|
Achieving Customer Service Excellence in Life Insurance Sales
Life insurance sales is a relationship-centered business. Traditions such as selling to families in their homes have helped many companies create business relationships that last for generations.
One such company existed as a division of a multi-billion dollar provider of life and health insurance, mutual funds, securities and annuities. Over the decades, the life insurance division had become known for its personalized service and family focus.
Challenge
In an age of faceless corporations, customers often found the company’s family focus refreshing. But as the modern consumer increasing came to expect immediate answers, the company became burdened by the labor-intensiveness of personalized service. In order to remain competitive without sacrificing their reputation, the company had to find a way to stay personal while cutting time.
Solution
In the midst of increasing complaints, the life insurance provider set out to improve the quality of in-house customer service. The division president envisioned creating “integrated high-performing teams” to increase customer responsiveness. However, because the company had not used teams in the past, employees didn’t have a clear understanding of team performance or expectations for team behavior. Newly integrated teams experienced coaching difficulties and role confusion and lacked direction and unity.
When company executives realized that the teams needed clear leadership and coaching, they began to evaluate several team development models, considering each for its “ease of use and ability to create high-performance teams.” Ultimately they decided on two programs from The TRACOM Group.
“TRACOM has greater depth of insight into teams than other firms we looked at,” said one committee member.
To create a foundation of productive relationships, the company chose Producing Results with Others, a two-day workshop based on TRACOM’s world-famous Social Style Model™. Participants learned to understand behavior and create effective interactions with coworkers of any “Social Style.” This was especially useful for interdepartmental teams.
The second course, Orchestrating Team Performance, is based on TRACOM’s award-winning Tri-Dimensional Model of Team Development™. Team members learned the nine critical components of success, including consistent communication, common purpose and new member integration. This helped long-term project teams build the processes and relationships needed to function at a high level.
“The nine components (in the Team Development Model) give a tangible, definite plan for team success,” said a company trainer.
Results
With backing from the management team, the life insurance company had 100 percent participation from the target employee population.
“Knowing that a whole management team buys into this approach, it must be successful,” said a trainer.
The organization’s new quick-response support teams collaborated to make major changes to customer response systems. One agent explained that while in the past he may have needed to call a dozen people before finding an answer for a customer, now he could get the same information in a single attempt. This improved communication and responsiveness resulted in lower wait times and much less customer frustration.
Because of the success, the company plans in place to extend TRACOM training to other divisions of their business. They also plan to hold follow-up session to keep team skill levels high.
More:
|
