Now that the initial shock of the market’s sudden deterioration has been absorbed and we are getting used to lockdown and the prospect of facing the working day in pyjamas, thoughts must turn to ways in which we can begin the process of building up new business prospects in the absence of our everyday mortgage business.
At HLPartnership, we have been working for some time with our members to look at ways of generating new business opportunities and particularly how they can maximise the value of their greatest assets, namely their client banks. In pre COVID-19 days, the emphasis was on ensuring that
we had done everything to ensure that we had discussed and provided protection scenarios, both life and GI, in relation to their house purchase or remortgage or as part of a larger review.
For those of you who want to get onto the front foot, working through your client bank will provide you with multiple opportunities to engage with customers, many of whom you might not have been in touch with for some time.
One of the first tasks you will need to undertake is a long look at your customer bases and segment them. If, like HLP members, you have free access to a first class CRM system, much of the heavy lifting will already have been done for you and then it is a question to which service you want to draw your customers’ attention and in what format you want to get in touch. You might choose direct calling, particularly with the immediate opportunity to see whether customers have any queries concerning paying their mortgage in this difficult time. Alternatively, you might have an exact breakdown of all of your customers, their details, how much cover they have along with other important landmark dates such as fixed rate end dates and decide on an email campaign.
What we are able to do at HLP is, working with our members, take their customer data and prepare and send emails to the customers they have chosen in an orchestrated campaign about a particular product.
Following up, advisers are able to talk to customers about the topic in question and at the same time discuss other queries they may have.
Our experience of the effectiveness of this approach might surprise you. KC’s data to go here.
Here is an example of using statistics to draw attention to an underutilised product type.
With a third of UK workers taking an income hit due to the current crisis (Linkedin Workforce Confidence Index), consumers are beginning to appreciate what little savings they actually have to keep them going through negative circumstances. Legal and General’s ‘Deadline to Breadline’ research showed that the average UK employee has only enough savings to last them 32 days and yet only 10% have an income protection plan in place. Consumers who thought that “it would never happen to them” are starting to realise the importance of having the appropriate protection plans in place to ensure that they can pay their mortgage or rent payments and their bills.
The need for workers to formally protect their income is apparent, and yet the income protection gap is yawning. Many workers simply avoid trying to understand their financial resilience and financial planning suffers as a result.
Time to start planning for the future.
