What's your supermarket special to clients?

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I was astonished to hear from a supermarket purchasing guru I know that often supermarkets sell well-known brands at a loss, for a period, for a special offer, or with a coupon, or just so they can put it on a billboard for a month.

Monday, December 3rd 2012, 6:00AM 3 Comments

by Russell Hutchinson

They do it to build traffic – those people come through the store and buy umpteen other things on which the margin is more than enough to make the supermarket a good profit on the whole basket.

What services do you offer to build traffic?

Before you get snobby about such unashamedly ‘retail’ approaches I shall share that my accountant does almost exactly the same thing with advice to clients about buying cars. It’s a frequently asked question that drives enquiries to the office, an opportunity from which other services can then be sold.

So what are the high traffic services you can offer?

Many insurance advisers have chosen medical insurance. In its favour it is a great concern to young families and never really loses its appeal through middle age and even into expensive retirement age clients. The only real drawback is cost and still-infrequent interaction.

Others choose home loans – these have a comparable frequency with medical insurance and are also at the right life-stage for client acquisition. It’s been a more challenging field to work in recently.

ACC reviews – using CoverPlusExtra as a tool to reduce ACC costs is one example, reviewing occupation codes and business structures is another, less commonly used, but also valuable. It still suffers from a lower frequency of use – once the review is done the client is happy.

General insurance has lots of touch points but is generally shunned due to high administration costs and low commissions. But it can still be done if you adopt a single provider model and arrange your supplier agreement so that you handle no claims.

But Travel insurance has to be one of the underrated gems for creating traffic. It’s the Watties Baked Beans of the insurance world. Clients buy it frequently, but it is not set and forget: it is bought for every trip. Consumer articles abound telling of the inadequacies of the ‘free’ credit card insurance some travellers assume is sufficient. You can reduce the admin impact of making the offer through developing some standard components of the advice process: a good basic information service for clients, some marketing leaflets to add in to every client review letter, and a comparison of available products.

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