How to Keep the High Tide Going into Q1 & Keep Your Clients Engaged Post AEP/OE

Keeping Up Engagement

Annual Election Period (AEP) and Open Enrollment (OE) are over, but that doesn’t mean the end to your client communications. In fact, Medicare Advantage OEP started January 1st of this year, so you want to make sure you have all of your t’s crossed and i’s dotted.

Starting Q1 Off Right

I’d venture to guess that your AEP and OE seasons were just downright insane. Your desk was swamped, your voicemails piled up, and your inbox was always full. You met with your new and old clients, but were you able to give them all of the time and attention you wanted to?

Even if you did, Q1 is a great time to reconnect with everyone, sit down, and see how they’re doing. If they’re new or have a new plan, what do they think of their plan so far? Do they have questions? Do they have your contact information handy?

Setting semi-regular meetings throughout the year with your clients is a sure-fire way to making them happier clients. They’ll get more time with you and likely will feel more connected. This can help lead to improved retention rates, higher referral rates, and will likely even lead to some cross-selling.

Conducting the Meeting

It doesn’t have to be a long meeting, but make it matter. Kevin Trokey from Q4intelligence maps out three ways to improve your meetings and make them both more efficient and effective for all parties involved. The three simple tools are:

• Always send an agenda
• Assign homework
• Send a summary email

It’s that easy.

Starting with the Agenda

An agenda is nice because it gives your clients an idea of what the meeting is for. Especially if you aren’t known for your Q1 meetings, your long-term clients could be a bit confused why one is now popping up. It doesn’t have to super fleshed out, but make sure to include the following:

• A brief synopsis of what you’re going to cover
• How long the meeting should take
• The goal of the meeting

This will help your clients better prep for the meeting and think of any questions they might have ahead of time. Plus, this shows your respect for their time. You know it’s easier to schedule out your day/week when you have a ballpark idea for how long something’s going to take—your clients feel the same way.

Assign Homework

Not all of your meetings will require this step, but keep it in your back pocket to help your future meetings with that client be more effective. Really, this is in both your and your client’s best interest.

You may want to rename this to “next steps” or whatever fits your brand to stay away from the negative connotation of “homework.” Regardless of how you set it up, just make sure it has a timetable attached to it.

Assigning homework for homeworks sake isn’t going to get you anywhere if they don’t actually do it. Remember, they’re not always aware if something is crucially important or not, so you need to inform them of how essential the next step is to continuing the process.

And check up with them. Their homework assignment is just as much of an assignment for you. Just make a simple task in your agency management system (AMS) to remind you to follow-up with so-and-so about their homework on X-day, and the system will do the rest of the work. This helps you stay on task, not having to constantly look for that certain sticky note.

Then, on the day-of, the task will pop up saying “follow-up with so-and-so about their homework”. It’s easy. Check out below how simple it is when you use an AMS like AgencyBloc to help you manage your workload:

Image Source | AgencyBloc

Follow-Up with a Summary Email

Again, this doesn’t have to be super long, but enough to recount the jist of what you discussed. If you did assign homework, what was it and when is it “due”?

This is both for your records and theirs to keep on hand. It’s good to have in case you need it for future meetings or for E&O, if necessary. Include other things you discussed like, they said they didn’t want X-plan or Y-plan for these reasons.

In the future, when you use your client needs assessment again and go over everything, you can discuss why they didn’t want it then but how that might’ve changed. Or, if they call you hot and angry thinking you faulted them somehow, you can pull that out and say “we discussed it on such-and-such date and you said no for reasons x, y, and z.”

I would bet that your clients will definitely thank you for the summary email post-meeting. Why? Because they have a lot going on, too, outside of their health and life insurance. The extra reminder is a nice touch because it shows you value their time, you value honesty, and that you care about sustaining that relationship.

When it comes to industries like health and life insurance, the little touches can make the biggest of differences. It’s not like you can create a new plan that no other agent could offer. Instead, the relationship and commitment you give your clients is how you set yourself apart.

They’re looking for a partner. Someone they can trust, someone they can rely on, and someone who they feel will watch out for their best interests, in good and bad times.

To prove to them you care and that you’re there means going the extra mile and adding in those extra touches.

Start your new year off on the right foot by implementing these personal touches. Set up semi-regular meetings to help you deepen the relationship with your current clients and hopefully leverage those connections for future growth.

Remember, it’s the service you provide that sets you apart from your competition. What are you doing to set yourself apart?