Sales of insurance policies
What the client said about the problem
“We have just launched the new insurance product, but the sales are meagre. The product is great and timely. We integrated it with the mobile application we are pushing to the market, but the poor sales are disappointing. I think our salespeople need training on selling skills focusing on the presentation of the new products. We count on your quick help.”
What the kick-off meeting revealed (goal and barriers)
-
The company goal was clear - to sell 20K policies a year. However, the sales department sold just 30 policies in the first month.
-
Insurance agents were unwilling to offer this product as they feared losing clients to the mobile application linked to the new product.
-
Product developers did not communicate clear criteria for the product’s target audience to sales teams. Salespeople only had a maximum of two attempts with a client, so they decided not to sell it, focusing on more familiar products instead.
The solution that I recommended
-
Create the job aid for the criteria of the target audience.
-
Create an eLearning activity to memorise them.
-
Include the installation of the mobile application in the incentive of the agents.
-
Abandon training on selling skills for now.
Click on the action map to open it.
The changes developed and implemented by the client
-
The client reviewed the incentive plan of agents by including the number of installations of the mob application.
-
I created the job aid for the target audience criteria to be used as a reference whenever the salesperson needs to refresh their memory.
Click on the job aid to open it.
-
Since the salespeople and the agents could not use the job aid in front of a customer, they had to memorise the criteria. To help this, I developed an eLearning activity to train them to identify the target audience.
Project evaluation
In the next six months, the agents sold 6K contracts and 15K in the second half. The team achieved the full-year objective of 20K policies ten months after the rollout of the changes.
Telecom. Retail sales.
What the client said about the problem
“The problem is that too many customers leave our retail offices unhappy. We see it from the exit surveys. The recent Gemba checks showed that our salespeople do not use clear scripts during their customer sales meetings. I want you to develop the scripts for our retail office salespeople. I am sure we could sell much more if we increase the satisfaction level of our customers.”
What the kick-off meeting revealed (goal and barriers)
-
The level of customer satisfaction was below the industry average.
-
The company set the goal to be at least 75% of “Good” ratings or above by the end of the year (in 5 months) as measured by the standard company exit feedback procedure.
-
The discussion with salespeople and their managers showed that handling customer objections is the most significant skills gap. Salespeople either get technical or defensive.
-
The scripts did exist but needed a redesign to become more straightforward and user-friendly. They were more like textbooks, containing theory and psychology. Many salespeople did not know the scripts existed or considered them useless and stopped using them over time.
-
Experienced employees shared the best practices with the new salespeople about handling difficult questions. Still, there was no centralized approach to this.
The solution that I recommended
-
To redesign scripts as a concise job aid, structured by common customer objections and the recommended answers, no theory.
-
Create an eLearning activity to memorise them.
-
The company had many regional sales offices. Therefore I recommended developing a self-paced eLearning activity. Its role is to train people to use scripts to prepare for customer meetings and memorise the most appropriate response to each objection. The self-paced activity was best for busy learners to go through at their own pace and time.
-
To take advantage of the well-developed company intranet, create a chat room for salespeople to share their best practices.
Click on the action map to open it.
The changes developed and implemented by the client
-
I redesigned the scripts to become more like a customer question or comment and the best answer a salesperson can give.
-
I developed the self-paced eLearning activity with one scenario-based module dedicated to each of the most often objections. The learners had to go through a real-life situation they faced in the retail office and choose from the list of options for responding. They then see the consequences of their choice and move to the next decision choice until they learn the best way through the objection. The learners can download a script on handling this objection and an on-demand knowledge piece explaining why the consequence happened.
-
More modules dedicated to different customer objections were sent to salespeople every other week to learn the skill further.
-
The company developed an intranet chat room to share best practices in handling customer objections. It further embeds the skills and gives seasoned salespeople a place to answer the questions from their less experienced colleagues.
Click here to see the activity to train handling customer objections
Click here to see the script "Handling customer objections"
Project evaluation
Customer satisfaction grew to 77% in the next five months after the rollout of the changes. The intranet chat room helped to identify and address the new objections and include them in later email rollouts to train further.
As I said above, talking will not cost you anything. On top, I will be happy to advise you for free on performance consulting or action mapping if I can.
​
Contact me on my details below or fill in the form.
+420 724 655 514
©2022 by Ruben Ter-Minasian