By Brad Elman, CLU, CLTC, is a 24-year MDRT member, from Los Altos, California ''I don't like to give bad news when a client asks if something is possible. With this in mind, my staff and I generally respond with one of two answers. One is "yes," and the other is, "I don't know, I'll get back to you," even if we suspect the answer is "no." A quick "no" rarely helps anyone, and it does nothing for your relationship with the client. The client may think you're not doing your due diligence, and that's not what you ever want a client to think.
Build value and relationships
Besides the client not feeling like you’re their advocate, it may turn out something has changed and now we can do something to help. “I don’t know, but let me do the research and get back to you” gives us an opportunity further build our relationship with the client. It says, “I’m trying to solve a problem.”
Maybe I can’t solve it exactly the way that they’re asking, but by saying “I’ll research it and get back to you,” I may find other ways to solve the problem. Again, it gives us the opportunity to provide better value to our clients. If we have to, we’ll come back and say, “No, but here are the best second and third alternatives to that.” A quick response suggests that it wasn’t thoughtfully considered.
There’s no “no’s” in our office!
A client called our office and asked if a particular item would be covered under his health insurance. I suspected the answer was that it wouldn’t be covered, but there was no benefit to telling him “no” right from the start. Instead, I told him, “I don’t know, but we’ll research it and get back to you.”
When we did the research we found that the insurance company wouldn’t cover it but there’s an appeals process. And if you go through the appeals process, it might be covered.
I went back to the client and said, “Look, here’s what we need to do. It will probably not be covered, but we’ll write the appeal for you. When you get the claim and the claim gets denied, submit it to us. We’ll fill out all the paperwork, ghostwrite the appeal for you, give it to you to sign and then send it back to the insurance company.”
No matter what happens with the appeals, we still win with the client. He sees that we’re on his side, fighting for him as his advocate, and that what’s important to me”.
