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News Telephone Sales of General Insurance – End of the Line or New
Beginning? Financial services are the growth area for the call centre industry,
but is all well on the construction site? A recent FSA report noted ‘The
overall quality of sales where the customer was cold-called by the firm was
unacceptably low.’ In a market where is still some confusion between customer
satisfaction and treating customers fairly what is a company involved in the
general insurance telephone sales business to do? Give advice Consider phasing out non-advised sales – they have become associated
with high cancellation rates and lower levels of customer satisfaction. Give
your customers plenty of opportunities to ask questions and explain the
different cover and benefit levels available. Make sure the level of cover
you are offering suits their requirements. Verify Check and check again! If you are selling over the phone, you owe it
to your customers and shareholders to make sure sales calls have been
verified. Have a team, who are independent of the sales process, check sales
calls to make sure you have disclosed the correct details about the policy
and answered customer questions correctly. Just because you have outsourced
the work (or are performing outsourced services for that matter!) does not
absolve you of the responsibility to get it right. Broaden your sales channels Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – do what you can to drive
inbound sales activity. There’s no getting away from it, it’s a lot less
risky. Think about selling your financial products on the internet, or at
least using your website to support the telemarketing activity you are doing. Information, information, information Sure, you don’t want to overload your customers with information, but
let customers read through policy details before they commit. It is important
to be very clear about add-ons to the policy and every customer prefers to
deal with a firm that is upfront about policy limitations and exclusions. Rely on the skills of your staff Your company has to work together – ditch the ‘do it right or else’
attitude and give your team the training and support they need to provide a
highly efficient and professional service to your customers. Reward
achievement in a holistic way – don’t just incentivise sales numbers – use
your imagination! Seize the opportunity Remember - as soon as a market starts to get complicated there are
strategic opportunities to be had if you can move quickly and position your
company to take the new challenges in its stride. Paul Henshaw is a co-founder of 2gether Consulting, offering compliance
and marketing advice to call centres and insurance providers. |
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