Lessons From the Carrier Side

Welcome back to our weekly blog post. If you’ve been following our weekly updates, you know by now that Expertel was founded after a team of experts decided to quit their carrier-side jobs to go their own way. That’s why we thought it would be really cool if we could use this week’s post to share a couple of the lessons we learned during our time working for them. Before we begin, we must make it clear that this is not a list of all the things we learned, but rather, a list of those that shaped us and made Expertel what it is today. We hope you can enjoy a small part of our journey as much as we have, and without any further delays, let’s get to it! These are the most important lessons we learned from the carrier side.

Choosing Your Side

It’s a little weird right? We worked for the carriers and then just quit. Well, yes and no. Although we value our time working with carriers and learning from them, something felt like we could be doing more. We knew we wanted to be closer to our clients, to learn more about their business and understand how we could make them grow. We couldn’t do that working for the carriers, so we decided that, even though it was a risky move, being able to do what we love was definitely worth a try, so we did. After quitting our jobs, we began planning our next move, and a couple of months later, Expertel was born. At the core of our new business was the passion that drove us here, so we decided that our very first value had to be centered on our clients, specifically, choosing once and for all the side we were on. We chose you. We work for you, not the carriers, so all of the recommendations and strategies we provide are always going to be in our client’s best interest.

Experts Only

Now we had a name and a roadmap of what we wanted to accomplish. What’s next? Finding more of the best talent and putting all that collective knowledge to work, of course! During our time working with carriers, we learned that one of the most important elements of working in our market, was to stay updated. At Expertel we keep up to date with all pricing, packages and offers through our dealings with all carriers and their business segments. From hardware to software to service innovation, we try our best to offer you the cutting edge of our field at a fair price. Yes, setting up and constantly improving your work process can be a little time-consuming, but keep at it. Over time, our expertise and reputation has made us influential not only with the carriers, our clients trust our advice too, and we take that as an assurance that we’re doing business the right way.

You First, Always

So, we had the name, the idea and the know-how to start getting Expertel off the ground. Now all we needed were clients who understood where we came from and what we were trying to do. If you’re a business owner, you know that part is always easier said than done, though. Just like you and your business, we struggled for a while until we finally got our first client. After we did, we put all of our love and work into helping them and their business in any way we could, knowing very well the value of their trust. With time, more customers contacted us to help them too, and every time, we poured hard-work and great expertise to help them grow as well. And it worked! Since we launched in 2005, more than 85% of our customers are still with us, as we give them the support and attention that their carriers don’t.

Trust Is Value

If you’re wondering what’s the secret to our long-lasting customer relationships, you’re not paying attention. To build a strong relationship with a client, the most important factor is trust, but building trust is no easy feat by any means. To build a trustworthy relationship with your clients you need a combination of time, knowledge, skills, hard work, and most of all, good results. We are an ally to our clients and share their same goals. They trust us to be impartial when it comes to advising them and recommending carriers and products. Our knowledge, experience, expertise, thoughtful analysis and connections in the industry also come in handy to fulfill our client’s needs, but if you don’t understand them, you’ll have a hard time building a long-lasting relationship with them.

Simplicity Is Key

A good part of understanding your clients is being able to empathize with them. We try put ourselves in our client’s shoes to better improve our programs and services. If they’re in a hurry, how can we respond faster? Can we have a hand-off approach to a certain service? How easy will it be to use? Getting into a client’s mindset can help you find better solutions to their problems. For example, we believe in presenting complex information in a way that’s easy to understand – whether that’s our clients’ data on the Expertel iQ dashboard, or our own website. We do this because we understand that our clients don’t have the time to spend hours deciphering information. It’s frustrating, unnecessary and completely avoidable. It’s true that sometimes it might feel like taking the long road, but we do it because we know that’s what our clients want and deserve.

360 Approach

Last but not least is added value. To really build a brand that your clients trust, you need to demonstrate that you’re willing to go above and beyond their expectations to make things happen. Doing the bare minimum can save you time, money, resources and a couple of headaches, but it surely won’t convince your clients that you’re worth staying with. You need to prove that your company adds value to theirs, which is very hard, but also worth it. That’s why we decided that our approach needed to be more holistic than just nickel-and-diming. We don’t just look at expense management, we factor in the wider context, environment and challenges to make recommendations on cost-savings, packages, policies, procedures and more. Without this level of commitment, we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are today.We could sit here and talk about the thousands of lessons we learned from our time working on the carrier side, but we rather talk to you directly. So, as always, if you have some questions about the products and services we offer at Expertel, or need additional support, you can get in touch with us. That’s it for today, but we hope to see you next week in our next weekly post!