When it comes to relationships, I am a fairly confrontational person. Although it’s not always the best way to keep everyone in my personal life happy, I’d like to think it saves some relationships from falling apart. I don’t want anything to slip through the cracks because we were too afraid to talk about it.

My direct approach serves well in the face of business. If I see someone needs help, I offer, and if I need it, I ask. Not all of the women in my life have the guts to do this, but while looking for an insurance company recently, I found Allstate was taking my approach.

With the chance of an economic downturn, Allstate knew they needed a change in order to build and keep their relationships with clients strong. So they asked what their customers needed.

Their customers wanted more convenient locations, a team atmosphere, and excellent customer service at all times.

Allstate listened to the clients and switched from their old model of business, where the agents worked mostly independently and on their own book of business, to what they call the Allstate Insurance Agency (AIA) Transformation. The new model was implemented just before the recession, to ensure agency-client relationships were at their best before the downturn. They introduced 93 new local AIAs across Canada in more convenient areas of each community.

Jason Foroglou, Ajax agency manager, says the new offices have maintained a consistent look and feel as before, they are just positioned in better locations. “The Ajax AIA office that I manage, for example, is located amongst three major banks, a large grocery retailer, drug mart, large video store chain and popular coffee house,” says Foroglou.

The new model boasts a group of employees in one location to maintain and deliver customer satisfaction to each client. It is no longer a competition between Allstate agents in the area. Each agent works in one of the AIA locations as part of a team.

Kingston Allstate agency manager, Matt Dubblestein, was with Allstate before the change and says his customers are more than comfortable in the new model.

“The team dynamic eliminates the used car salesman pressure. I tell my mentor agents to be themselves,” says Dubblestein. “We have a team environment because we all have a common goal.”

The new model emulates what Allstate did before the change, but on a larger scale. A successful agent is in charge of the bureau but a client is able to walk into an AIA and receive the same information from anyone working there.

As soon as the client walks through the door, she is greeted in a professional manner and attended to by a licensed insurance professional, depending on her need. “In the past, the person likely servicing the account was not an Allstate employee per se, but someone hired via a third party employment agency. Training of that individual was handled by the agent within that office, so as an organization we not only had little control over the overall customer experience, but also the best practices employed by the servicing agent,” says Foroglou.

Given these factors alone, it’s clear to see that consistency from office to office was a major issue; especially considering the move of competing banks as they entered the market. As a business, Allstate was forced to address this in their new model in order to keep customers happy.

Now, Dubblestein says, things you’d never expect to happen in an insurance office take place on a regular basis in the new model. “We had a client in the office with her son playing in the play centre. The kid started singing the Thomas the Train theme song,” says Dubblestein. Another agent has a son too, so he joined in the song and then another agent did too.”

When it comes to relationships Allstate has discovered the key to building strong ties: listen, be direct by seting up in the communities they serve and deliver terrific value.

Miranda Voth is the online editor for womenspost.ca. She can be reached at: mvoth@womenspost.ca