Insurance agents are typically faced with ambitious customer acquisition goals, often pushing retention efforts to the back burner. Needless to say, neglecting relationships with current clients can be costly for any agency’s churn rate. Maintaining meaningful communication with your clients is critical to keeping their business, and effective engagement requires more than just sending a birthday email. Avoid the pitfalls of assuming that retention will naturally happen from good customer service alone. Consider the following three retention strategies to keep your clients on board.

Nurture existing clients

Lead nurture campaigns shouldn’t be limited to future customers. Submitting that first application is the beginning of an ongoing conversation. Continuing to nurture your existing customers opens up opportunities for educating your audience and deepening engagement. Even if a policyholder isn’t ready to pursue another plan, sending relevant information can prepare their decision for when the timing is right. Boost conversion of those prospects by making it easy to get a quote or find the right information.

As you sell more product lines to a customer, the likelihood of retention rises. You can easily plant seeds for those opportunities by delivering timely, relevant content that speaks to audience’s season of life. Build personalized email campaigns to increase touchpoints with the customer. Developing lead nurture tracks can keep lines of communication open and educate that audience on other policies of interest. If you position yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable resource to your customer, you are more likely to keep their business long-term.

Emphasize cross-selling opportunities

While you’re adding contacts to email campaigns and nurturing existing clients, take advantage of cross-selling opportunities. Cross-selling strengthens those client relationships and increases customer satisfaction. As you look at your current policyholders, watch for additional needs that your agency could fill to better serve that customer. Is your client a business owner? They may be an ideal candidate for opening other lines of insurance. Are they expecting a child or purchasing a home? These are natural cross-selling conversations to re-engage that customer.

If you don’t already have a cross-sales commission structure in place, look for stronger ways to incentivize your agents to pursue cross-selling to specifically reward those efforts. Those opportunities can produce great wins for your agency in terms of customer retention, and those sales typically require less investment of resources than courting a new prospect. Along with growing your incentives, management can play a critical role in mentoring and training other agents to be successful in cross-sales scenarios.

Automate enrollment workflows

Is your current client’s enrollment date approaching? Time your communication efforts accordingly. While thanking clients for their loyalty is appropriate year-round, plan to specifically thank your clients for their loyalty at least 30-60 days before their next enrollment date. Expressing appreciation in that window will keep your name on your client’s radar as they plan for the future.

Is your client approaching a key milestone? Perhaps your client is approaching age 65 and will become eligible for Medicare, or maybe their child is approaching age 26 and no longer qualifies for their parent’s health insurance policy. Share content with those audiences to guide them through next steps and remind them of your availability as a resource.

Avoid relying on manual processes to track and execute those communication efforts. Using a robust CRM solution can ensure those alerts and action items don’t get missed.

What types of email campaigns make sense for your audience? Check out four key email campaigns to drive sales opportunities.