Today MSN featured the results of their worst customer service poll, which ranked companies whose service was most rated "poor" by customers.

Among the [dis]honorees:

1. Sprint Nextel
2. Comcast
3. Bank of America
4. AT&T
5. Time Warner Cable

Aside from poor service, MSN pointed out another poke in the eye: That these organizations realize how tough it is to make the jump to another provider of a similar service.

Just think about it: cell phone companies charge early termination fees, there are only a handful of cable/internet providers in a given area, and switching financial institutions is, in a word, cumbersome:

Bank of America, second on our list, can't resist making acquisition after acquisition, setting in motion a painful process for its acquired customers. Just Monday, Bank of America said it would pay $21 billion for Chicago's LaSalle Bank, a deal The Wall Street Journal said would raise Bank of America's share of U.S. deposits to 10%. The less choice you have, the less pressure companies will feel to offer quality service.

The less choice you have, the less pressure companies will feel to offer quality service.

I think this is one area where insurance companies stand apart. While there are some major captive agencies dominating the playing field, competition is alive and very much kicking in this industry. In fact, customer service is one way in which agencies—especially smaller outfits—can distinguish themselves from their competitors.

At InsureMe, we take a lot of pride in our customer service and have found the positive feedback about our service to be a great selling point when we're talking to providers about our service. You'll see our poll numbers touted on "About Us" literature (ahem, 96% "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their customer service rep), and we're fond of saying our response time rivals 911.

Of course, all of this builds brand love and loyalty. It also builds internal evangelism. Because when your customers are happy, employees are happy and motivated to keep them that way.

For more good customer service fodder, check out MSN's Customer Service Hall of Fame, which details how larger corporations train their service members to empathize with customers. It's a fun, inspiring read.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

Megan
Bio

There are exciting things afoot here at InsureMe which have been keeping us plenty busy today. So, to transition into the weekend, please enjoy this InsureMe classic:

Posted by Megan Mahan at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Jeb Bio

More and more, consumers who complete our quote application choose e-mail, not the phone, as their preferred method of correspondence.

This trend presents a unique challenge for our agents. Let me explain.

They say first impressions are essential. Over the phone or in person, an agent has many opportunities to inculcate a good first impression. You can wear your best suit. You can add a sweet-as-honey tone to your sales spiel. You can woo them with your winning smile. Moreover, you can change strategy when you realize something’s not working.

It’s much harder to make a great first impression over e-mail. For example, the closest thing to a winning smile in e-mail is this: : )

In e-mail, your typeface is a less than ideal proxy for your best flannel suit. To some degree, you can convey personality and professionalism with your font and signature, but your efforts often get stymied by the recipient’s e-mail provider.

And e-mail not only strips your formatting flourishes, it strips your speech of its natural tone, cadence and pitch.

Worse still, it’s easy to come off like a jerk through e-mail, even if you’re really a nice person offline. Seemingly minor things can aggravate your readers, like excessive use of the Cc field or poor use of please and thank you.

According to David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of “SEND: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home,” the word please “almost always comes across as obnoxious and is best to omit.” “‘Thank you,’” they say, “is appropriate to use after a favor, and snotty when used before.” Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.

Your best chance of making a good impression through your writing is to emulate the way you talk.

It’s no surprise that conversational writing is now becoming de rigueur on the web. Not only is it easier and more enjoyable to read, colloquial copy has the added benefit of reassuring a potential client that you are, in fact, a human being. No one wants to talk with jargon-spewing robot, let alone buy an insurance policy from one.

Many people falsely believe that writing must be nearly impenetrable to be considered “professional.” This falsehood is rampant in corporate America.

Apparently not everyone got the memo from George Orwell, who, way back in 1946, called attention to the ridiculousness of robo-writing when he re-wrote this famous passage from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here is the same passage, this time in corporatespeak:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

Links:
Thinkbeforeyousend.com

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Recently, Seth Godin made this observation from the point of a new customer:

Hey, I know that your last customer was a jerk. I know that you get asked the same stupid questions over and over. I know that people don't appreciate you, they're boors, they're selfish, they're in a hurry.

But, here's the thing: I'm not those people. I've never been here before. I didn't do anything wrong! Don't blame me for them.

Seth's observation brings to mind my current—and prolonged experience with Flaunt magazine. The backstory here is that I received a subscription to Flaunt for Christmas. I didn't get my first issue until February. And I haven't received an issue since.

My communications with the Flaunt service staff has left me beside myself, wondering who on earth still finds it acceptable to treat paying customers with such indifference. But nonetheless, I'm a fan of picking the lesson out of every unsavory situation, so let us begin!

5 Ways Flaunt Failed at Customer Service

1. They ignored the customer.
I sent the Flaunt customer service folks an email on February 22nd, nicely stating the problem and listing my subscriber information. I didn't hear back from anyone until April 4th. And nothing says lovin' like a six-week delay of response.

2. They didn't apologize.
When I finally got a response, the rep didn't apologize for the missing issues, for the tardy reply, or anything else. When it comes to retaining business, manners, my friends, matter.

3. They didn't fix the problem.
I still haven't received the three issues they owe me. It's maddening. (Especially when you consider that a subscription to Flaunt is $60 for 11 issues.) If you can't solve your customer's pain, at least get in touch with them to explain why.

4. They didn't follow up with the customer.
After a bad experience, you should do what you can to massage the shoulders of your hurt customer. Instead, I had to contact them again to verify that they'd sent the back issues. Which brings me to...

5. They didn't do their homework about the customer.
When I contacted Flaunt again regarding my absent issues (leaving the full thread of our past email communications in tact), the customer service rep responded as if she'd never heard from me in her life. It's impossible to remember every customer—but do a little research about your customer before issuing a generic response.

Whether you're a one agent operation, or employ a handful of customer service people, remember that customer service is the face of your agency. If you don't care about your customers, why are they going to care—or show any loyalty— to you?

The honeymoon isn't over after you make an insurance sale. Your current clients still need to be wooed. They still need to be nurtured. They are, in essence, the low hanging fruit that shouldn't be ignored.

Your turn:

How do you deal with poor customer service interactions within your agency?

Posted by Megan Mahan at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
 

People watching has always been a favorite pastime of mine. People are never boring. They’ll always surprise you.

I often feel a little shame when I do it, though. Sitting at the coffee shop window watching passersby, one feels like bit of a voyeur.

Of course, there is a line that separates human curiosity from voyeurism. (Unlike Jimmy Stewart, I don’t use a telescope.)

Anyway, it was inspiring to read a post on Marketing Profs by Lewis Green about watching people in order to become a more effective marketer and salesperson. Lewis wrote about his experience observing people at the airport. (Perhaps the best people-watching venues in the world are airports.)

It bears repeating that the best salespeople are keen observers of human behavior. They’re aware. They pick up physical cues. They look for clues in a person’s posture, dress, and tone. They know when a smile is real or fake. They know when their pitch is working and when it’s not.

Less effective salespeople are more detached. Less interested in others, they’re more concerned about themselves and closing the sale. They have a spiel and façade that don’t change. That spiel may be compelling and the façade impressive, but they’re static. Less effective salespeople don’t read each situation and adjust accordingly. A lot of the time this approach works. Except when it crashes and burns.

The point is that the world—the airport, the grocery store line, the coffee shop—is the saleperson and marketer’s laboratory. If you’re not observing, you’re not improving.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
 

You're about to embark on part two of The Anatomy of Successful Web Sites: Building Trust to Earn Business, as published in the March issue of the TAAR Report. To read part one, just click here.

Critical moments are those at which your visitors get stuck. And when visitors get stuck on your site, they bail and move on to the next site. Maybe to your competitor’s.

Common critical moments include:

• Trying to figure out your web site menu
• Filling out a quote, registration, or contact form
• Wondering whether it’s safe to provide personal information
• Finding information or an answer to their question
• Trying to contact a human

According to Hot Text, “If users fail in these tasks, your site fails.” By assessing the critical moments of your site, you can better anticipate a visitor’s needs as they navigate through it.

If you’re unsure where your site’s critical moments occur, free software is available to help you track users’ movements on your page—where they spend the most time and at which points of the site they drop off. Downloadable products like Google Analytics (free) and CrazyEgg.com (free with trial version only) will even compile reports and graphs so you can easily identify where your best customers came from and which obstacles are preventing you from achieving your targeted site conversion.

The ROI of a Trustworthy Site

The study looked at larger companies like Dell, Fidelity and Staples, all of which are famous for doing business via the internet. Of 145 respondents with annual revenues of $200 million or more, 95 worked on a significant site redesign in 2005.

The top business goals for these designs included:

• Improving online information
• Building brand loyalty
• Improving customer service
• Increasing online sales
• Generating more leads from better qualified channels

Sure, we’re talking about major players in the business world, but these goals are not unlike those of the small independent agency. Furthermore, when it came to site improvements in the financial services industry, certain Forrester models showed a 10% improvement in conversion rates for secure sites selling mortgage and investment products. The same sites also saw a 5% reduction in call center volume.

Conversion and call center reduction are just two elements of site ROI typically improved by a redesign, according to Forrester.

Others included:

Number of site visitors: Increased satisfaction boosted repeat visits. Beefier content also drove new visitors to the site from natural search.

Higher sales and more leads: Ease of use improved conversion and more forms are completed with full, accurate information.

Lower cost of sales: Upgraded sites become the “ordering channel of choice” for more shoppers, thus lowering the necessity for call centers and customer service.

If those aren’t encouraging highlights, Forrester also found that it took these colossal companies under a year to redesign a site. This is great news for independent insurance sites, which typically carry more limited site capabilities than traditional shopping sites. Start now and you could be sitting pretty on prospects heading into Q4 this year.

Join the Revolution

While the internet has shaped the way consumers find information and shop for goods and services, the independent insurance agency still has to find a way to earn the trust of prospects before capturing their personal information and pushing them through the sales funnel.

You can appeal to customers by creating a site that’s friendly, easy to use, and clearly displays that you’ve got your privacy and security bases covered. Address your site’s usability pain points and you’ll ensure that visitors—all of which are prospects—have a good experience. And that means more prospects and more sales…with less effort.

The customer revolution is here. Are you ready?

Posted by Megan Mahan at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

There was a great article in last week’s New Yorker about the commuting habits of American workers. The article says the average American spends 51 minutes in transit each way.

(The prize for the longest journey to the office goes to an engineer at Cisco Systems, who travels 372 miles each day to get to and from his job.)

Barring a radical new commitment to public mass transit and a reversal of urban flight, we can expect average commuting times to increase. Further, we can assume that more and more people will use their driving time as an extension of the work day—a scary thought given the data on cell phones and driver distraction.

How long do you spend commuting each way? If your commute is lengthy, what rationale do you use to justify the lost time in transit? What do you do in your car (besides pick your nose)?

Read the New Yorker article.

Leave us a line or two (or as many as you’d like) with your story.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

The New York Times has a cool calculator that lets you compare costs between buying and renting. I imagine this could also come in handy if you're thinking of renting or buying space for your agency.

At any rate, check it out here. (Registration is free.)

[Hat tip]: The Consumerist

Posted by Megan Mahan at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Part two in a two-part series. Read the first entry here.

Last week I wrote about some of InsureMe’s forays into social media marketing—notably our blogs and videos. I promised to return with an exploration of the pros and cons of social media marketing and some resources for small businesses who want to get into SMM.

So here goes...

Pros and cons of social media marketing

• It’s proven way to reach a target audience—whatever audience that may be.
• It’s fast. Set up a Typepad, Blogger, MySpace, or LinkedIn account in minutes.
• It’s cheap. Most social media platforms are free. Your only investments are your time and reputation. (I don’t intend to minimize those investments!)
• It’s an easy way to develop a web presence. No IT expertise required.

Cons

• It takes time. Like networking and marketing in the physical world, social media marketing requires time and sustained effort to yield results.


• It’s not guaranteed to work. Like traditional marketing, there are no ROI promises.


• It requires making yourself vulnerable. Anytime you put yourself ‘out there’ you risk damage to your reputation—either from self-inflicted wounds or from external sources.


• It can be overwhelming. There are many social media outlets. It can be difficult to pinpoint which one will work for you.

Since you’re still reading, I’ll assume you’re still considering adding SMM to your marketing quiver.

The best thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the various media. Below is a list of sites to check out, most of which incorporate at least one of the following elements:

Media sharing—sharing music, images, videos, articles, web sites
Professional and personal networking—creating profiles and pages and meeting people in your industry or interest area
Idea and expertise sharing—writing or commenting on a post, Listserv, wiki or other kind of open forum, recording a podcast

• Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/
• Digg http://digg.com/
• Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/
• Ma.gnolia http://ma.gnolia.com/
• MySpace http://www.myspace.com/
• Reddit http://reddit.com/
• Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com/
• StumbleUpon http://www.stumbleupon.com/
• Technorati http://www.technorati.com/
• Wikihow http://www.wikihow.com/
• Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/
• Yahoo! 360 http://360.yahoo.com/
• Yahoo! Answers http://answers.yahoo.com/
• YouTube http://www.youtube.com/

A few guidelines for social media marketing

SMM is not for the hard sale.
The language of social media marketing is more conversational than persuasive. Very few in the social media world have a tolerance for the hard sale. On the flip side, they love good content. And more than that, they love to pass that content to their friends.

As you may have noticed, we don’t use this blog to sell our leads (as great as those leads may be). We use it to add value to the InsureMe experience. We’d like to think that some of the tips we provide on this blog help you become a better agent—one who’s more likely to sell a lead purchased from us. We know we’ve hit a home run if we write a post that helps you sell an InsureMe lead and inspires you to tell your friends about this blog.

Offer something of value.
Remember, you’re trying to tap into the viral potential of the internet—the mundane and uninspired won’t cut it. If people wanted traditional, they’d be watching TV, not reading a blog or Squidoo lens. Your targets are the funny, the informative, the bizarre, the novel and the remarkable.

Play to your strengths.
As a licensed insurance agent, you’ve accumulated a mountain of knowledge that most don’t possess. That’s your competitive advantage. Share that knowledge in a compelling way—and with no strings—and you’ll develop some goodwill and likely pick up a few customers along the way.

Start conversations, add to existing ones.
Don’t treat the internet as your own personal bully pulpit. While traditional marketing has typically gone in one direction, social media marketing requires two-way interaction, as much listening as talking.

Suggested reading
In researching this post, I came across so many good sources of information on SMM. Here are just a few of the ones that stood out:

Seth Godin “Memo to the very small”
SEOMoz “Social Media Marketing, eh? Let's See What's in Our Bag o' Goodies.”
Search Engine Land “Social Media Marketing for Small Business”

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

You're about to embark on a recap of The Anatomy of Successful Web Sites: Building Trust to Earn Business, as published in the March issue of the TAAR Report. This is part of a series of posts recapping my "TAarticles."

In case TIME Magazine’s person of the year (“You”!) didn’t tip you off, we’re at the crux of a customer revolution. And the World Wide Web is almost solely responsible for it. From communication to commodities, the internet helps today’s consumer get what they need with a few clicks of a button.

The ease and accessibility of the internet has led to growing use in the financial services industry—recent Forrester Research figures showed a rise in online insurance shopping, with 72% of auto insurance shoppers using the web to find a policy. While that figure may not seem particularly noteworthy, what is surprising is that 64% of those shoppers said that a site’s ease of use was “extremely” or “very important” in their selection of an auto policy.

Successful agencies are paying close attention to that 64%, designing sites that exceed visitor expectations. Because when that happens, trust is earned. And while the web may have changed the way we find and buy goods and services, one significant sales tenet has remained constant:

Trust = Relationship = New Business.

Yep. Even on the web.

Building Trust Online

While web use and shopping are up, new reports underscore the need for the financial services industry to design sites for trust. Phishing and online fraud keep people from wanting to give out personally identifiable information like Social Security number, driver’s license number, phone number, even email address.

The reluctance to share on the part of the consumer can often cost an agent more time—filtering out fake leads and re-quoting prospects who didn’t feel comfortable providing more specific information the first time around.

Successful agencies are aware of these barriers and design their sites to deal with them from the outset, employing a variety of features most agencies don’t consider.

Successful, trust-building sites:

• Make it easy for visitors to accomplish their goal (finding information, getting a quote, etc.)
• Give resources
• Appear human
• Reassure visitors
• Are aesthetically pleasing

That last one may surprise you. After all, weren’t we taught in school not to judge a book by its cover? Newsflash: that doesn’t apply on the web.

Speaking at The Future of Web Apps last fall, Jeff Veen, Google’s user interface designer, said everything on a web site either builds visitor trust or undermines it. The startling statistic: visitors decide whether or not they trust your site in a little as one-twentieth of a second. Which is evocative of another childhood lesson: you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Of course, the aesthetics is only one part of building trust with your visitors. Successful web sites, like Miss America, bring the total package.

Ensuring Privacy and Security

As I prepared to write this article, I asked InsureMe Usability Manager David Lansdon to review a few insurance sites and tell me what was working…and what wasn’t. While he made a handful of great observations, David was most surprised by the lack of attention given to addressing privacy and security measures.

“We know that privacy and security are of primary importance to users—addressing these concerns with links to privacy policies and content explaining why the site needs certain personal information should be foremost in the minds of insurance site owners,” said David. “Combined with explanations of the measures the site takes to secure user information, visitors will be more willing to share.”

One of my favorite books, Hot Text: Web Writing That Works, offers a few more suggestions to use your security and privacy policies as trust-building tools:

Write a privacy policy that’s easy to understand. Spare heavy legal terminology and instead tell visitors how you’re going to protect their valuable info.

Give visitors reason and reward. If you need personal information from a visitor, tell them why—and how it will benefit them.

Don’t pontificate. Keep your security and privacy policies free of marketing hyperbole. It gets in the way of the important stuff.

Make a big deal when a screen goes to a secure server. Let users know when they’ve switched to a secure (https://) server and they’ll be more willing to give you the information you need.

In truth, most of your visitors won’t read your full privacy and security policies. But clearly displaying links and logos will encourage your visitor as they explore your site and build the kind of customer confidence you need to covert the prospect to a new sale.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
 

Boy, there were lots of juicy morsels waiting for me in my feed reader this morning. But in the end, it was a tidbit from MarketingVox that stood out from all the others.

The headline: Companies Ignore Half of Customer Emails

A recent customer service study by Hornstein Associates, a Connecticut-based marketing firm, found that only half of the companies studied bothered to respond to customer emails at all—which is down from the 86 percent high from five years ago. Furthermore, only 33 percent of top firms responded to customer emails within a 24-hour period. This is down from a whopping 63 percent in 2002.

The survey studied the email response rate of 49 top firms, including Microsoft, Toyota, Apple, Starbucks and Wal-Mart, which were selected from Fortune's list of most admired companies.

Well, you might be thinking, these are enormous companies. Of course they can't respond to every customer email.

Can't they? Scott Hornstein of Hornstein Associates disagrees:

I think we've got plenty of infrastructure, we've got more technology than we know what to do with. The problem is there isn't a strategy in place that says it's important to treat the customer well. We keep recreating the wheel, bringing new customers in to take the place of those who've had bad experiences and leave.

Robin Ritchie, a business professor at the University of Western Ontario, said the survey results were disappointing but not surprising. While good companies will openly solicit and respond to feedback (the good and the bad), Ritchie said most firms put their money towards into things like advertising instead of customer service support.

"It's the practical reality of the short-term focus of business," said Ritchie.

Of course, what these companies seem to be forgetting is that customer service needs to be built into long-term branding efforts.

InsureMe isn't a company of grandiose proportions. We have roughly 70 employees. But we understand the importance of hearing and validating our customers' emails. Leave your phone number and we'll probably give you a call as well. Why?

1. It's the right thing to do.
2. It's one of the easiest ways to squelch the flames of a ticked off customer. (Especially when you follow up with a phone call.)
3. We genuinely care about giving our customers—agents, affiliates and insurance shoppers—the best possible experience.

Don't have time to answer incoming emails yourself? Throw some money at the problem—hire someone respond to customer emails. Or, create an alternate email account for customer emails and make it a point to read and reply to those emails at the end of each business day.

[Related posts]:
What Does Your Email Font Say about You?
7 Tips for Email Marketing Campaigns
7 Surefire Tips to Avoid Flaming

Posted by Megan Mahan at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Part one in a two-part series. Read part two here.

First, some definitions are in order.

Let’s start with the term social media. Social media are web sites that, among other things…

• Promote sharing. Examples: YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, and Reddit
• Build communities. Examples: MySpace, Facebook, MeetUp, LinkedIn
• Advance conversations. Examples: blogs, wikis and pretty much any site that has a comments section

The most widely known social media site is probably MySpace. If you don’t already have a MySpace page, the chances are good that your son, daughter, boyfriend, girlfriend, college roommate, spouse, or pet has one.

Depending on whom you ask, social media sites are either the progenitor or the progeny of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’ phenomenon. They have a democratic structure and rely mostly on user-generated content.

Social media marketing, or SMM as it’s known in nerd circles, capitalizes on the popularity and interconnectedness of social media networks.

Wikipedia: “The SMM goals will be different for every business or organization, however most will involve some form of viral marketing to build idea or brand awareness, increase visibility, and possibly sell a product or service. SMM may also include online reputation management.”

As it happens, InsureMe has engaged in some social media marketing—namely with this blog. Designed primarily to promote interaction with clients and spur conversations about the business of insurance sales, our blog also serves a marketing purpose. It generates brand visibility, builds trust and goodwill toward InsureMe and also keeps us on Google's radar screen.

Our now shuttered video operation, in which we made a rather silly video each week and posted it on YouTube, was also an exercise in social media marketing.

Our other notable foray into SMM involved an admittedly bizarre concept, particularly for an insurance lead provider: we created a fake Scandinavian band called Aurora Borealis. (You can check out Aurora Borealis’ MySpace page here.)

The idea behind the weekly videos and band spoof was to create a viral campaign to generate visibility for InsureMe. Our videos were quite successful in that effort. According to our online marketing guru, James Omdahl, our movie archives receives a few thousand visitors each month.

The campaigns were also designed to serve a search engine optimization (SEO) purpose: the more times people passed a link to an InsureMe video, the more Google and other search engines took note of InsureMe. In fact, many see SMM as an extension or kind of search engine optimization.

One of the attractive aspects of social media marketing is the low barrier to entry. It takes minutes to set up a blog or comment on someone else's. Roll the camera, upload your footage and you can be on YouTube in no time. Your very own MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn accounts are just a few clicks away.

While it's relatively easy to get into SMM, it's not a sure thing. It takes work and involves risk. In the next post I'll talk about the pros and cons of social media marketing and offer resources for small business that want to explore this emerging marketing method.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
 

As a person who writes for the web, dabbles in web site usability, and has an overall love for pleasing aesthetics, I always chalked up my dislike for crazy fonts to personal preference, much like my love of green olives on pizza.

But I'm not alone, according to a recent analysis conducted by the Wichita State University. In fact, the usability study found that intricate fonts are unprofessional and therefore deemed untrustworthy by the reader of your email, web site or blog.

While some of us find this analysis fairly obvious, it's quite clear that some folks don't. I've received a plethora of emails from industry professionals with borderline hideous email fonts and signatures. We're talking flowery, near-illegible fonts that strain the eyes and hurt the head.

Your best bet?

Can the crazy fonts and stick with a simple Arial or Times New Roman 9 to 11-point font when it comes to electronic communications. Both of those fonts are easy to read in various screen resolutions and web browsers.

For more font analysis, check out the full Wichita State University report.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

How do people read your site’s images?

Are they fresh in an approachable, homemade sense or are they stale in an amateur, point-and-shoot sense? Are they clean and professional or cold and corporate?

Most people agree that web site images are important, but they believe their importance stems merely from the fact that people don’t like to read text.

In reality, images serve a more important function than providing a respite from copy.

While people are indeed reluctant to read the written word, they voraciously ‘read’ photographs. They interpret them within a fraction of a second and make judgments on the worth of the entire site—and business—based on those interpretations.

When it comes to web site imagery, looks can kill. They can kill conversion, that is. So it’s important to make sure the quality and content of your site’s photography helps your cause.

5 Things to Keep in Mind When Selecting Photographs for Your Web Site

One. Select images that reflect your company’s values, products and approach to customer service.

Two. Images should also reflect the tone of the copy. If your copy and imagery are discordant, you’ll come across as schizophrenic and untrustworthy.

Three. Like phrases, images can become clichés. Don’t use the same tired ones you’re used to seeing elsewhere. If you pay a little extra to use stock photography, make sure you avoid the generic.

Four. Go easy on the gloss. Today’s shopper is more jaded and cynical than ever. They’re used to seeing—and are often resentful of—slick, superficial photography. Instead of conveying something of value to the consumer, such photographs serve to artificially pump up the company’s high regard for itself.

Five. Convey a blend of professionalism and uniqueness with your web site’s images. If you go to the professionalism extreme, you risk looking like the guy in the grey flannel suit. Go to the uniqueness extreme, and you end up looking like your crazy uncle Ralph.

Still not convinced of the importance of good photography? Check out these before and after pics from 37 Signals’ blog.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

Television advertising. In the financial services sector, it brings to mind two things:

1. Big, expensive ad campaigns
2. The kind of low-budge ads running on public access channels at 3 AM

If you haven’t gotten into television advertising, the abovementioned is probably why. You don’t have the funds to launch a campaign of Geico-sized proportions, and you refuse to settle for those nerdy—and still costly—late night ads.

Spotzer is just one up-and-coming company who’s working to make TV advertising affordable for everyone. How does Spotzer cut costs? By creating quasi-pre-packaged air spots that buyers purchase, and then adapt with various images and voiceovers to fit their specific needs.

According to Springwise, Spotzer also keeps costs down by employing the following innovations:

• Using excess spaces at large production studios and creating a batch of commercials at one time—using the same resources (like actors) traditionally required for as single commercial shoot.
• Purchasing unused footage from ad agencies and film schools.
• Accessing the BBC’s image and video archive. (Hello, cool retro images!)
• Creating an online platform to allow freelances and amateurs to contribute footage.

Keep your eye on Spotzer. This is a pretty exciting and inventive space, from which smaller businesses could well profit.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

Giving Thanks
It’s time to give thanks that we’re not in the college admissions process.

Some of you may have children who are currently in this dreadful process, waiting, in agony, for word from colleges. You have our sympathies here at the Agent Blog.

Tech Tip 1
Check out this incredibly cool and useful tool that lets you send voice recordings from your phone to your e-mail account. It’s called Jott and it may change your life.

Tech Tip 2
Recently I posted about our increasingly passwordy world. In the comments to that post, the founder of PassPack, a free online password storage service, put in a word for her product. As it happens, I decided to give PassPack a try. The verdict? It’s pretty cool.

NBTOB: New Blog on the Block
There’s a new blog in town. We at the Agent Blog welcome the arrival of the Insurance Industry Blog—the new effort from the indispensable Insurance Information Institute. I’ve already added it to my trusty RSS reader.

Life Tip 1
Don’t let success go to your head—you may end up a real jerk. Here’s proof.

Life Tip 2
While you’re not letting success go to your head, make sure you don’t develop an anxiety problem.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

I had a bit of déja vu after hearing about the hurricane predictions from 2007. The consensus: we'll have a "very active" hurricane season. But unlike last year's predictions, this year's have some teeth by way of figures.

The atmospheric science experts at Colorado State said there's now a 74 percent probability that at least one minor hurricane will make landfall along the U.S. coast.

Furthermore, the CSU team said we're likely to see:

• 9 hurricanes
• 17 named storms
• 85 named storm days
• 40 hurricane days
• 5 intense hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5)
• 11 intense hurricane days

According to this Insurance Journal report, El Nino is once again the basis for annual hurricane predictions. The above figures have increased since December, "due largely to the rapid dissipation of El Nino which as occurred over the past couple of months."

Check out the IJ article here, and be sure to scroll down to read the comments. After last year's uneventful storm season, it would appear that some folks are pretty skeptical of said scientists. I've got some doubts of my own. I mean, we can't even get a decent weekly weather forecast in Denver. :)

Posted by Megan Mahan at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
 

The modern era witnessed the rise of bureaucracies— bureaucracies in government, corporations, schools, hospitals and even churches.

In many cases, these complex administrative systems brought welcome efficiency and consistency. Paradoxically, though, they also brought incredible waste and cold monotony.

When it comes to customer service, bureaucratic processes can be assets or liabilities. The key for anyone in a service role is to know when such processes are helping and when they’re hurting both your cause and the customer’s.

Here are a couple of examples of when to skip the process:

1. When your customer/client has a question or request that can be taken care of quickly and painlessly.
2. When you’ve got a pathologically disturbed, obscenity-shouting customer and you just want to get off the phone.

Here’s an audio example, courtesy of Wired, of what happens when a customer service rep ignores both of these examples. Wired describes the exchange as “a battle royale between the rank idiocy of an angry man who can't figure out how to press a power button, versus the institutional incompetence of a support system that can't tell him how to do exactly that without climbing a pointless mountain of customer verification bureacracy.”

Disclaimer: this recording is not for the faint of heart. It is full of obscenities.

Posted by Jeb Foster at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
 

A new report from Forrester Marketing came out last week, assuring the marketing community that email marketing is still an effective means of reaching consumers.

While email click-through rates haven't changed since 2003 (they're still hovering around five percent), Forrester says email recipients and are web retailers' best customers—they found that consumers who bought products advertised via email spend 138% more than "typical non-readers."

Email advertising is enticing to most marketers for a couple reasons:

1. As Forrester points out, email provides near-universal penetration: 97 percent of consumers and 94 percent of marketers use it.
2. Email is a fairly simple way to contact past and present customers about your offerings.

Nonetheless, if you're thinking about putting together an email campaign, there are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Make sure an email marketing campaign is right for you. The adage, "Would you jump off a bridge, too?" comes to mind here. Email marketing in the insurance vertical can be tough—make sure to identify your objectives from the outset and make sure email marketing can help you achieve them.
2. Deliver something valuable. Whether you're sending out a monthly newsletter or a reminder to shop their insurance again after six months, pinging consumers with valuable information will have a more favorable impact (read: intruder v. helping hand) than filling their inboxes with cleverly disguised SPAM advertisements.
3. Allow recipients to opt out of future emails. Yes, even to newsletters. Not allowing recipients to opt out of future communications is a major no-no. Make sure to include an "unsubscribe" or "opt-out" link at the bottom of all emails. And, for added comfort, make sure to include a note about privacy. Something stating that you won't give or sell their information to a third-party can give the user a warm fuzzy—and might keep them from opting out.
4. Work with a reputable mass emailing company. If you're sending your communication out to more than a few customers, you'll probably want to work with an outside company to help you coordinate your efforts. The creative team at InsureMe has some experience here. I asked our Director of Marketing, Lori Reed, to share her biggest lesson learned from working with a mass emailing company:

   I can’t speak for all mass mailers, but we were under the mistaken impression that they would carefully guide us on what to do, and when to do it. I was rudely surprised to see on a Sunday night that our emails, sent from the mass emailer’s servers, were blacklisted by some major companies, including AOL, Yahoo and MSN. I thought the third-party would have contacted those companies and stopped the mailing before it did any damage. They didn’t. I'd say they warned us about such an event, but they didn’t intervene on our behalf.

   The good news was AOL (et al) didn’t blacklist our company’s emails sent from our internal servers, but they had our name and we were very concerned that they just might...and then we would have been out of business.

   Take heed, y'all. Take heed.



5. Track and measure your performance against your goals. Don't stop at measuring the number of opens you get. EmailLabs recommends implementing a classic A/B test for your email campaigns, the results of which can even show you which day of the week draws the most clicks and which subject lines are all-out tire kickers.
6. Get acquainted with email laws—and work within them. U.S. federal law has enacted the CAN-SPAM law to keep consumers safe from unscrupulous online marketers. Be aware of these laws and work within them—not doing so can get you in some serious hot water.
7. Preview your email before it's sent. You need to see exactly what your recipients are going to see—before the email is sent. If you're outsourcing your email campaign, make sure you get to see the final product before it's sent out across the intarweb.

Personally, I fall on the skeptical side when it comes to email marketing, and maybe that's because we've had some problems with it in the past. But I agree that it can be lucrative if you outline your goals from the outset, do your research, and partner with a reputable mass mailing company.

For more tips on email marketing, head over to the EmailLabs Resource Center. I was impressed with what I found there.

Posted by Megan Mahan at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)