Over the past year, we've asked for your opinions regarding how to improve our service to you. We've done this several times through our blog, and we appreciate your feedback. We'll continue asking for your opinions, and I sincerely hope that you'll continue to be open and honest with ideas for how you feel that we can improve our service to you.

Gathering your feedback alone doesn't mean anything unless we listen and then take action. With that said, I'd like to share some of our initiatives in 2008 that were put together with the help of your input.

First, we've been actively pursuing partnerships with companies that have products and services you've asked us to make available to you. We've done our homework to bring you the "best of breed" in the areas of financial services, health and wellness, continuing education, and travel and leisure. What's even better is that these partners have agreed to offer special discounts for you, our "friends of AccuQuote."

Over the course of the next 90 days, we'll be actively featuring our partners throughout our website as well as giving you the opportunity to interact with their experts through our blog. A couple of our partners that we've already rolled out are TurboTax and LegalZoom (discount code ACCUQUOTE). In addition, we're happy to pre-announce to you our new partnership with Restaurant.com where you are able to get $25 gift certificates for only $8!

Keep an eye out for more partners as well as articles on AccuQuote and our AccuQuoteblog.com from experts across multiple areas. As always, my "door" is always open, and I appreciate all of your feedback and suggestions.

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

As you know, AccuQuote is an established leader in providing life insurance coverage to people across the country. What you probably don't know is we're always looking at different ways to find and recruit talented people to join our growing organization.

Employee referrals have often been our most successful way to discover talented recruits. So, we thought we'd take it one step further by tapping into our customers in order to find even more talented people to work here that live in or around the Chicago-land area.

We hope you will be kind enough to spread the word and tell your family and friends that we are currently hiring for the following full-time positions:

· Web Master

· Programming Database Analyst

· Sales Analyst

· Sales Managers

· Sales Account Executives

· Case Managers

· General Office Clerks

· Courtesy Team Representatives

If any of these positions sounds like a good fit for you, your friends or family members, we can be contacted at 800-442-9899. Full job descriptions and online applications are available online at www.accuquote.com/jobs.cfm.

Thanks for your help in contributing to the growth of AccuQuote!

From time-to-time we have news that we'd like to share with our customers. For instance, we may want to inform them about the advantages of purchasing a "starter" life insurance policy for your child, or simply tell them about discounts and partnerships with restaurants, hotels and financial services that we have negotiated on their behalf.

There are many ways that we can do this, such as through email, phone or U.S. Mail. However, we know how busy day-to-day life can be, and a one size approach does not always work. So, we thought we'd ask the following question:

"How do you prefer to hear about new products or services from your insurance company? Via email, Mail, or a simple phone call from your agent?"

We struggle with this for a couple of reasons:

• First, we know people are busy, but we want to provide our customers with valuable information to make them informed consumers.

• Second, we realize that different people like to be contacted in ways that are convenient for them.

So, tell us, what do you think is the best way to this? How would you want us to share this type of information with you?

There are many companies that you could choose to do business with for your life insurance needs, but let's say you chose AccuQuote. As a customer of ours, we would like to do something special to show you our appreciation. However, we're not quite sure of the best way to do that. So, we thought we'd ask you the following question:

"As a consumer, what would you want service companies, like AccuQuote, to do in order to show you their appreciation?"

We struggle with this for a few reasons:

• First, we want to provide you with something that is valuable and meaningful because as customers of ours you are valuable and meaningful to us.

• Second, due to the nature of insurance regulations as implemented by the government, we are limited as to what we can and can do in regards to "free stuff" or "rebating".

Here are two ideas we came up with, but we'd really like to hear yours:

1. Send you a FREE copy of a financial planning book or guide

2. Send you some a token of our appreciation (a key chain, pen, calendar, etc.)

So, tell us what you think. How would you want us to show you our appreciation for doing business with us? Leave us a comment and let us know.

We've been trying to improve our service to our customers and we'd like your feedback. Often times, people come to our website and request a life insurance quote. We then try to follow up with them via phone to verify the information and answer any questions they may have. However there are times when we can't get a hold of them. They don't answer the phone and they don't call us back.

We're hoping to find out why people don't take further action. If you've ever gone to our site, our competitors site, an auto insurer site or even health insurance site and filled out an application or requested a quote and didn't follow through we want to know why. For instance, was it because your experience with the website a bad one? Did you get all the information you needed already? Were you still shopping around? Did you think the quote was too high? Or, are you just too busy to return a call?

Whatever the reason may be, any insight as to why you haven't taken action would be greatly appreciated. Why? Because if it's because of something we can improve on, such as our service or website, we want to know. Thanks for your feedback!

This September marks the third annual Life Insurance Awareness Month.Life Insurance Awareness Month was created by the LIFE Foundation to generate awareness of the importance of life insurance.

Experts say that almost every life event presents itself with the opportunity to discuss life insurance. With that in mind (and because AccuQuote strongly supports LIFE and its efforts), we launched a website, called talkaboutlifeinsurance.com, around this premise in order to take that awkwardness out of getting the conversation started.

Talkaboutlifeinsurance.com allows people to create FREE e-cards to send to family and friends. The e-cards are themed around life events (the birth of a baby, a new home purchase, marriage, etc.) and are designed not only congratulate the recipient, but remind them to think about how their life insurance needs may have changed due to their recent life event. Creative, don't you think? We thought so!

More after the jump...

Judy wanted to know if life insurance can cover someone past the age of 70. She asked us on our blog. Our CEO, Byron Udell, answered. Now, he wants to hear your life insurance questions and concerns. Why? Because he realizes that life insurance can be confusing and difficult to understand. In fact, a study showed that more than 30% of people put off buying life insurance because they found it difficult to:

• Determine how much life insurance to buy
• Decide what kind to buy
• Choose which life insurance company to buy a policy from
• Determine how much life insurance they can afford

Don't let it prevent you from getting the protection your family needs. Here is your opportunity to get your questions answered and a little FREE advice. Whether you have a basic life insurance question or want to know more about non-recourse premium financing and life settlements, Byron will answer your questions.

Ever since we first started talking about starting this blog, I've been waiting (and sometimes not so patiently) to introduce myself. My name is Sean Cheyney, and I'm the vice president of marketing and business development at AccuQuote. I'll be throwing my two cents in from time to time regarding insurance issues, marketing financial services, and general advertising thoughts. Also, just like Byron and Denise, I'll be encouraging your feedback.

A little about me... I landed at AccuQuote in November 2002 after running screaming from a dot bomb disaster of a company. Honestly, my former company going bust was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Over the past 3+ years, I've had the privilege of putting together the best marketing team anyone could ask for as well as working closely with Byron Udell on a daily basis. I love my job, and I'm passionate about all areas of marketing. Now, having the opportunity to connect with consumers directly in a two-way conversation is extremely exciting.

Needless to say, at the end of the day I come home to my wife and son (17 months old) bursting with energy and excitement about what our team accomplished each day.

More after the jump...