Are Your Agency Employees Blogging? Should you care?

Your employees might just be inadvertently representing your agency while bouncing around on any of several social networks (LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.). Does your insurance agency need a policy regarding blogging, 'Facebooking' or Tweeting on Twitter? The New York Times seems to think they need one, and here it is:

* Don't specify your political views. This includes joining online groups that would make your political views known.
* Don't write anything you wouldn't write in The Times on your profiles, a blog, or as commentary on content you share.
* Be careful who you 'friend'. Since this is a tricky subject, The Times suggests that its reports "imagine whether public disclosure of a 'friend' could somehow turn out to be an embarrassment that casts doubt on our impartiality."
* Using email addresses found on social networks to contact individuals is fine but the standard rules apply: treat the person fairly and openly and don't "inquire pointlessly into someone's personal life."
* The Standards Editor must be consulted before contact is made with a minor.

A complete article about the NY Times and their social networking policy can be found at Econsultancy (head up courtesy of WOMMA).

Liabilities and Exposures Created When Agency Business Email is Forwarded to Personal Accounts

I have had several insurance agency managers and owners tell me recently that they have employees who prefer to forward business emails to personal accounts because they are more comfortable with their personal email service, or they want to work at home and the agency doesn't have or permit web mail access to the agency email.

You cannot stop agency employees from forwarding emails to themselves, but approving of the practice can create some risks for your agency.

• Emails sitting on home computers can potentially be viewed by any family member; and especially where the family includes kids, by friends of family members. It is inevitable that private client information will be contained in some of these emails. Allowing employees to forward business emails creates privacy violation possibilities.
• You have some control over viruses when employees use business email,but not so much when personal email is used. What happens when your employees’personal (business email) transmits a virus that crashes a client’s business email? The possibilities are gruesome and numerous.
• Permitting employees to forward work emails to personal accounts can allow individual employees, over time,to amass a good deal of account information in a repository outside of the agency. That provides a great big hole in any measures you may have taken to protect proprietary account information, and can make it easier for an employee leaving the agency to take accounts with them.
• What about allowing only ‘trusted employees’ to forward business email to personal accounts? Unfortunately, the precedent set can allow another ‘less trusted’ employee to forward email and then claim they didn’t realize the policy regarding forwarding emails was selective.

Employees may still forward emails, but random monitoring of outgoing email should alert you to an violations of a policy against forwarding to personal addresses.

Your Insurance Agency's "Community" Reputation

I have long encouraged agents to take control of their online reputation. Monitoring feedback left by others at various online rating and search services is a must. Encouraging positive feedback is even better.

I recently concluded a purchase on eBay (where buyers and sellers are sometimes referred to as the 'EBay community) and received an email soliciting not just my direct feedback, but also a request to rate my experience via the eBay seller rating function. Here's the email (names omitted to protect the innocent:

Thank you for your purchase from Business Name Omitted.

We received note that your order has been delivered and would like to verify that you are satisfied with your purchase and our service.

Please reply to this email if there is anything that would keep you from giving us 5 stars on all ratings. We'll do what it takes to make it right.

If you are satisfied we would highly appreciate it if you would leave us positive feedback with 5 stars on all ratings on eBay. Please use this link: Direct Link to eBay Rating for Seller Omitted.

We have already added positive feedback to your ebay profile. Your feedback can be viewed at:
Direct Link to my eBay Profile and Rating Omitted.

If you have any questions you can either reply to this email or call us at Phone Number Omitted.

Thank you for your business,
Business Name Omitted

Taking a cue from this approach and using a version of this email after every agency sale, renewal, or claim will deliver multiple benefits. First, you will be systematically probing to be sure your customers are happy and will be building stronger relationships (aka, less price sensitivity, more referrals). Second, you will far outstrip your competition in the number positive reviews your agency has at Google Maps (local search), Yahoo Local, Yelp, etc. All you have to do is insert the direct link for rating at those services into your standard email, similar to the example above.