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Case Study
While providing sales training to a group of insurance agents, I tasked them with finding out what their customers really wanted and what they didn’t like. The agents were to fill out a report for all their sales calls and interactions with customers and prospects for a six-week period to glean accurate information. The report asked the customers their top two issues other than price, their peeves about the insurance agency, and their top wish list. We utilized this information to create a powerful flyer to give to customers and prospects. More importantly, now the agents know how to sell more effectively and how to better serve their customers!
After asking all customers and prospects the questions in the weekly report we compiled the top answers and included them in the flyer. The flyer began with, “In my research of asking hundreds of prospects and customers what they want most from an insurance agency, their three top concerns were:”
1. Agent availability—I want to talk to an agent when I have a question or a claim.
To address this issue my agency commits to:
● Give all our clients a list of phone numbers of our insurance carriers to call if they have a claim. And we are happy to help with processing the claim.
● Provide our personal cell phone numbers to clients should they have an emergency and need our help – we will get involved promptly.
● Have a commitment to return normal calls within two hours.
2. Understand the coverage of their policy.
We are committed to the following protocol to make sure our clients understand their coverages:
● We explain the coverages during the application process and answer any questions the client may have at that time.
● We deliver the policies to our clients and review the coverage again.
● We are available at any time to answer any questions you may have.
● We have developed fact sheets regarding different coverages that educate our clients.
3. Good Customer Service
To ensure that our clients receive the very best of Customer Service we are committed to the following:
● We hire nice people who are committed to providing great Customer Service.
● Our agents and service personnel are trained to provide great customer service.
● We do follow up surveys to make sure our clients are more than satisfied (are happy) with the Customer Service they received.
From the information gathered by the agents, they created a UPS (Unique Selling Position):
“________ Insurance Agency helps people and businesses obtain the correct insurance coverages, make sure they understand the coverage and bind it at the best possible price. Our commitment is to respond promptly to all calls, requests, and claims.”
Raises vs Bonuses
The last six years as a Chief Financial Officer for a multi-million-dollar company, I was not given a raise. However, I was a super motivated CFO. The reason was that the owner of the company was a smart businessman. He rewarded exemplary performance with exemplary bonuses. Most years I earned more in bonuses than my salary, all predicated on how profitable the company was. I understood this concept and every day I went to work with the goal of improving the bottom line of the company (ethically while taking care of our employees and our customers).
Once you give an employee a raise it is there regardless of future performance. It is rewarding the past performance, but it also rewards them regardless of their future performance. Bonuses reward past performance and won’t be repeated unless the future performance is worthy of a bonus. It’s fair and a wonderful way to keep employees motivated. My advice to business owners I coach is to never give raises to managers, instead give generous bonuses matching their performance. It ensures future effort and performance!
Getting Employees Involved in Reducing Expenses and Increasing Profits
I was facilitating a program on a Saturday for an organization that required all employees to attend. I used the following exercise in the morning, and at lunch a group of employees told me they had planned to skip out after lunch but were excited to stay for the afternoon session. So, what did I do that got the employees actively involved?
I asked them at the beginning of the session what they wanted to get out of our time together. The first thing identified was raises. They all wanted more money. I explained that the only way for a business or organization to give raises was to reduce expenses or increase revenue. I offered to allow time if the group wanted to explore ways to do that. I suggested they make specific suggestions and present their ideas to upper management, then request that a percentage of money saved (from reduced expenses) and money earned (additional revenue) be dedicated to raises for the employees.
All business owners want to make bigger profits and all employees want to make more money. These two separate goals can become one with the following approach.
We split up into two groups, one group identifying ways to reduce expenses and one group identifying ways to increase revenue. Employees chose which area they felt they could contribute more to and then the groups spent time detailing ways to decrease expenses and increase revenue.
The concept is to get employees involved with an incentive plan that can work for both employees and the business. Begin by soliciting their ideas.
● Ask for cost cutting ideas.
● Ask for ideas to increase revenue.
● Ask for ideas to improve efficiency and accountability.
Once the ideas are implemented, measure the financial impact (profit-wise) created through the employees’ ideas. Then share a % of the profits created with the participating employees. This process works!
