Marketing: Cold Calling Question

[mferrara]

Cold Call Help:

- What has been the success rate for cold calling?
- What are peoples general reaction to the cold call?
- How many calls do you need to make before you can expect to sell an appointment?
- What type of power questions should I ask and which ones work the best?
- What is the best time of the day to place the calls?

I was thinking of something as follows:

Hello my name is ___________ and I have recently started an agency with Farmers Insurance. I would like to ask you a few quick questions:

-Who are you currently insured with?
-How long have you been with them?
-Do you know when you policy is up for renewal?
-Is there anything that concerns you about your insurance coverage or service?
- Have you filed any claims with your current provider, and if so how was the claim handled?

-When was the last time your agent reviewed your insurance policy with you?

I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you for a free Friendly Farmers Review. It would only take 20 to 30 minutes of your time. Are days or evenings better for you?


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Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Also if you have any tricks of the trade, please do share. Thank you for any input in advance.

 

[lisar1208]

Cold calling is hard. Where are you getting the leads from? Are you targeting a certain market? Are you sure they are not on the do not call list?
(sorry for so many questions)
You do have good questions that you are asking.
I would say your opening is something you could work on. For instance I would not say that I am new with Farmers. You don't want your call to sound like a telemarketer and you want them to think you are experienced for them to trust you and let you into their homes.
I sell Home/auto/life and most of my closing are done via fax, internet or on the phone.
Is farmers requiring you to go to their homes?

 

[Alston]

I haven't cold called in years, but I remember it as being really difficult. Today with caller ID, answering machines and do not call lists I'm sure that it is much harder than it was in the 80s and 90s.

If you are going to cold call, the script needs to give the prospect a reason to hang on the phone. The fact that you recently started an agency should be replaced with something of interest to the prospect.

Off the top of my head:

I'm calling from Farmers insurance and we've been able to save our new clients as much as XX% on their monthly insurance costs. May I ask you a few questions to see if we can help you?

There are plenty of books on telephone script writing. Find one and redo your script.

Good Luck,

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you for a free Friendly Farmers Review. It would only take 20 to 30 minutes of your time. Are days or evenings better for you?

This sounds like apologetic begging...

I realize it's not what you want to hear, but absolutely nobody cares about a "Free Friendly Farmers Review". Most would rather go on a root canal appointment.

If you don't come up with some compelling marketing - you're doomed to failure. Nothing personal against Farmers, most all insurance companies don't have a clue about direct response marketing.

A mailing:

"If I Can't Lower Your ________ (auto, homeowner's, whatever line) Premium - I'll Give You $250."

You need some impact...

 

[mferrara]

Wow! Thank you for your responses. I would be getting the leads from salesgenie. The suggestions are really good and I really do appreciate the suggestions. Farmers does believe strongly in face to face appointments. I will look into some reading material on the subject. Thanks again.

 

[lisar1208]

hello what type of leads are you getting from sales genie. They are good for business leads. Not auto. If there is a way to generate leads for auto I would love the advice.

 

[MedMalAgent]

Cold Call Help:

- What has been the success rate for cold calling?
- What are peoples general reaction to the cold call?
- How many calls do you need to make before you can expect to sell an appointment?
- What type of power questions should I ask and which ones work the best?
- What is the best time of the day to place the calls?

I was thinking of something as follows:

Hello my name is ___________ and I have recently started an agency with Farmers Insurance. I would like to ask you a few quick questions:

-Who are you currently insured with?
-How long have you been with them?
-Do you know when you policy is up for renewal?
-Is there anything that concerns you about your insurance coverage or service?
- Have you filed any claims with your current provider, and if so how was the claim handled?

-When was the last time your agent reviewed your insurance policy with you?

I would appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you for a free Friendly Farmers Review. It would only take 20 to 30 minutes of your time. Are days or evenings better for you?


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Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Also if you have any tricks of the trade, please do share. Thank you for any input in advance.

I make 30-50 cold calls per day. My goal is to get an appointment and get off the phone. No is going to give out information to someone they don't know or trust. If you make the goal just getting the appointment it makes cold calling a lot easier. I am calling commercial accounts 90 days out from renewal. Anyone that says cold calling is a waste of time doesn't know how to effectively use the phone. Most of my big accounts have come from cold calling.
I always ask for a specific day and time 10 t0 14 days out from the day I am calling. How is Wednesday the 21st at 10:00 am? You get a very specific answer you ask a specific question.

 

[lisar1208]

I think it's fair to say that each of us have had our own experience with cold calling. I think this thread was started so they could get some advice and some good script lines that are working.

 

[1manshow]

I have yet to get any good closing rates on internet leads.

My telemarketer makes calls all hours of the day and early evening. Script that is most effective has been " Are you familiar with "XYZ Insurance agency out on ***main st ? Well, they've asked me to call and offer a few folks in the area free auto insurance quotes, shall I have them put one in the mail for you ? then she gathers some trivial info. just enough for us to prepare a baseline quote and get it out in our quote package. We also include agency brochure, money back guarantee, testimonial booklet, free gift, etc in the mailing. We follow up with 7 day and 21 day letters, she then calls them back in 30 days to see that they got everything and to thank them again for accepting. We are actually up to a 21% close rate on these cold leads versus a 58% close rate on "call in" clients. I am thrilled about that type of success. Oh yeah, we quoted 320 autos from her in the past 45 days. My CSR's are getting tired!!



She chose to be paid per lead rather than hourly and has yet to earn under $450/week and has yet to work over 20 hours in one week. Worth every penny.

 

[lisar1208]

wow that is great.