Does your trucking insurance agency leverage telemarketing to set profile appointments with demographically selected prospects in your target geographic area? 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) in profile citations per month? And if your trucking agency isn’t taking advantage of an appointment-setting initiative, why are you ignoring this pipeline-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 owner operators, small fleets or large fleets) talk to you about their insurance needs? What do you bring to the table that is especially helpful to these target prospects? You may need multiple versions of your call script, especially if your prospects range from owner operators to fleets with 50 or more horsepower. And you must have a list of the 10 most common objections, with answers, to improve the effectiveness of the calls. For example, do you insure tow trucks, ambulances or tow trucks? These and other questions/objections and answers should be made available to assist appointment setters.
- Prospect List: Your agency needs to use an up-to-date list of DOT prospects with fleet size and X dates. If you don’t have one, there are many sources that offer them (ranging in quality from adequate to good). Remove your active customers and prospects from this list, and keep in mind that doing it monthly or quarterly is often better than an annual pull, depending on target geography, X dates, and fleet size.
- Lead Management: Even the best leads won’t be able to 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 setter: Last but not least is the quote maker. His date maker will make or break the lead from him. And one of the challenges of some agencies revolves around the hiring, management and training of this resource. Additionally, most agencies will only hire one person who sets the appointment, and industry standards show that only one in three callers is likely to be successful in this challenging position. At a minimum, your citation maker should have:
- telemarketing experience
- Truck insurance experience (or training)
- Training and practice of call scripts
- Lead management training
- a professional behavior
- Ability to consistently deliver your ringtone (over 20 times per hour)
Trucking agencies with enough time, tools, and talent can bring this lead generation initiative in-house. Those agencies that can’t should consider outsourcing this opportunity to a competent trucking lead generation company.