Point/Counterpoint: Is 24/7 Service Necessary?

Is it necessary for your agency to offer regular extended hours of service?

YES.

As an independent agent for the past nine years, I have discovered that being available at odd hours is very important to clients.

Especially when you’re early in your career, you need to do everything you can to differentiate yourself. Don’t be a typical 8 a.m.-5 p.m. kind of agent—there are plenty of those out there already.

At a time when consumers are accustomed to instant service, making yourself available 24/7 is important—and you can find creative ways to stay in control of that relationship.

For example, if a client calls you during a time when you can’t answer, send them a text in response. They’ll appreciate that a lot more than a call back the next day.

I don’t believe in outsourcing for many reasons, but mainly because sacrificing the personal touch I provide to clients means missing an opportunity for growth. At most, personal lines clients should be able to make payments and file claims directly with their insurer, but I feel that it’s important for the agency to handle the rest.

Small commercial is a more difficult equation. My focus is large commercial, and most of my personal lines business comes from my commercial clients.

I believe dedicating one agency employee to focus strictly on small commercial solves this problem. This year, we started a new position and trained one of our in-house employees to do just that, and so far, it’s been a success.

—Rene Hernandez, producer, CPC Insurance in Oklahoma City

NO.

We want to be as adaptable and forward-thinking as possible in order to accommodate the needs of our clients. But staying open outside normal business hours is not necessary for our agency.

Our brick-and-mortar location is only open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. However, our agency embraces technology to communicate with our clients both inside and outside that timeframe in times of crisis.

Our upgraded phone system sends voicemails directly to our cell phones so we can handle them accordingly. Our clients Facebook message us, text us, email us and go to our website to communicate with us at all hours. Our team is also available to set after-hours appointments by client request.

We also monitor data from phone system reports, our website, the internet and more to see if offering 24/7 access makes sense, and right now, it does not. We revisit this topic on an ongoing basis. At this time, however, while our clients may expect to reach us in times of emergency or crisis, they do not expect the agency to stay open beyond traditional business hours.

At the end of the day, we have to do the best we can with the resources we have at our disposal. The cost of extending our operating hours is currently not worth the investment when we can leverage technology to be available to our clients when they need us.

—Lisa Lemanski, agent and operations manager, Meiers Lombardini Lemanski Insurance in East Lansing, Michigan