Insurance Marketing: How to Get a Handle On Your Online Reviews

Online reviews can be a great way for insurance agents to build trust and generate leads. And in a perfect world, you provide excellent service and the positive reviews just keep rolling in—feeding your lead generation machine as they sing your praises. But even for those who do everything right, sometimes it’s necessary to take a more hands-on approach to your online reviews. Here are a few tips.

Make asking a habit. It’s often not enough to just set up a Yelp! account and hope for the best. Sometimes you have to ask your customers for reviews directly. Build the ask into your email signature, mention it at the end of your email newsletter, put in a request over social media, or ask in person—especially whenever you help a client solve an insurance challenge.

Develop a policy for negative reviews. No matter how well you do your job, if you leave yourself open to public reviews, a few negative ones are likely to come your way. You can mitigate the stress of that by developing a policy for it before the first one strikes. Respond positively; offer a solution, a private conversation, or anything else that might improve the situation; and avoid trying to defend yourself or getting into public arguments. If you handle them right, a negative review can actually improve your standing with both the reviewer and other customers watching the exchange.

Keep on top of things. It’s important to know what people are saying about you as soon as they say it—to keep on top of negative reviews as well as to monitor what you’re doing right. Setting aside some time every day to manage and respond to your reviews is a good idea.

Keep your reviews current. You’re more likely to generate trust if consumers can see that your reviews are current. That means consistently asking for reviews, both from new and trusted ongoing clients—and working out new ways and systems to keep the reviews coming in.

A steady stream of reviews can do a lot for an insurance agent’s business—whether you have an established practice or are just starting out. Even a negative review can do a lot to show how well you handle customer service issues—and can end up generating trust in the end. Treat online reviews like an ongoing marketing project, and you’re likely to see success.

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