Hometown Quotes Experience

[DiegoInsGuy]

Just wanted to share my experience thus far with HTQ. I recently signed up with them for there Auto lead program that they just rolled out.

I turned them on Monday of this week. So far I have recieved 8 leads, 3 of which are being credited for bad phone numbers.

I have communicated with the other 5 either by phone or e-mail. I haven't closed any of them yet but feel I have a good shot of writing 2 Auto policies and a Condo out of those.

2 of the leads that were credited to me were automatically done by HTQ, I didn't have to make the request..so that was nice.

I turned the leads off at the end of the day 5:30 or so in the evening and turn them back on at about 9 am the next morning. I think I will try and just keep them on all night and see what happens. I haven't recieved any leads at all today.

I know were only talking about 8 leads here but based on my experience with other lead sources I have had to go through about 20-30 bad leads in order to talk to 1 good prospect..So I have to admit that it's really refreshing what Bob Klee and his team have going on for agents right now and I highly recommend them.

He feels that within the next 90 days or so the lead volume will increase substantially. If the quality stays the same which he says it will this will be a no brainer source for leads.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

...I highly recommend them.

You said it yourself -- eight leads. Not much of a sample to base anything on...including a recommendation.

 

[DiegoInsGuy]

You said it yourself -- eight leads. Not much of a sample to base anything on...including a recommendation.

Agreed..But if I didn't notice a substantial difference in these leads vs what i'm used to with internet leads for home and auto I wouldn't have said anything.

I'll come back after I have gone through 50-100 leads and let everyone know if things stayed the same, got better or worse.

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure if it was the type of leads I was buying from there but I couldn't wait to use up all my credits with them and get out. In my opinion the entire internet lead industry is crap. There are plenty of ways to spend your money that will give you better returns.

 

[P&CGuru]

I'm not sure if it was the type of leads I was buying from there but I couldn't wait to use up all my credits with them and get out. In my opinion the entire internet lead industry is crap. There are plenty of ways to spend your money that will give you better returns.

If I had a penny for every time a insurance agent says that there are better ways to spend your money, I would by a boat load of internet leads

seriously though, dont make a half @__ comment, name some of those ways that would yield better results and at those same Volumes.

 

[Josh]

You said it yourself -- eight leads. Not much of a sample to base anything on...including a recommendation.

In all fairness, if it took 20 leads with another company to get 1 good prospect and off of 8 he's got a fair crack at 2, plus three of them are refunded automatically, that seems like a much different tone already.

 

[CaptiveGuy]

I want to give them a shot after rough experiences from Quote Wizard and InsuranceLeads.com. They never returned my calls so I'll just use that money to drink this weekend.

 

[rJohnson9]

I also turned on the "new" program last week. I received 6 leads. All 6 had bad information (5 disconnected numbers, one person answered but it was a wrong #). I called my rep to see why I had 6 out of 6 be bad leads. She was puzzled and put a pause on my account until they could figure out what is happening.

I am excited for this program, but will need to wait until the kinks are worked out. I look forward to getting turned back on and having similar results as you.

Just wanted to share my experience thus far with HTQ. I recently signed up with them for there Auto lead program that they just rolled out.

I turned them on Monday of this week. So far I have recieved 8 leads, 3 of which are being credited for bad phone numbers.

I have communicated with the other 5 either by phone or e-mail. I haven't closed any of them yet but feel I have a good shot of writing 2 Auto policies and a Condo out of those.

2 of the leads that were credited to me were automatically done by HTQ, I didn't have to make the request..so that was nice.

I turned the leads off at the end of the day 5:30 or so in the evening and turn them back on at about 9 am the next morning. I think I will try and just keep them on all night and see what happens. I haven't recieved any leads at all today.

I know were only talking about 8 leads here but based on my experience with other lead sources I have had to go through about 20-30 bad leads in order to talk to 1 good prospect..So I have to admit that it's really refreshing what Bob Klee and his team have going on for agents right now and I highly recommend them.

He feels that within the next 90 days or so the lead volume will increase substantially. If the quality stays the same which he says it will this will be a no brainer source for leads.

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I want to give them a shot after rough experiences from Quote Wizard and InsuranceLeads.com. They never returned my calls so I'll just use that money to drink this weekend.

It can take a few days to get a call back from them. It is so frustrating that all you can get is voice mail when you call in.

 

[russelltw]

My experience with HTQ earlier this year was not with their customer service, but with the quality of medicare leads. I think I returned about 40-45% as bad (that I could reach and prove they were bad), which they credited, so I can not complain about that. It's the time wasted calling and calling only to find out it was bad data to start is what was frustrating. They also gave me a great price to try them out, so these comments are not meant to be negative toward HTQ.

Their people there have been great and I think they have been some of the easiest vendors to work with. If they and the rest of the industry can get some control of affiliates and the junk that is sent through the system to the agents, I would gladly use them and even pay double for leads if I knew I was getting someone interested right now and not someone interested 3 months ago.

With some of my other medicare leads with other vendors, I am getting telemarketed leads as "leads". Usually they are people who are on Tricare and telemarketer will not take no for an answer and then puts them in as a "lead." Then I have to spend time trying to get them to answer the phone to prove it's a bad lead.

In all fairness to HTQ, its an industry problem. I have tried others and gotten worse results (60+% returns). I just can not justify the work spent verifying the % of the leads are bad and returning them. At least Bob is trying to find a way to make it better for the agent by trying different approaches. I applaud that work.

Side note: I did use HTQ in the past for health leads and had a successful ROI.

 

[somarco]

I too have used HTQ in the past, and had very good results on major med leads . . . usually in the 6 - 8:1 ROI.

Last year I tried their Medicare leads and didn't do so well. I tried them at the first of AEP and got flooded with leads, mostly in parts of GA where my website wasn't doing so well.

That was the good thing.

The bad was, in addition to the usual issues with ANY lead, there were a lot of folks just checking their PDP to see if there was anything better. Some were looking for MA plans and a few were in counties where the PFFS was non-renewing, so I picked up some gap clients, but not enough.

Overall I barely broke even, partly because I was talking to folks in Oct and Nov about 1/1 effective dates. Even when I did write them it was going to be Feb before I got paid on a gap plan as earned.

Very hard to make a living that way even if you get a deal on the leads.

HTQ is the best lead company I have ever used, bar none, but I don't think the Medicare lead is a good business model for them or agents.

Maybe others have had better success, or Bob will provide some insight in to how it is working (or not) from their side.