Train your CSRs to sell — and watch your revenues grow!
Who speaks to your customers more than anyone else in the office? The CSR.
Who is probably more current on carrier products and coverages? The CSR.
Who understands rating worksheets frontward and backward? The CSR.
Who does the client or prospect call to get a quote from most often? The CSR.
Who’s in the best position to sell peripheral coverages to existing clients? The CSR.
Who is the least trained salesperson on staff? The CSR.
So who’s missing great account development opportunities by getting CSRs to sell? You, the agency owner!
We pack our producers off to mega-sales seminars for days or weeks at a time. They learn the fine art of needs selling, spin selling, pain selling, opening statements, probing, overcoming obstacles, and surefire closing techniques. We also hold producers accountable for appointment setting, X-dates, quote ratios, hit ratios, and profitability. Good producers observe a situation or hear an objection and immediately select the proper technique from the bag of skills that they learned from seminars, mentoring personal sales experience, and by monitoring results.
Why not teach CSRs the same skills?
THE THREE T's
We become impatient when we see obvious opportunities turn into lost business because the right sales technique was not used. It’s time to step back and look at the CSR in a new light — as a professional who can balance technical expertise with organizational skills while servicing the customer’s needs. Your CSRs are resolving dozens of serious customer issues every day. As an agency owner or producer, you might not see this because most CSRs consider it part of their day’s work. CSRs who do a super job placating a customer with a claim or accounting problem might well have the potential to sell. You just have to give them the three T’s: Training, tools, and time. What about opportunity? That’s no problem — it’s already there!
To capitalize on your agency’s account-development opportunities, or to improve closing ratio on sales handled exclusively by CSRs, follow this six-step game plan.
Step One: Test
Use a personality profile test to assess which of your CSRs are most likely to be comfortable in a sales setting. Look for such traits as extroversion and average to above-average ego drive.
Step Two: Interview
Once you’ve identified potential Sales CSRs, interview them just as you would a new employee applying for job that requires both sales and service skills. Gauge the interest of the CSR in a career-enhancement program. Explain why the person was specifically selected to be interviewed and briefly outline how you see the Sales CSR position taking shape.
Step Three: Make Your Selection
Choose a person or several people to engage in this activity (they should participate voluntarily).
Step Four: Create a Sales Training Program
A sales training program requires an instructor and a mentor. The instructor teaches the approaches and techniques needed to achieve optimum results from any sales encounter. It’s also important to provide training on benchmarks, performance goals, and development of a good sales plan.
The mentor is the person who the trainee can go to with problems and for support. This mentor should also observe the trainee in sales situations and make constructive observations in writing and structured discussions. Together with the mentor, the Sales CSR will develop a written sales plan that should include:
- Preparing for a sales call (from business cards to brochures to dress and demeanor)
- Making appointments (if applicable)
- Opening statements and introductions (including handshakes, eye contact, voice tone and script)
- General (to pique the interest of the prospect)
- Probing to find the pain (open and closed probes, and when to use each)
- Listening
- Matching the cure with the pain (needs/benefits selling)
- Closing techniques
- Dealing with customer attitudes (indifference, objection, skepticism, and acceptance)
- Developing a sales plan (complete with premium, units quoted, sold and commission income)
- Monitoring and assessing results
- Pushing the envelope to achieve the next level of sales success!
Step Five: Provide Sales Tools
Once the training is in place, make sure that the right tools are available: Business cards, printouts of results, telemarketing software, risk-assessment software (if applicable), and perhaps a formal introduction to the community through a newsletter or newspaper ad. Most important, the Sales CSR needs some starting point, such as access to dead files of good lost accounts, or to computer reports listing such information as all Monoline Auto accounts, or all Commercial Accounts that have no Business Income or Employment Practices coverages.
Step Six: Allocate Selling Time
You can’t expect a Sales CSR to achieve the same results as a full-time producer. When setting sales goals, consider quote time, expected number of quotes per week, expected number of closings per week, and the time needed to complete the paperwork for any new clients. Once that’s determined, deduct the equivalent amount of time from the CSR’s regular duties by reducing the number of accounts that they handle. The trade-off with the other CSRs is that any quote requests for new policies are to be directed to the Sales CSRs.
FOLLOW-UP
The mentor’s job is never done; they need to monitor the Sales CSR’s sales presentations and make sure that achievement awards are presented appropriately. The sales manager needs to review results weekly. Be sure to include the Sales CSR in all sales meetings. Being surrounded by the high energy of other salespeople will trigger their competitive instincts and help them appreciate their role in the big picture.
CONCLUSION
You’ll find it extremely gratifying to see your Sales CSRs blossom as they get hooked on the competitive selling game. Properly chosen and trained, your CSRs can sell.