The insurance industry is complex. There are regulations, compliance issues, globalisation and technological advancements that create a quagmire for navigating the path to success. On a more manageable level though, what can be done to ensure success?
We sat down with several of our top insurance services clients to identify the 4 most common pain points affecting the industry that can be managed at the organizational level. The biggest takeaway? Driving more activity on key targets results in almost guaranteed increases in revenue, motivation and company culture.
Here’s how sales motivation software played a key role in addressing their issues.
Solving the motivation problem
From our 2017 customer survey, where we had 2,000 sales reps respond, we found that 85% responded that “SalesScreen helped to increase motivation and sales” for the sales reps personally. Meanwhile, 87% of sales managers reported that their reps were “noticeably more motivated” and 73% had “seen an increase in awareness on sales targets” since using SalesScreen. So, we wanted to dig a little deeper into the “why” behind these numbers…
One of the main pain points that continually came up for insurance agencies was having employees who were unmotivated either because they didn’t understand their targets or because they were unable to clearly see the value of their efforts towards the overall success of the company.
Repetitive tasks (data entry, for example) proved to be extremely boring and burdensome and thus resulted in many disengaged and uninterested employees. Additionally, without visualization tools and real-time feedback insurance agents/advisors struggled to see the value they were bringing to the table–both individually and in comparison to their colleagues.
While using SalesScreen, insurance managers witnessed a spike in employee engagement as employees were noticeably more energized and enthusiastic about completing their daily tasks. By displaying sales data on TV screens throughout offices, agents gained a holistic perspective on their performance and impact within the company.
Frequent and well-deserved recognition help to build a culture of appreciation, and were found to contribute to higher employee motivation. Introducing gamification showed progress on goals in a fun and meaningful way, making even the most boring of tasks a little more exciting.
Click to read a success story from a leading insurance company.
Driving better alignment to KPIs
In a perfect world, managers would clearly explain what specific targets need to be hit and how achieving those targets results in success for both the organization as a whole and the individual team members. Then, the employees would say “you got it, boss” and strive each day to ensure they hit their numbers.
The problem is that it doesn’t always work this way. Management often has a hard time choosing and defining just a few (3-5) key metrics that lead to success and then motivating employees to focus on effectively achieving them.
Your key performance indicators (KPIs) should be quantifiable metrics that are “used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals.” You don’t need 35+ KPIs. you just need a few and you need to measure them accurately. In addition, you need to provide clarity and focus on them in a way that allows everyone in the team to come in to work, grab a cup of coffee, and get straight down to increasing the productivity numbers on those KPIs (hit the phones, book more face-to-face meetings, send more offers, etc.) because if people know what works and why it matters, they’ll get it done.
In order to get people to focus better on KPIs, consider implementing leaderboards that show rankings for that particular objective (phone calls today, offers sent this week, new MRR this month, etc.). You can also use data visualization to provide customized dashboards to track individual or team success metrics. More Awareness = better focus = improved performance on KPIs.
As a result, your staff will feel like a more essential part of the organization whose contributions are seen, recognized and valued. In turn, this will result in happier employees, better productivity and more deals closed. It’s a beautiful circle when done right.
Improving consistency
Consistency in performance was also a recurring issue that came up, with teams struggling to hit their targets regularly. While this was directly related to lack of awareness on KPIs, as mentioned above, it also had to do with fluctuating levels of management attention and motivation.
Developing consistency goes against human nature… this is because consistency requires repetition which is boring, takes a lot of energy and requires our full attention. The trick, however, really only requires two steps: isolate the goal and focus on incremental improvement.
- Isolate the goal - This first step is essential because it narrows your focus and set your mind to completing a single challenge, without all of the other distractions. Determine what KPI or target you need to complete regularly and define why it is important to achieve.
- Focus on incremental improvement - Once you have a single goal, realize that it will take some time to perfect your skill at it. Using tools that show real-time progress and historical data will allow you to quickly see and understand how your performance is changing over time.
Sales motivation software allows you to track performance in a way that makes it easy to understand both current and past performance, as well as provides a variety of ways to drive continuous improvement. For example, you can use slides on TV which show current performance on a KPI compared with previous performance over a given period (this year vs. last year, Q2 vs. Q1, etc). You can also use a variety of fully customizable dashboards to place all of the information that is relevant to you in one location.
Better sense of time management
In relation to engagement and motivation, insurance employees struggled with focus and managing their time efficiently.
Most insurance companies use outdated reporting systems and struggle to get sales reports, especially down to the individual sales rep level. Many continue to use manual reporting tools for their everyday data entry, such as spreadsheets. Having the ability to immediately see their numbers allows staff and individual agents alike to ensure they are focusing their time on the metrics that lead to revenue growth and success.
Better sales data helps to increase transparency and awareness, so that employees have a clear idea of how they are performing and where they stand in relation to their co-workers. When people understand these metrics, they can more easily manage their time efficiently and determine what they should be spending more (or less) time on.
Conclusion
Sales motivation software is a fitting solution for many pain points in the insurance industry. It’s useful for addressing common issues including unmotivated employees, misalignment to KPIs, lack of consistency and poor time management. While not everything in this highly regulated industry is under your control, employee motivation and performance is. To learn more about how sales motivation software is making an impact in other insurance companies, check out this customer success story from Tryg, one of the leading insurance providers in the Nordics.
“SalesScreen has also allowed us to visualize many different performance metrics and use competitions and rewards to motivate our reps. It has made our data more intuitive and easier to understand while also making the workplace more engaging.” – Stian Rorby, Marketing Manager at Tryg
