to a study featured in the Harvard Business Review, preparation is one factor that differentiates top performers from their peers.
In fact, 84% of top sales reps in the business services industry score high on measures of achievement orientation, meaning they are focused on achieving goals and measuring their performance.2 However, it’s how this achievement orientation impacts their selling style, and ultimately their success, that’s particularly interesting.
Top sales reps will take time to prepare—specifically, they will spend the time necessary to understand the politics of their clients’ decision-making processes. They will then use what they learn to further prepare by creating strategies aimed at key decision makers that illustrate how the products and services they’re selling fit their clients’ organizations.
So, how can you use this information to improve your relationships with clients? Here are a few key takeaways on how to improve relationships:
Do:
• Research your clients, continually, even after you’ve onboarded them—specifically, stay on top of shifts in key decision-makers and the politics of the decision-making process
• Match what you’re selling to your clients’ organization on an ongoing basis—show them how your products or services fit within their culture and business as these entities evolve
• When introducing additional products or services, focus on how these products or services will help your clients; avoid spending too much time talking about the functionality of products
• Be curious— 82% of top salespeople score high on curiosity.2 Don’t be afraid to ask clients difficult questions to get the information you need on an on-going basis. You want to know how you can help your clients as their business and your relationship evolves, so you need to know the “truth” about where they stand as soon and as often as possible.
3. Take the “in-person” Experience up a Notch
The need for in-person conversations isn’t going to be replaced by technology. Top brokers know this and make sure to spend time with clients face-to-face to nurture their relationship with them. However, the best brokers go one step further. They listen to what their clients are saying and then they become a resource for them by publishing content that speaks directly to their needs across all their online platforms.
The result?
Clients feel special that their concerns have prompted the creation of fantastic resources, and a deeper broker-client relationship is born.
Of course, this is likely common sense to most, but it’s important to remember customer service is still the number one factor influencing client trust3, and 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better experience4.
So, taking your clients’ experience with you up a notch will pay off, providing you with an edge over the competition, and likely a stronger unique selling proposition as well as a better client-broker relationship.
Fortunately, brokers can do this without investing a lot of extra work by partnering with a third-party organization that specializes in helping brokers succeed. These organizations will have a wealth of resources that speak directly to the needs of your clients that you can adapt to fit your online presence.
For example, tax reform has affected clients offering a commuter benefits program and NYC commuter benefits. Brokers can acquire information from partner organizations about these changes and deliver that information directly to their clients.
4. Be Social with Prospects—to an Extent
We’re all familiar with TV images of the aggressive or overly friendly sales person. However, these depictions often fail to portray the success of these salespeople compared to their peers.
Surprisingly, top brokers are 30% less gregarious than their peers.2 While you need to be somewhat outgoing to connect with prospects, being too friendly can have an adverse effect on the client-broker relationship. Specifically, being too friendly can make it harder for brokers to get clients to follow their recommendations.
Remember, as a broker, your role is trusted confidant.
If it helps, think of yourself as akin to a psychologist or counselor. You want to be friendly and supportive, but you need to be able to direct conversations and give clients a reason to buy into your expertise, so they’ll take your recommendations to heart, and buy into the value of your relationship.
One of the best ways to be friendly while retaining control of conversations is to listen to what your clients are telling you and then demonstrate they’ve been heard. Approximately 91% of top salespeople score moderately high to high on measures of modesty and humility, which means they will tend to position their clients and the products and services that will help them achieve their goals at the center of conversations, not themselves.2
5. Connect Weekly or Bi-Weekly
If you’ve ever been in the position where you’re waiting for someone you’ve hired to get back to you—and you’ve started noting how many days have passed since you’ve heard from them—you know what it’s like to be a frustrated client. So, don’t put your clients in that position.
Most top salespeople (about 85% of them) are conscientious.2 They have a strong sense of duty and are very reliable. They don’t wait for clients to call them. They get in touch with clients. Regularly.
Imagine being a busy HR director—you come into the office everyday with a million and one tasks to accomplish. In the back of your mind, you know you need to reach out to your benefit brokers about a few questions you have but doing so always manages to get away from you. If only your broker would give you a call, you could check that off your list. You think to yourself—wouldn’t it be nice to have an overachieving broker that’s always on top of your needs, proactively addressing them and keeping you in the loop before you even get a chance to hit those items on your to-do list?
Yes, yes it would.
Connect with your clients regularly—once a month may be too infrequent. Try once a week or bi-weekly and follow the two organization organizational practices below. Doing so will greatly improve your relationship with clients.
• Make a list of what you anticipate each client will need, develop a plan to address those needs, and contact them with a solution that’s ready to be put in place. It may help to create a separate calendar for this. The idea is to connect with them before they reach out to you.
• Use automated emails to ask clients questions that help you understand their immediate needs each month. Clients can respond by simply clicking on a pre-designated response, such as “yes, I need help with this, contact me at [insert time/day]” or “I have a question, please call me today.”
Getting Started
Clients don’t guarantee they’ll work with you forever, so improving client relationships is part of the sales process. The tips outlined in this post are five of the best ways to improve client relationships. They’re also a great starting point for improving client acquisition. However, we understand that it’s easier to execute these tips with a partner at your side. So, before launching a plan to improve your relationship with clients, make sure you have the right resources and partners in place. Learn more about Clarity’s broker solutions today.
1. https://hbr.org/2011/04/how-to-build-confidence
2. https://hbr.org/2011/06/the-seven-personality-traits-o
3. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/10/customer-service-stats-55-of-consumers-would-pay-more-for-a-better-service-experience.html
4. https://www.zendesk.com/resources/customer-service-and-lifetime-customer-value
