Nice Little Gem from Hometown Quotes

[RonRoberts]

Hello Folks.

Sorry for not being active lately but I've had to deal with a really bad cough that would not go away for weeks now which has caused me to miss way too much work & then moving this month:( Thankfully, we've got a good team at HometownQuotes that know how to take care of our customers.

There have been many excellent responses so far but let me add my 2 cents. First though I'd like to say thank you to those of you that have defended HTQ....your check is in the mail.... seriously though...it is a very good feeling as a small business owner to find those that appreciate what we do and the way we do it.

1] in regards to knowing how many leads we are going to get for X Agent. We do look back on the last 30 days to give an agent an idea of volume. Our own marketing is driven by whether we can make a profit of course. We also buy leads from affiliates based on an RPL & signing up a new agent increases the $$ we have to buy with in a certain area. + lead volume is always up/down depending on time of the year/month/day. So it is not an exact science as the target is always moving.

2] We normally have an email go out to agents 48 hours before their pause time goes off. We investigated after hearing about this & guess what?....the link is broke! Of course we hope agents also set a calendar reminder for themselves too. There have been several good suggestions in this post on how to manage this.

The mention of automatically charging a credit card came up. We find that most agents prefer this method vs. getting a monthly bill & being automatically charged. Why? Because we send out an email reminder when one's account is at 30% of their balance reminding them at <=15% we will automatically charge their account back up. We find these reminders better than being hit with a surprise bill every 2-4 weeks. Typically folks overspend when they don't know how much they are spending so we adapted this method a long time ago.

I'd like to thank all of you for giving us a chance to earn your business. We aren't perfect but we continue to try to get smarter & better at what we do. I do appreciate the opportunity to participate in this Forum as well. Ultimately we all are trying to do the same thing: Make an honest living by helping others.

Please call or email me if I can assist you in any way.

IMO if a client is able to pause the account then why not let the client unpause the account instead of automatically being done in some predetermined time? I'm not bitching, just curious.
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i thought that too at first and I brought it up as an initial concern but this is how it works:

They have a limited amount of pause because they market to areas based on agent need. So infinite pause would actually hurt the leads quality or quantity.

Now I'm not defending HT because I just cancelled my account with them today. I'm just saying he should just be more aware of the giant box with a countdown pause timer and work the leads.

IMO once the agent pauses the account then the lead vendor should stop marketing to that area for a client and focus on another agent's area. Once the agent unpauses the account himself "manually" then the lead vendor resumes marketing for that client. Sounds pretty simple for me. I am for the agent maintaining 100% control.

If you want to be honest, you should pay for them all if you work any of them, sales or no sales. Well, pay for the valid ones, obviously not the ones you would have returned. But if you work them, man up and pay for them, otherwise delete them all.

I agree. Honesty is always the best policy. Karma will get you when you least expect it.

 

[Josh]

IMO once the agent pauses the account then the lead vendor should stop marketing to that area for a client and focus on another agent's area. Once the agent unpauses the account himself "manually" then the lead vendor resumes marketing for that client. Sounds pretty simple for me. I am for the agent maintaining 100% control.

Fair point, but that's not how internet marketing works. Telemarketed leads, sure, but when you're trying to generate internet leads there is a lot of delayed reaction. If an agent wants 100% control, they should be doing their own marketing OR be paying significantly more for it. One of the biggest things I don't think insurance agents understand is that they generally expect entirely too much for what they're paying. For all the complaining I hear agents doing about internet leads, very few of them seem prepared to pay what it costs to generate a quality lead and make it worth the time for the marketing company. It's not just with internet leads either, it's across the board. Even the good telemarketing companies get flamed when an agent wants to complain about the quality of the leads and they are up in arms that all the leads aren't waiting to hear a pitch about their insurance product over paying $17 for a lead. The bottom line on that is if you want a telemarketed lead that's easy to close, it's going to cost more than $17 to generate. Even at $35 it's tough to imagine a company worth it's salt is going to be able to consistently provide quality leads because it's a tough gig. That being said, very few agents are willing to pay a company on a straight hourly rate to generate leads, so they'll give hundreds or thousands of dollars to companies that will promise to deliver preset appointments for $15-$35/appointment and then they're surprised when it doesn't work out like they had planned.


I think Bob is undervaluing his services because there is a lot he does on the back end that agents don't realize. I'm sure Bob is much more talented at running his company than I would ever be at running an internet lead company, but if I were him I'd be charging more when I'm offering that much extra value. I don't know of any other internet lead vendors that will tell me when they sent me a bad lead before I sent it back to them, and that's a big deal.

 

[RonRoberts]

Fair point, but that's not how internet marketing works. Telemarketed leads, sure, but when you're trying to generate internet leads there is a lot of delayed reaction. If an agent wants 100% control, they should be doing their own marketing OR be paying significantly more for it. One of the biggest things I don't think insurance agents understand is that they generally expect entirely too much for what they're paying. For all the complaining I hear agents doing about internet leads, very few of them seem prepared to pay what it costs to generate a quality lead and make it worth the time for the marketing company. It's not just with internet leads either, it's across the board. Even the good telemarketing companies get flamed when an agent wants to complain about the quality of the leads and they are up in arms that all the leads aren't waiting to hear a pitch about their insurance product over paying $17 for a lead. The bottom line on that is if you want a telemarketed lead that's easy to close, it's going to cost more than $17 to generate. Even at $35 it's tough to imagine a company worth it's salt is going to be able to consistently provide quality leads because it's a tough gig. That being said, very few agents are willing to pay a company on a straight hourly rate to generate leads, so they'll give hundreds or thousands of dollars to companies that will promise to deliver preset appointments for $15-$35/appointment and then they're surprised when it doesn't work out like they had planned.


I think Bob is undervaluing his services because there is a lot he does on the back end that agents don't realize. I'm sure Bob is much more talented at running his company than I would ever be at running an internet lead company, but if I were him I'd be charging more when I'm offering that much extra value. I don't know of any other internet lead vendors that will tell me when they sent me a bad lead before I sent it back to them, and that's a big deal.

I agree 100%. I plan on using HTQ eventually.

 

[shepnerd]

Hello Folks.

Sorry for not being active lately but I've had to deal with a really bad cough that would not go away for weeks now which has caused me to miss way too much work & then moving this month:( Thankfully, we've got a good team at HometownQuotes that know how to take care of our customers.

There have been many excellent responses so far but let me add my 2 cents. First though I'd like to say thank you to those of you that have defended HTQ....your check is in the mail.... seriously though...it is a very good feeling as a small business owner to find those that appreciate what we do and the way we do it.

1] in regards to knowing how many leads we are going to get for X Agent. We do look back on the last 30 days to give an agent an idea of volume. Our own marketing is driven by whether we can make a profit of course. We also buy leads from affiliates based on an RPL & signing up a new agent increases the $$ we have to buy with in a certain area. + lead volume is always up/down depending on time of the year/month/day. So it is not an exact science as the target is always moving.

2] We normally have an email go out to agents 48 hours before their pause time goes off. We investigated after hearing about this & guess what?....the link is broke! Of course we hope agents also set a calendar reminder for themselves too. There have been several good suggestions in this post on how to manage this.

The mention of automatically charging a credit card came up. We find that most agents prefer this method vs. getting a monthly bill & being automatically charged. Why? Because we send out an email reminder when one's account is at 30% of their balance reminding them at <=15% we will automatically charge their account back up. We find these reminders better than being hit with a surprise bill every 2-4 weeks. Typically folks overspend when they don't know how much they are spending so we adapted this method a long time ago.

I'd like to thank all of you for giving us a chance to earn your business. We aren't perfect but we continue to try to get smarter & better at what we do. I do appreciate the opportunity to participate in this Forum as well. Ultimately we all are trying to do the same thing: Make an honest living by helping others.

Please call or email me if I can assist you in any way.

Bob, you guys did good and Dominic took good care of me earlier this week. Thanks.

My constructive criticisms-

I didn't get the email on the first charge for the card, but that's just FYI, I wouldn't have seen it anyway I was soaking up rays, drinking beer, ignoring responsibilities. I didn't see the leads come over either, so the charge would have been expected if I was monitoring email on Saturday. I did get the second charge warning, FYI. As far as I'm concerned, automated charges on the credit card are fine, the issue there was not being able to control the lead flow in combination with the automatic charge.

A 48 hour warning email on the pause thing would have made all this a moot point. I'm new with you guys, so didn't really know how all that worked, and hadn't logged in that week so wasn't aware it was running out.

I still have to say that the pause going off basically on a Friday night (12:22am on a Saturday) and no ability to do anything about it until Monday morning at 9 is still kinda crazy to me. I'm not saying you guys shouldn't enjoy the weekend, but that's two and a half days with no ability to shut down something that is automated to start when it automatically charges your card (the warning emails dont do much good when you cant do anything to stop the charge), which is a policy that's ripe for trouble in my book.

Anyway, my experience with lead vendors is fairly limited, but you guys are night and day different compared to the two others I've dealt with, and I appreciate the sincere effort to do right both times I've had an issue.

 

[LGilmore]

Shep?

Next time you go on vacation and you're going to be gone longer than the 14 days. Let them know or simply drop your zips down to one till you get back.

When I head out for vacations, it is part of the process of getting the house/business ready for some time off.

 

[somarco]

IMO once the agent pauses the account then the lead vendor should stop marketing to that area for a client and focus on another agent's area.

Do you understand the concept of shared internet leads?

I wouldn't have seen it anyway I was soaking up rays, drinking beer, ignoring responsibilities.

You seem like a pretty level headed guy. I figured you would eventually own up to this being your fault . . .

Next time you go on vacation and you're going to be gone longer than the 14 days. Let them know or simply drop your zips down to one till you get back.

This is good advice and something I would do with vendors that allowed me to change zips, and even daily limits at will.

I am still "active" with 4freequotes but have my filters set so high I only get 1 or 2 leads a year.

 

[Bob Klee]

Shep?

Next time you go on vacation and you're going to be gone longer than the 14 days. Let them know or simply drop your zips down to one till you get back.

When I head out for vacations, it is part of the process of getting the house/business ready for some time off.

Good advice Larry. We give agents 14 days a year to pause their accounts. Most never use it all up since they can use it by hour....say while they are at lunch or a staff member is out sick. We can add days to it on request & we do. But to have unlimited pause time......we might as just let an agent cancel & sign him back up when he's ready to make money again. Until we did this we had several hundred "active" agents that hadn't bought any leads in over 6 months. So, we made this policy. I hope it makes sense. If not, I'm willing to change for the right reasons.

 

[LGilmore]

yea, it basically comes down to communication. If I'm going to be gone, say visiting my kid in St. Lou, it just makes sense to let them know and have them do the pause. Bob is correct they've gone beyond the 14 days thing to if you let them know.

But again, I use this for when I am out of the office, not when I am overwhelmed with leads. That is where your daily limit comes in. If you are getting more leads than you can process (call, contact, follow up with), set a daily limit.

The daily limit will keep you happy with the vendor as you'll be able to work the leads you get, rather than get behind, get p issed and be mad at them.

 

[sellinmachine]

Back in the 1980's I was a partner in small telemarketing company (approx. 70 telemarketers.) I was approached several times by ins. agents to cantract my service. My partner asked why I never accepted or contracted any of them. They never would agree to a contract I offered, and I never could accept their tems, either. Having previously been in Ins sales, they would not pay fair prices, by straight commission or by hour. IMO, what they offered was ridiculous (by hour one or two offered Min. wage, at that time $3.65.) I 've watched this forum for 3 months and I do not see that attitudes of what a lead is worth has changed!!!!

As a past telemarketer and a past agent finding a qualified and solid lead as either one requires time, effort and skill. I spent time as an agent finding and developing leads. As a telemarketer is it any easier? What does it cost an agent to find and develop a lead, and if an agent is better at it why does he need a telemarketer?

 

[bullis33]

so in your opinion then, what is a good lead worth and what should we expect to pay for it?

Back in the 1980's I was a partner in small telemarketing company (approx. 70 telemarketers.) I was approached several times by ins. agents to cantract my service. My partner asked why I never accepted or contracted any of them. They never would agree to a contract I offered, and I never could accept their tems, either. Having previously been in Ins sales, they would not pay fair prices, by straight commission or by hour. IMO, what they offered was ridiculous (by hour one or two offered Min. wage, at that time $3.65.) I 've watched this forum for 3 months and I do not see that attitudes of what a lead is worth has changed!!!!

As a past telemarketer and a past agent finding a qualified and solid lead as either one requires time, effort and skill. I spent time as an agent finding and developing leads. As a telemarketer is it any easier? What does it cost an agent to find and develop a lead, and if an agent is better at it why does he need a telemarketer?