This article is sponsored by Anderson Insurance Agency.
You know that they’re the place to turn for reassurance after a storm or a flood, but did you know that your local insurance agent may be your business’ greatest advocate? This is certainly the case for Anderson Insurance Agency, who regularly demonstrates three principles that set them apart as staunch supporters for their clients and their community.
Be Your Client’s Biggest Cheerleader
Anderson is a great networking resource for many of her clients. She coordinates references and partnerships among clients frequently when a simple phone-call or connection helps a client solve a problem or serves a need.
“I’m their biggest unpaid marketing resource!” Anderson laughs, but she isn’t kidding. One story she tells is particularly poignant. Anderson became reflective as she began to relay the story of one of her earliest clients.
It was a commercial client, the owner of a comics and gaming store. When he approached me, it was probably a year after I’d initially made contact with him through a friend. After he became a client, I would share his social media posts, and I’d tell people about his store. It wasn’t formal or planned. I was just genuinely excited about what he was providing.
But Anderson just sharing publicity for her clients isn’t really a small thing at all – as an active member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Frisco business community, her word and references carry weight.
So when she’s excited about the work that her clients are doing, she’s literally providing free marketing; her casual and enthusiastic endorsements of her clients’ services can be an invaluable boost for small businesses with tiny marketing budgets. Anderson is modest but passionate.
If you’re helping each other, you are making your city better and helping your community. I want Frisco to have a strong business community so that people keep coming here and shopping and opening businesses here.
The support that Anderson provides her clients isn’t just a perk she provides to try to give her own business an edge – it’s part of the way she thinks and lives. Anderson truly believes that there’s no better way to succeed as a business than to pour support into the businesses around you.
Go Above and Beyond “Normal”
The unique connection that Anderson has to her clients’ needs is immediately evident in one story she tells about a client with a water claim. The client called Anderson on a Saturday morning. He had had a leak, but he was a bit unsure about how to proceed. He needed more than just pat answers – he needed some direction and reassurance.
While some agents would have sent the call to voicemail and returned it on Monday, Anderson sensed his stress and immediately responded. She suggested that he have a water restoration company come out and check the walls and the floors.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, on that Saturday morning, Anderson personally hopped in her car and drove over to her client’s house to check out the situation. In the end, there was no water under the floor; the client had mitigated the loss and no claim was needed.
The leak turned out to be merely an inconvenience, but the support that Anderson provides her clients during a minor crisis provides them the assurance that she will be there in a real emergency.
Treat Clients Like Family
Anderson’s clients know that they are going to be treated like family. Anderson says “having a local agent gives you a unique connection to your community.”
One of Anderson’s clients had a water heater fail. He called in a panic – it had taken the family an hour to get the water to stop flowing; the homeowner already contacted a water restoration company and a plumber, but now they were unsure what to do. Anderson opened the claim for him while he was still on the phone.
Technically, Anderson had done her job and could have hung up and moved on. But she wasn’t done. She and her husband knew that a family in their community was now incredibly inconvenienced, dislocated, and without a plan for the day.
Farmers Insurance would cover the cost of a hotel for the family, but Anderson helped them navigate all of the steps to get checked into a hotel room before even an hour had gone by.
Farmers Insurance policies would, technically, cover the cost of meals eaten out while the family waited for their kitchen to be back in use, but Anderson realized that a technical clause in their policy didn’t solve the family’s dinner hour that day. She called her husband and sent him to Market Street to pick up microwaveable items and drop them off at the family’s home so that they could easily eat that afternoon.
And the attitude with which Anderson and her husband performed all of these tasks? Anderson shrugged off the story with a laugh. She says simply,
We treat our clients like we treat our family.
For some, this may be a marketing mantra, but for Anderson Insurance Agency, this defines the way that they operate.
While local businesses should take a cue from the sterling example set by Anderson, those needing an insurance agent should also take note – the kind of service and heart provided by a local insurance agent committed to the success of their clients and their community is truly irreplaceable.
