LAST month I described how, following our acquisition of another agency, we found that a few of the acquired clients continued to make multiple walk-in premium payments at our office for their direct-bill policies. We were prepared to lose their business to eliminate walk-in payments, but we didn't want our move to be misunderstood as something we were doing to make our lives easier. In fact, we wanted to expand our services to include annual policy reviews and a customer newsletter, but processing walk-in payments took away from our ability to do so.

The first thing we did was demonstrate to our newly acquired clients that we wanted to give them greater value. We took out an ad in the local newspaper announcing our new services, which included a new agency Web site, policy reviews and newsletter. We also posted this information at our office and stressed that these services were coming at no additional cost. We encouraged all our clients to give us feedback on our first newsletter and tell us what topics they would like to see covered in future issues. We were pleasantly surprised with the number of suggestions we received. We also posted a mailbox outside our office for after-hours pickup and delivery of documents, but made no mention of using the mailbox for payments.

After publishing our second news-letter, we began offering annual policy reviews and encouraged our clients to schedule appointments. When clients came in for their reviews, we stressed our appreciation for their business and the importance of reviewing their coverage annually.

As we began policy reviews, we also started to educate our "direct-bill/walk-in" customers about paying their bills directly. We knew some of these customers might leave us because of our policy, but we believed that for many of them it was just a matter of understanding the situation. We explained to these customers that we wanted to focus on providing better service. When we asked about the acceptance of walk-in payments, many of them said they felt it was merely a convenience, not an added value.

From experience, we knew that many of our customers might retain our message better if they had something in writing. We gave them a card-stock flier to take home, to remind them of our policy. The flier, titled "Reasons not to pay your direct-bill premium at the office," stressed the following points:

?Payment at our office is not always acceptance of payment by the company. (Insurance companies want you to make your remittance directly to them.)
?You may be charged a late fee if the payment does not reach the company by the due date.
?If you pay us cash, we have to write a check to the company. If the check is delayed in the mail, your policy may still be cancelled.
?We do not have your premium payment amount due nor records of payments posted by the company at our location. (You may need to wait while we contact the company to determine your account status, which is not guaranteed accurate.)
?You will need to wait for a receipt if you make a cash payment.
?Receiving your payment provides no value-added service and prevents our staff from spending their time annually reviewing your coverage and helping you select the best coverage for your needs.

Sometimes, discussing the direct-bill system and our desire to focus on other services led to a mid-term policy review. In such cases, we reminded our clients that we would meet again for a review at renewal time.

Our third newsletter was the first to mention our new approach to direct-bill payments. We continued having conversations and handing out fliers to clients who came to the office to make payments. We expected some negative consequences but found the process quite effective at reducing walk-in traffic and educating our clients about our desire to provide expanded services. That third and final phase of our plan-establishing a cut-off date after which we would not accept walk-in payments on direct-bill policies-will be the topic of next month's column.