Most insurance brokers are keen to avoid the ‘hard sell’ when it comes to breaking the ice with clients, according to a fun piece of research we carried out recently.
Brokers told us they would prefer to talk about a client’s hobbies or interests, rather than price, cover and claims to get a relationship off to a bright start.
“It’s clear from their comments that brokers know an ice-breaker should ‘never be about me’, but ‘all about the client’,” said Johnny Thomson, who heads up Marketing and Communications at RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com. “Almost all said it’s about finding common ground and many of them told us humour is often the key to establishing a long-lasting connection.”
Funny stuff
In fact, humour seems to be a common thread among insurance brokers, with several answering our question, ‘how do you break the ice with clients?’ by saying ‘with an ice-pick!’
Another commented: “By smashing it on the counter-top and putting it in their glass.” Clever!
Another interesting perspective was a broker saying they don’t do anything to break the ice, but instead wait for prospective customers to “break the ice with us”. They added: “We generate most of our business through recommendations. It’s all about doing an outstanding job and that has served us well for more than 25 years.”
Dining out
Thoughts were shared with us by more than 40 of our top tier brokers. Five of the most creative and insightful individuals to comment received a £100 voucher each, to take a client out to dinner on us.
The ‘ice-breaker’ theme was chosen, as several of our RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com team have recently been working to develop a new broker product designed to open up conversations between brokers and their clients around risk management.
TOPRisks is a personalised risk management report that brokers can produce online in an instant for an unlimited number of prospective or existing clients. It’s a great way of starting a conversation. You can find more at www.toprisks.co.uk
Congratulations to Andrew Tanner at Higos Insurance Services, Limahl Davies at David Haskoll Ltd, Marc Brennan at James Hallam Ltd, Eddie Townsend at Marsh Commercial and Lloyd Holmes at UBT. Enjoy your meal with your client and have fun!
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