Is your truck insurance agency leveraging telemarketing to set up profile appointments with demographically selected prospects in your target geography? If so, how successful are your initiatives and is there anything your agency can do to refine them? For example, are they producing 10, 20 (or more) profile appointments per month? And if your trucking agency isn’t taking advantage of a dating initiative, why are you ignoring this pipe-filling opportunity? Let’s review some of the key tips, techniques, and best practices to ensure an effective dating campaign:
- Call script: It all starts with an effective and concise script. Synthesize your value proposition. Think of it this way, if you had a 30-second Super Bowl commercial, what would your agency say to viewers? Why should truckers (whether they are homeowners, small fleets, or large fleets) should tell you about their insurance needs? What do you bring to the table that is especially helpful for these specific prospects? You may need multiple versions of your calling script, especially if your prospects range from owner operators to fleets with 50 or more power units. And you should have a list of the 10 most common objections, with answers, to improve caller effectiveness. For example, do you insure tow trucks, ambulances or tow trucks? These and other questions / objections and answers should be available to assist those who schedule the appointment.
- List of potential clients: Your agency needs to use an updated DOT prospect list with fleet size and X dates. If you don’t have one, there are many sources that offer them (ranging in quality from fair to good). Eliminate your active customers and prospects from this list, and keep in mind that it’s often better to do this on a monthly or quarterly basis than an annual draw, depending on target geography, X dates, and fleet size.
- Lead management: Even the best leads won’t close if your agency lacks a formal lead handling process. This doesn’t have to be automated, it just has to be tracked and tracked! Once an appointment has been set, which producer will manage that appointment and how will they follow up to ensure the best possible closing relationship? And of course how it will be tracked.
- Appointment organizer: Last but not least is the appointment scheduler. Your appointment coordinator will make or break your main initiative. And one of the challenges for some agencies revolves around the hiring, management and training of this resource. Also, most agencies will only hire one appointment coordinator, and industry standards show that only one in three callers is likely to be successful in this challenging position. At a minimum, your appointment coordinator must have:
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Telemarketing experience
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Truck insurance experience (or training)
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Call script training and practice
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Lead Management Training
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A professional demeanor
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Ability to consistently deliver your call speech (more than 20 times per hour)
Trucking agencies with enough time, tools, and talent can take this lead generation initiative internally. Those agencies that cannot, should consider outsourcing this opportunity to a lead generation company with trucking experience.