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Did you know that the insurance industry has the highest new customer acquisition cost of any industry? It costs as much as nine times more for an insurance company to gain a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.

That’s why it’s so important for insurance agents to focus on keeping their existing customers happy—this may be even more important than bringing in new business. Here are three tips for keeping your customers loyal.

Streamline how you bring new customers on board

It’s essential to make a great impression from day one. If customers have a hard time navigating your on-boarding process, they may develop a negative impression that will be difficult to dispel—and make them less loyal over time.

Take a look at what happens when a new customer signs on with your company. Is it long and tedious? Is it confusing? Do they have to answer a lot of extraneous questions that have nothing to do with them?

Take some time to streamline this process and make it easier for customers to navigate, and you’ll find they’re more likely to stay loyal.

Ask your customers how they want to communicate

How do your customers like to communicate with you? Some might prefer an email, others the phone or even text. Check in on your customers’ preferences in this and other areas of your business, and think about how you can make changes to better conform to those preferences.

Many customers prefer text or email to phone these days—but if there’s a problem, they like to be able to get someone on the phone quickly. Be sure you’re easily accessible over all the communication channels your customers use most.

Do what you say you’ll do

If you have people-pleasing tendencies as so many of us do, it can be tempting to agree to anything a customer asks for on the phone—only to realize later that you can’t deliver what you promised. But this can create a bad impression.

Instead, keep a very concrete idea of what you can and can’t deliver, and be sure not to over-promise. In fact, the less you promise, the more the customer will be impressed when you deliver more than you said you would.

It might sound overly simple, but customers appreciate and notice when you do what you say you’ll do. Always be honest about your capabilities, but be sure to deliver what, when and where you said you would. It’s the fastest way to build trust and loyalty.

Retaining customers may be the single most important part of an insurance agent’s business. Follow these three guidelines, and you should see an uptick in customer retention.