HometownQuotes Leads

[Crabcake Johnny]

To me, it seems rather easy to catch bogus leads coming in from a bad affiliate. Constantly sample.

Wanting to catch them - that's the point. If agents aren't returning them for credit it's a cash cow.

 

[proadvisors]

Hometown In Horrible!

Signed Up With Them Every Lead Sucks! Netquote Is Better Than Them And Netquote Isn't Great

 

[Bob Klee]

Hometown In Horrible!

Signed Up With Them Every Lead Sucks! Netquote Is Better Than Them And Netquote Isn't Great

Bob V., thank you for your kind words earlier about HTQ, Hunter & me.

Proadvisors, you don't mention what type of leads you bought but casting stones with no details makes it hard to know what the problem is. Last I checked, we don't have a limit on bogus lead credits so I'd have to ask if you submitted the leads in question for credit?

We actually work "bogus" leads that are submitted to find out the "why." Yes, we've had agents request credit & then our QC folks get the customer on the line & they say they are waiting on a quote or have already bought. We've also spotted trends due to the feedback loop [agents like yourself that request credit] and turned off those affiliates.

One way we try to avoid agents getting bad leads is every new affiliate has their leads screened up front by our QC department. Our QC department is very experienced at spotting trends that help us catch the "bad guys." We also have some real good screening tools we've developed that assist also.

We don't like to see any agent waste money or time on bogus leads, but it is a fact in our business that there will be bad leads no matter how sophisticated we get at identifying & changing our processes to eliminate them. If I could invent a filter that worked for liars & scam artists I could retire a Billionaire! But until then, for HometownQuotes.com, the best way for us to improve our quality of leads to agents, is to have folks like yourself request credit & be specific as to why the lead is bad.

If you have the time, email me or call the office & ask for me. I'd like to hear more about your experience.

I hope you find leads that work for you & help you grow your business!
bob at hometownquotes dot com

 

[PatrickJoseph]

Bob V., thank you for your kind words earlier about HTQ, Hunter & me.

Proadvisors, you don't mention what type of leads you bought but casting stones with no details makes it hard to know what the problem is. Last I checked, we don't have a limit on bogus lead credits so I'd have to ask if you submitted the leads in question for credit?

We actually work "bogus" leads that are submitted to find out the "why." Yes, we've had agents request credit & then our QC folks get the customer on the line & they say they are waiting on a quote or have already bought. We've also spotted trends due to the feedback loop [agents like yourself that request credit] and turned off those affiliates.

One way we try to avoid agents getting bad leads is every new affiliate has their leads screened up front by our QC department. Our QC department is very experienced at spotting trends that help us catch the "bad guys." We also have some real good screening tools we've developed that assist also.

We don't like to see any agent waste money or time on bogus leads, but it is a fact in our business that there will be bad leads no matter how sophisticated we get at identifying & changing our processes to eliminate them. If I could invent a filter that worked for liars & scam artists I could retire a Billionaire! But until then, for HometownQuotes.com, the best way for us to improve our quality of leads to agents, is to have folks like yourself request credit & be specific as to why the lead is bad.

If you have the time, email me or call the office & ask for me. I'd like to hear more about your experience.

I hope you find leads that work for you & help you grow your business!
bob at hometownquotes dot com

i mean realistically, arent you giving him the runaround? and your an affiliate based company...as is netquote, so realistically the quality of the leads are equivalent. the difference is in your policy. so lets be realistic, the only way that he will have success with your program is if he purchases more leads. buy 100 more leads, your bound to write a policy sooner or later! . if im wrong, correct me...i'd be glad to contact you to go over how your program is different from a "netquote"

 

[Bob Klee]

i mean realistically, arent you giving him the runaround? and your an affiliate based company...as is netquote, so realistically the quality of the leads are equivalent. the difference is in your policy. so lets be realistic, the only way that he will have success with your program is if he purchases more leads. buy 100 more leads, your bound to write a policy sooner or later! . if im wrong, correct me...i'd be glad to contact you to go over how your program is different from a "netquote"

Hey Patrick,
"Runaround?" He said "every lead sucks." I asked why. Yes we have affiliates but every lead company screens their leads differently. We turn down several 10's of thousands of leads every month as they don't meet the quality we want. Just because we use affiliates doesn't mean the quality is bad. We have pretty strict rules our affiliates must follow & if we find they don't abide by them, we terminate the relationship.

We would never encourage an agent to buy another 100 leads as he's "bound to write a policy sooner or later." We work with our agents to try & determine the real issue as to "every lead sucks." It is to our advantage to try to help the agent be successful writing leads. That way he'll want to continue buying leads from us. Like every agent here, we are interested in retention. It does us no good to put an agent on with leads today just to have him leave in a couple of weeks unhappy with the product. That is not a Win-Win.

That is why we have monthly webinars [sometimes twice a month] on the basics of working leads. That is why I take personal calls from agents [Hunter too] that are struggling to make a living and asking for help. I/we care that the agent is successful. No, I cannot write the business for you, but after 25+ years as a P&C agent owning 4 different agencies in 3 different states [CA, KY, TN] + working personally with hundreds of agents over the years...I find I usually can help by listening to what the agent is doing & offering ideas I have used or picked up over the years working with agents.

Someone said earlier that the lead "sucks" if you don't sell the policy. I used to do full page yellow page ads: outside back cover, inserts, inside back cover...I LOVED Yellow page advertising. I considered it a good day to close 2/10 calls that came in. My phones rang a lot....but the YP ads went to everyone & I didn't have a market for every risk that called to get a quote. Plus when I gave a quote, the prospect would still call a couple more agencies to get a quote to make sure they were getting a good deal.

With internet leads, one can filter the lead to meet the U/W guidelines of the markets they write. Not waste $$ on leads they have a slim chance of writing when they take a swing at it. That is one reason I find leads a valuable tool in growing an agency. Are leads the only way? Of course not. It is hard work to grow an agency & internet leads are just one tool of many to achieve ones results.

Patrick, I'd be very happy to take your call if you want to discuss more about how HometownQuotes.com is different than NQ. I can give you many more reasons than I have time to type here tonight! [anyone that wants to chat is welcome to call or email me.] my # 800-820-2981 ext. 113

 

[iiivvioi]

Hey Patrick,
"Runaround?" He said "every lead sucks." I asked why. Yes we have affiliates but every lead company screens their leads differently. We turn down several 10's of thousands of leads every month as they don't meet the quality we want. Just because we use affiliates doesn't mean the quality is bad. We have pretty strict rules our affiliates must follow & if we find they don't abide by them, we terminate the relationship.

We would never encourage an agent to buy another 100 leads as he's "bound to write a policy sooner or later." We work with our agents to try & determine the real issue as to "every lead sucks." It is to our advantage to try to help the agent be successful writing leads. That way he'll want to continue buying leads from us. Like every agent here, we are interested in retention. It does us no good to put an agent on with leads today just to have him leave in a couple of weeks unhappy with the product. That is not a Win-Win.

That is why we have monthly webinars [sometimes twice a month] on the basics of working leads. That is why I take personal calls from agents [Hunter too] that are struggling to make a living and asking for help. I/we care that the agent is successful. No, I cannot write the business for you, but after 25+ years as a P&C agent owning 4 different agencies in 3 different states [CA, KY, TN] + working personally with hundreds of agents over the years...I find I usually can help by listening to what the agent is doing & offering ideas I have used or picked up over the years working with agents.

Someone said earlier that the lead "sucks" if you don't sell the policy. I used to do full page yellow page ads: outside back cover, inserts, inside back cover...I LOVED Yellow page advertising. I considered it a good day to close 2/10 calls that came in. My phones rang a lot....but the YP ads went to everyone & I didn't have a market for every risk that called to get a quote. Plus when I gave a quote, the prospect would still call a couple more agencies to get a quote to make sure they were getting a good deal.

With internet leads, one can filter the lead to meet the U/W guidelines of the markets they write. Not waste $$ on leads they have a slim chance of writing when they take a swing at it. That is one reason I find leads a valuable tool in growing an agency. Are leads the only way? Of course not. It is hard work to grow an agency & internet leads are just one tool of many to achieve ones results.

Patrick, I'd be very happy to take your call if you want to discuss more about how HometownQuotes.com is different than NQ. I can give you many more reasons than I have time to type here tonight! [anyone that wants to chat is welcome to call or email me.] my # 800-820-2981 ext. 113

Tried calling Hunter when he responded to my post, the reality is that his post was like your leads, garbage. Left two messages never a response. I know I was refunded 78% of my money so I feel lucky. Let just agree that leads are over sold, and agents need to learn how to use SEO Tactics to promote their own web sites,

 

[Bob Klee]

iiivvioi,
If there is one thing I know about Hunter: he does return calls. Guy practically lives on his phone
So I'm not sure at the moment what the issue is but I copied your response & sent to him via email right now. He's not available or I'd call him & find out. If you'll email me your phone number I'd like to check our call logs & see what happened to your messages as our system logs all incoming/outgoing calls & messages.

Like emails, sometimes messages get lost but I promise you we do return calls & emails. I can't look up your account as I don't know who you are, but if you'll email or call me I would love to look into your account & work with you. Looks like if we refunded you 78% of your money that something was going on with your leads & I'd love to look into what.

As you learned, we do Not have a Cap on credits but if we credited 78% of your leads there must be an issue & I'd like to talk to our QC department to find out what it was & I'll report back here what I find out. That was a complete waste of your time/money as well as ours. Again, that is not the normal experience of our agents. If it was, we would just turn out the lights & become an affiliate to the Big Dogs in this space. Truly, the only way we get better at what we do is to interact with our agents & I/we love doing that.

Please give me a call @ 1.800.820.2981 ext 113.

Two more thoughts:
1) What do you consider "oversold" for a lead?
2) SEO: Wow, if you get good at that you might want to quit your day job and give me a call! Good SEO folks earn over $100k a year! There is definitely an art to it & the rules are always evolving.

 

[iiivvioi]

iiivvioi,
If there is one thing I know about Hunter: he does return calls. Guy practically lives on his phone
So I'm not sure at the moment what the issue is but I copied your response & sent to him via email right now. He's not available or I'd call him & find out. If you'll email me your phone number I'd like to check our call logs & see what happened to your messages as our system logs all incoming/outgoing calls & messages.

Like emails, sometimes messages get lost but I promise you we do return calls & emails. I can't look up your account as I don't know who you are, but if you'll email or call me I would love to look into your account & work with you. Looks like if we refunded you 78% of your money that something was going on with your leads & I'd love to look into what.

As you learned, we do Not have a Cap on credits but if we credited 78% of your leads there must be an issue & I'd like to talk to our QC department to find out what it was & I'll report back here what I find out. That was a complete waste of your time/money as well as ours. Again, that is not the normal experience of our agents. If it was, we would just turn out the lights & become an affiliate to the Big Dogs in this space. Truly, the only way we get better at what we do is to interact with our agents & I/we love doing that.

Please give me a call @ 1.800.820.2981 ext 113.

Two more thoughts:
1) What do you consider "oversold" for a lead?
2) SEO: Wow, if you get good at that you might want to quit your day job and give me a call! Good SEO folks earn over $100k a year! There is definitely an art to it & the rules are always evolving.

Bob,
I'll call you on Monday Morning. Just to give you an insight as to what I received as Leads from your company a vast selection of wrong disconnected numbers, people who play on internet inverting a number in their phone response, leads coming after 10 pm so to meet my daily order request. The One who actually was a real breathing person a nice 71 year old man looking for 200,000 in coverage for 30.00 a month.
I would not of dropped your service if I had 40 answer the phone and discuss insurance, even if not one bought a policy, that was not the case there were way to many dead ends. Your staff is very nice, but your California Life Leads are not.
As for the SEO I have a found an expert who is doing my site, he is preformance based meaning no results, no earnings. Kind of like my pay structure. I used your firm to increase my sales not my stress level.

 

[P&CGuru]

iiivvioi,
If there is one thing I know about Hunter: he does return calls. Guy practically lives on his phone
So I'm not sure at the moment what the issue is but I copied your response & sent to him via email right now. He's not available or I'd call him & find out. If you'll email me your phone number I'd like to check our call logs & see what happened to your messages as our system logs all incoming/outgoing calls & messages.

Like emails, sometimes messages get lost but I promise you we do return calls & emails. I can't look up your account as I don't know who you are, but if you'll email or call me I would love to look into your account & work with you. Looks like if we refunded you 78% of your money that something was going on with your leads & I'd love to look into what.

As you learned, we do Not have a Cap on credits but if we credited 78% of your leads there must be an issue & I'd like to talk to our QC department to find out what it was & I'll report back here what I find out. That was a complete waste of your time/money as well as ours. Again, that is not the normal experience of our agents. If it was, we would just turn out the lights & become an affiliate to the Big Dogs in this space. Truly, the only way we get better at what we do is to interact with our agents & I/we love doing that.

Please give me a call @ 1.800.820.2981 ext 113.

Two more thoughts:
1) What do you consider "oversold" for a lead?
2) SEO: Wow, if you get good at that you might want to quit your day job and give me a call! Good SEO folks earn over $100k a year! There is definitely an art to it & the rules are always evolving.

Bob,

You and Hunter do a great job at being available on this forums to answer questions. I wish I could say the same about your customer service dept, I have been with Hometown now for a month and every time (4 times) I have tried calling for service I am kept on hold for over 10 minutes only to be prompted to leave a message. On the flip side though, when i call back and press the option for sales the phone barely rings once before a rep answers the phone New sales are great but the rate of acquisition is higher than the rate of retention so maybe you should consider moving a couple of those sales guys and gals to the service side so your customers aren't frustrated nor have to resort to forums for answers.

In regards to the quality of the leads, the once i have received are pretty bad, too many bogus leads and people saying that they requested a lead 4 months ago. To the credit of Hometown, I have received credits on almost all of my requests but who has time to deal with all of that. I buy about 20 leads per day from a mix of lead companies and I hate to waste my sales guys time with bogus leads. Im currently buying 10 leads a day from Hometown and will give them another 2 weeks before i pull the plug.

Now before you question our lead handling procedures let me note to you that we use an automated quote engine, leads360, and I have a well trained sales team that makes the call within a minute of receiving the leads. Besides, our close ratio with insureme auto leads in fluctuates between 28-31 %, Agenstinsider was 26% before they decided to change their model and destroy theor lead quality, and insuranceleads.com is 18%. And right now im bating a 2.56 % close ratio with hometown

 

[Bob Klee]

P&CGuru,

I appreciate the compliment personally but your RPL sucks on the Hometown leads! We need to look into that & get it fixed right now.

Please give me a call tomorrow at: 800.820.2981 ext 113. I have a few meetings tomorrow so if I'm not available call Ambrosha at Ext 123. She is our Relationship Manager & has been with us since the beginning...really knows her stuff & loves working with agents & solving problems. That is her direct line so it doesn't go into the department que. Tell her that I told you to call her & why. I'll copy/past this into an email after I post but unless you refer to yourself as "P&C Guru" she won't have a clue who you are

I apologize on the difficulty on getting an Agent Service person on the phone. We just started another new person in that department today. Growth has issues & one is keeping in front of the curve. FYI: Next time, don't waste your time waiting on hold. Send an email to: [email protected]. That will enter a ticket immediately into the system & if you need a call that will get you a return call as soon as someone is off the phone. [please leave more than one phone number!] If you don't need a call, but can explain what you want done & just confirmation once it is done that email will do it. We use a pretty cool software tool for that. It keeps you, our staff & management in the loop so we know if something is being worked on & you are notified once your request is done. But if you need a call back, they will do that too of course. Please don't waste your valuable time holding for 10 minutes!

Also, the phones are busiest between 11-3 CST.

Leads 360 is the BEST tool I've seen so far for an agency. We use it also in our sales department. Have you started using their auto-dialer yet? I heard from one of our agents using an auto-dialer that they increased their outgoing calls by 18%!

Thank you for your post. The only way we can improve is with the feedback loop our agents give us. Also, anyone here can reach me via my email, my office number above or my Google # that typically goes to my cell Please not too late or early if you call that number which is: 615.538.8628. [Music City/Nashville!]