Telemarketing for Insurance Agents: The Complete Guide
The telemarketing industry has become a whole new playing field, especially for insurance agents, due to the rise and integration of mobile phones into our daily lives. What was once simply cold calling different home phones has evolved into a strategic, procedural approach where the agent has a clear goal that they want to achieve through their customer. Your specific approach will depend on your own company policies, but the general ideas will remain similar.
Telemarketing, as an insurance agent, will be different than in other contexts, but these tips will help guide you in almost all situations:
Stay focused and keep your goal in mind
Make sure to get the required information while in conversation
Use a guiding script
Prepare beforehand
These guidelines are a good foundation, but you will most likely need to know more when you have specific or different goals that you're trying to accomplish. A telemarketing insurance agent will be put in many different situations. Reading the rest of this article will help you learn more telemarketing strategies and tips to help achieve your goal.
Preparing For Your Call
A lot of people now regard telemarketing as an outdated form of sales and communication because of the rise in technology, and most of this can be attributed to the development of mobile smartphones and their functionality. While you can definitely say that telemarketing for insurance agents is a lot harder now than it used to be, that doesn't mean it's not possible. This just means it will take more preparation, which is what we're going to be covering in this section.
Preparing for your call beforehand is probably the most important step for telemarketing because, if done effectively, it will put you in the best position to succeed. Focus on:
Conducting proper research on your approach and your client
Preparing a guiding script and rehearsing it accordingly
Strategizing when and how you're going to call your client
As an insurance agent, your telemarketing will be predicated on how well you can connect with your client, and performing these steps will help ensure that you make the best connection possible. There are other various methods and steps that you can do to help prepare for your call, and the more you work on preparing for your call, the more effective you will be when the time comes.
Making a Script
Making a guiding script is probably the most effective way to prepare for a call because this script will directly translate to your actual call. After all, it will be used as a constant reference for whatever purpose it was designed. Many telemarketing companies already have some sort of company wide script they give to their agents, but if you don't have one already, you should definitely consider making one.
When making a script, there are some basic archetypes that you can follow:
A script that simulates the entire conversation between the agent and client will guide you along the entire process.
A script that gives you phrases or insights to use when the conversation doesn't go according to plan, sometimes known as a recovery script.
A script that lists and reminds you of all the information that you need to obtain. It doesn't necessarily guide you on how to retrieve that information from the client.
Choosing which type of script to use will depend on your own situation, but the most important thing you need to do is make sure that you practice and rehearse your script plenty of times before the actual call. Using a script only during the call will make it much less effective and impactful. It's also recommended that when you practice and rehearse, you want to try to do it with another person and actually simulate the call so you're prepared as much as possible.
Preparing for Your Client
The other aspect of your telemarketing call will be the client itself. You should already be doing research beforehand in order to analyze what you will be discussing and how you plan to approach it, but strategizing for the individual client is another factor that you have to consider. This usually consists of knowing what kind of personality the client has and the best way to reach them, and a big component of that is determining what kind of number to use.
Nowadays, people usually list their mobile phone as their preferred method of contact, but you should never assume this when clients give you a number. If possible, you should try to figure out what kind of number the client gave you because it can generally signify when would be the best time to reach them. This can then help prepare you for the call. The information that's implied by the phone number type is summarized in the table below.
Knowing the call situation can also impact how you plan to communicate with the client and how you will approach the call in general. The time of the day and the method of communication are definitely factors of which you need to be aware, and making sure you get all of this information beforehand will help you telemarket much more effectively.
Telemarketing Tips During Your Call
Now that you've prepared extensively for your call, the time has come to actually make the call and engage with the client. As we've discussed before, the insurance agent's success will heavily depend on the connection that you make with the client, so it's very important that, as a telemarketer, you are effective during the actual call.
These general tips provided are meant to help insurance agents achieve that level of connection with the client:
Create and maintain a genuine enthusiasm and attitude.
Actively listen to and engage with your client.
Communicate the needed information as efficiently as possible.
In addition to these guidelines, as the insurance agent, you should also take the initiative to find more ways to strengthen your telemarketing skills, and a lot of that comes with experience. This point is very important to remember because it allows you to realize that even if your call isn't deemed successful, you can still learn from the experience and take a lot from it. But you ultimately want to achieve the goal you set initially, so it's important to handle the call effectively.
Starting The Call
You can argue that the most important part of a telemarketing call is the beginning because that's where you're supposed to make the initial engagement with the client. If it's not done properly, the client may have little motivation to stay on the call. Because of this and other reasons, you should really focus on nailing the beginning of your telemarketing call. Here are some good steps that are listed in order, to help you make a strong beginning.
Keep your introduction short.
Explain the purpose of your call and what you're trying to achieve.
Allow quick feedback or questions from the client.
These may seem like insignificant points to bring up, but they can be crucial in helping to establish a sincere connection with your client at the beginning of your call. These steps essentially get to the point and can save time for you and your client. This might, in turn, make the client feel valued and appreciated, so they may be more inclined to accept or help you in achieving whatever your goal is for the sale.
To illustrate this point, let's go more into detail about what these steps accomplish. A common piece of telemarketing advice is that you should always try and build rapport with your client in order to humanize the conversation, which is a good point, and it's something you should definitely try to do depending on your client. However, you don't want to drag the introductions for too long because the client can then become disinterested very quickly.
After the initial phase of greetings and introductions, you want to be clear and concise by explaining the purpose of your call and what you hope to accomplish almost immediately. This is known as straight selling, and it's in an attempt to build trust with the client by making it transparent that you're not trying to trick or manipulate them. This will help make a connection with the client, and when combined with the last step, it can help save time for both parties.
By allowing feedback from the client right at the beginning, you can gauge how the process is starting, and it may even help you decide how to approach the rest of the call. It can also save a lot of time because the client may know that there is no way they're interested in your services, and this gives them a good time to let you know. In other cases, their interest may entirely depend on a certain question, and giving them the chance to ask that can greatly help your call.
Engaging The Client During The Call
Following the initial phase of your call, you should now be focusing on achieving whatever your call's goal was; you've set up the foundation at this point, and now it's time to use that foundation to carry out the rest of your procedure. In many cases, insurance agents are proficient at the earlier parts of the call, but when it comes to the point where they're actually supposed to communicate with the client, they can start to have problems.
Succeeding in this phase of the call goes back to the main points we brought up at the beginning of this section, which is finding a way to connect with the client simply. This is the point where an effective script can really become useful, but a script is essentially just a set of guidelines; it's up to you to apply these guidelines and find other ways to achieve what you need to.
One important aspect to focus on in order to achieve this connection is to make sure the client doesn't feel pressured or hassled in any way. This is based on the first point of creating genuine enthusiasm, and there are many ways to achieve this. One way is to simply smile during a call; this will inherently put you in a good mood, even if it may not affect the actual call. Another simple way is to address your client by name to show genuine interest or care.
Different Types of Telemarketing Calls
As an insurance agent, you're probably going to need to perform different types of telemarketing calls, and the following table lists three general types and how you should approach them.
Sample Effective Telemarketing Script
A solid intro is a must. It is important to consider tone of voice, how you pitch yourself, and how you pitch your carrier(s). Ultimately, they will decide based off of the first 20seconds on whether they want to do business with you or not. You want to separate yourself from others. If pitched correctly and in the right way the independent model sells itself. Who wouldn’t want to get multiple quotes all from the same person to see if they could be saving money or increasing their coverage? See this sample script for guidance:
Intro:
-Good morning/afternoon, this is [Your Name ] with [Agency Name]. We are an insurance brokerage, how are you doing today?
Hook 1-Great I’m glad to hear that! I was calling today to see if I could help with finding you better auto and property insurance. Like I said, we are a brokerage style agency so I can quote you through over 10 different companies to find you the best price/coverage combination. Have just a couple mins?
Hook 2-Awesome happy to hear that! I was calling today because I’ve been working with others here in [Your Location] and helping them out big time on their auto and property insurance! Wanted to see if I could do the same for you if you had just a couple mins?
If yes, then shift call back to rapport building as you are collecting prelim/basic info needed for the quote(s).
After The Call Has Ended
After your call has ended, whether it's deemed successful or not, it's intuitive that an insurance agent would immediately start working on getting ready for the next call. However, you should take time to stop and reflect on your recent call in order to learn from it.
To help you learn from your call, you want to be actively engaged during your call so that you keep track of ways to improve next time. This can include:
Asking questions for the client to answer
Taking notes during the call to review afterward
Remaining calm and focused throughout the whole call
Asking questions for the client serves a double purpose because it provides a way for the client to provide feedback so you can gauge how you're doing. It also acts as a way to create that connection that we've repeatedly mentioned by making the client more involved in the conversation. By remaining calm and focused, it'll help you perform your actual call, and it will also put you in a better headspace after the call has ended in order to properly evaluate it.
The biggest factor many insurance agents may have trouble directly applying is taking notes during the call so that you can effectively review your call performance. Many will be tempted to simply divert all of their attention on the call itself, which is reasonable, but you should put some attention to keeping track of how you're doing throughout the call.
Many insurance agents do this by marking up their scripts as they go along so they can keep track of important information. That way, they can compare how they did as the conversation progressed. It's also a good idea to actually write down some of the answers the client provides when you ask them questions. It can make their response feel valued, and it helps keep track of their answers and your performance as a whole.
How to Prioritize Leads in Telemarketing
When you are calling through long lists it’s important to prioritize who to call when. You want to make sure you’re making the most of the call time you have. However, at this point, there isn’t a lot of information for the households so there aren’t as many points at which you can prioritize them.
Instead, you can focus on people whose renewal is coming up in the next 45 days. This only works if you have that information. Another target is their current carrier. If you know a certain carrier took a rate increase in your area then you can target people of that carrier. Finally, you can target date of birth. Again, if you have that information you can use it to target people who have had a birthday that puts them over a threshold where they’ll save money.
Conclusion
Telemarketing as an insurance agent can be quite difficult in today's world, but it just takes some dedication and patience, and you will eventually become successful. The key is putting immense focus on the client. Keeping that principle in mind while you prepare, perform, and reflect on your calls will definitely help you achieve whatever goal or task you need to achieve.
Sources:
https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/insurance-cold-calling-scripts/
