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Insurance Industry - Increase Sales and Retention From Your CUSTOMER SUPPORT Team
The insurance marketplace is highly competitive, with internet buying, increased insurance claims and tighter margins. Most insurance brokers and insurance companies are searching for that winning edge, but frequently skip the full potential offered when customers ring in to the organisation.

a sales management approach to customer service

customer support teams in the insurance sector are trained to provide quotes, or to accept renewals or cancellations. Some insurance renewals or cancellations teams are save teams, focused on keeping our customers from leaving. Unfortunately, handful of these are managed like sales teams, or are encouraged to use core sales skills. When met with negatives from a potential customer about price, or the huge benefits provided by the opposition, many customer support or renewals teams are simply just not equipped to cope with this plus they often don't have anything useful to say.

Central to a highly effective sales type approach is that the managers and team leaders will work constantly to give their teams the right focus, and to arm them with what to say in specific situations and how to put this across in a confident way that the client will accept.

They work continuously on building positive belief, product knowledge and interactive skills.

The following are a few good sales management practices for customer service or renewals teams -

1. build positive belief inside our company and in our products. agents are constantly hearing negatives about our policies and prices. It is important to market internally as well as externally. Keep carefully the teams surrounded by positive messages, and real, concrete evidence as to why we are a good organisation and offer good value for money.

2. ensure that every person in the team is up to date in our benefits. sales people work on this constantly as it builds positive belief and product knowledge. Have the team list all the great things about our company and our key policies. Why should a customer buy from us, and just why should they stay? Many teams have quizzes with this, or invite sales or marketing personnel in to team meetings to keep them fully briefed.

3. practice and refresh frequently our unique selling points. what the agent says on the telephone in response to an objection must be totally relevant and real. The insurance business changes on a monthly basis, prices go up and down, policy selling points change. Investigate your opposition, and discover a) their vulnerable points and b) our strengths against them. website say anything negative about the opposition, since it simply does not work.

Customers usually do not respond positively to this. However, your customer service team can, and must, offer the insurance buyer a good, sound reason why we are better for them. Every agent should have these on the tip of their tongue!

4. identify each of our target groups and prepare specific benefits that are relevant for every group. This is important in direct lines insurance, in fact it is practiced only by the best of the best!

Take the example of motor insurance. Most agents on the telephone are young males or females. They think just like a young person and will make assumptions about their customers predicated on these assumptions. A young male will always assume that no customer is interested in the benefits of the policy, and will try to convince those around them that the only real important thing is price!

get more info is, needless to say, because most young males are such as this. Older men and women are completely different, and can definitely need to know what they're buying. They're not buying a 'price' they are investing in a service! The message is that people prepare and practice what we can say to young males, preparing two or three benefits, and we prepare different benefits for older males, older females and young females.

We find out which are the most reliable benefits by asking them! Older females have often had accidents, and they will have bad or good experiences of their insurance provider. They're spending money on an 'accident service', and they'll be impressed by how fast it is possible to settle claims, how well you look after them when the break down etc.

Young males usually do not think they'll ever have accidents, plus they just want to get in the car and go! We do not mention accidents or roadside assistance with this group. Our benefits are all about price and the speed at which we can process the policy and get them in their car!

Any customer support or renewals team will benefit hugely from this sales type approach. Focusing on these areas will improve focus, increase motivation and deliver better results.

Kate Tammemagi provides Customer Service Training [http://www.focustraining.ie] in Ireland. She works extensively in the Insurance Industry designing Customer Service Courses
My Website: https://reimergorman65.bloggersdelight.dk/2023/04/08/insurance-industry-increase-sales-and-retention-from-your-own-customer-support-team/