The insurance industry is highly competitive. While most businesses have a stern belief that their products help give them that all-important edge over the competition, the reality is that success depends as much on your sales professionals as it is does on your policies.
This means that you need to ensure your sales team receives effective customer service training and high-quality sales coaching. In this article, we’re going to focus on the specific skills your insurance sales teams need to focus on before they can offer complete professionalism.
1) Product Knowledge
Without knowing each policy inside out, even the hardiest salesperson is going to struggle when it comes to selling insurance. Audiences have an instinctive knack of knowing when a person is an authority on a topic. When a salesperson can demonstrate product knowledge, they’re more likely to persuade potential clients to take up an insurance policy.
2) Phone Skills
While some policies will be sold face-to-face, most are going to involve some serious telephone skills. As much as businesses push for email and webchat, a lot of insurance business is still done over the phone – and this means your sales team are going to need to be effective telephone communicators. Bear in mind that your prospects will be listening to every word that your team says – everything from pace to tone and inflexion of voice are being judged. With effective phone skills, closing the deal becomes much easier.
3) An Ability To Listen
One of the simplest yet most effective ways to increase sales in the insurance industry is to work on your listening skills. While it’s important to know what to say and when to say it, it’s equally important to know when to listen. A lot of insurance sales professionals make the mistake of pushing the product too hard when they should be listening to the concerns of the potential policy purchaser. Take a little bit of time to listen to what the customer has to say and offer a policy which matches their specific needs.
4) Customer Service
Your insurance sales team shouldn’t be all about the hard sell – they need to appear professional and courteous, too. By presenting themselves as polite and willing to go the extra mile for the customer, they’re demonstrating that your company cares. Despite this, approximately one-third of businesses are paying less attention to customer service than ever before. This is proof that there is lots of room for your insurance sales team to gain a competitive advantage by offering the right level of support.
5) Understanding Value
Some people know the price of everything while knowing the value of nothing. One of the easiest ways to improve the effectiveness of your insurance sales team is to teach them how to sell based on value as opposed to price. Customers are happy to pay more if they feel like they’re going to receive more – and your sales team needs to understand this.
For more information on how to maximize insurance sales, why not get in touch with us today? Our team is just a phone call or email away and is ready and waiting to help you to improve your insurance sales strategy.