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1.Manage Yourself
2.Manage the Sales Process
3.Manage Customer Relationships
4.Build Your Business
This is the third in a series of four articles highlighting the 15 Sales Success Factors. Each article details the factors relating to one of the four management areas listed above.
Think about your last sales call. What thoughts guided your presentation and conversation? Did your motivation include a genuine concern for the customer's success? Did you really understand his or her needs and wants? Were you sensitive to their non-verbal cues? Did you "read between the lines" to determine their real motivations? Customers analyze both you and your company's products when determining whether or not to invest in you and your company. If the customers feel that you will serve their best interests, they will then trust the company as well. The reverse also proves true. Core attributes and values associated with managing customer relationships include, focusing on your customer's success, developing interpersonal sensitivity, and gaining commitments.
Focus on Customer Success
You hear these complaints all the time:
o"He sold me the policy and then I never heard from him again."
o"She just kept trying to convince me to buy more, and she spoke too fast for me to understand."
o"He only tried to sell me on his "special deal," and really didn't understand my situation."
These complaints demonstrate behaviors of agents who concern themselves more with a sale than they do with customer success. An insurance representative who focuses on the success of the customer will relentlessly concentrate on putting the customer's needs and wants above his or her own. Insurance and financial services provides products that provides benefits over a long period of time. Your customers will be enjoying those benefits long after you have spent your commission check. When you realize that these benefits add value to your product, you can see that understanding and delivering to the customer the most beneficial products and services is a win/win proposition.
Let's look at the example of Patty. As an insurance agent, Patty works hard to find the best solution possible for each client. In order to match each client with the ideal policy for his or her unique situation, Patty helps her customers understand and prioritize their needs and expectations, assists them in understanding the potential losses or consequences for not protecting themselves, and explores the methods needed to obtain the protection they need. She carefully explains her proposed solutions to their concerns and outlines the resolution to problems the customer perceives. Patty believes in herself, her expertise, and her company. To ensure that her customers feel satisfied with their insurance choices, Patty works to maintain an on-going relationship with her clients. She checks up on each stage of the delivery of services to the customer and makes time for any issues that arise so that she can mediate for the customer and the company, helping both to find success. Once the customers have their policies, Patty keeps in contact regularly, sends birthday and holiday cards, and regularly meets with her customers to make sure any changes in their lives are taken into consideration for their long-term goals. As a result, Patty's customers respect her, trust her, and often refer her to neighbors, friends, and family. Thanks to her genuine concern for each client, Patty's clientele expands regularly.
But early in her career, Patty had a different motivation. At first, she would fake her way through a sales call and then never communicate with a client again. She was more focused on the commission than on the customer. Her attitude changed when she saw firsthand how the valuable protection her company provided changed lives. One of her customers faced a catastrophic event and the policies that she placed with the client not only rescued a family from financial ruin, but kept the family together through the trying times. Patty began to reconsider why she dedicated so much of her time to selling insurance, seeing something greater than herself and a paycheck. Patty decided that her focus and priority needed to provide for the customer's protection, first.
You too can see the difference you can make in the lives of others if you focus on their success first. Become proficient at understanding your company's product lines so you help your customers choose the best products to provide for their security. Take time to recognize your customer successes and enjoy the feelings that inevitably follow. As you do, your own success will increase as a natural consequence of serving others.
Interpersonal Sensitivity
Remember that customers are individuals and have lives, feelings, stresses, and hopes, just like you. Therefore, the interpersonal aspect of your relationship with your customers invokes many of the same principals as do your other relationships in life. As you fine-tune your ability to recognize and respond to the feelings, attitudes, and motivations of others, you will improve your ability to manage your relationships with your customers.
Take the example of Sam. When he first joined his agency, many of his fellow agents were skeptical of how well he would fit on the team. Sam's colleagues feared that he would struggle because he had difficulty mastering all of his companies' products and services. Much to their surprise, however, Sam turned more sales success than anyone else his first week on the job. Sam more than compensated for his lack of experience with his understanding and practice of interpersonal sensitivity.
Interpersonal sensitivity is the ability to read between the lines to determine the emotions, desires, and needs of a client, which helps to build exceptional rapport and synergy with the client. Sam easily noticed the behaviors, feelings, and reactions of his customers, including their non-verbal communications. He took note of their body language and tone of voice to understand their emotional motivations and concerns regarding their security and the solutions Sam presented. If someone began shaking his or her head, Sam would immediately know that there was a question that needed answering, and no high pressure tactics or smooth words would overcome the situation until the question was resolved successfully. Sam always acknowledged the unique experiences and background of others, helping him to see the world through their eyes. As Sam practiced these skills, his mind expanded to respond to the emotional needs of others and his clients recognized his genuine concern for them. In this way, Sam communicated better with his clients than anyone else in the office, enabling him to sell more policies and even enjoy his work more as his customers seldom felt disappointed in his services.
Practice interpersonal sensitivity in all of your relationships (especially at home) and then apply what you learn to client interactions. Adjust your actions in response to the customer's verbal and non-verbal cues so that you can decode their unspoken needs. Ask yourself such questions as, "Did I take time to listen when someone opened up their feelings to me, or did I just move on with my own agenda?" Or, "Did I adjust my own communications in order to accommodate the customer?" Others will notice the difference as you improve your interpersonal sensitivity.
Gaining Commitment
The ability to convince others of an idea or course of action and effectively gain their commitment to act reflects accountability. By developing accountability to yourself, you will build the core behaviors necessary to gain commitment from clients.
How does accountability interact with gaining commitment? Gaining commitment necessitates that you demonstrate expertise, as well as important communication skills to reach a client's understanding. Taking advantage of opportunities to gain credibility means accepting accountability for the client's perception of your level of competency to resolve his or her insurance problems. Someone who understands how to gain customer commitments also calculates all possible impact of their words and actions on others, thus taking accountability for themselves.
Sometimes agents blame a customer's lack of understanding for their lost sale. Those who expertly gain commitment from clients comprehend their responsibility to grab a client's attention and strive to communicate to the client in the manner the client desires. Furthermore, such an agent prepares expertly for their sale, presenting logical, emotional, and fact-based data to motivate a client to action. The agent does not expect the client to simply accept his or her word, but competently answers client's questions when challenged. Such an agent shows others the desirable results of a solution to inspire confidence in a client.
Visualize how to increase your customer commitments. You can improve your ability to gain commitment from your clients by anticipating how the clients might react when you request an action from them. Try to determine the "hot buttons" and cater to the emotional needs of your clients. As you work with a customer, try different approaches to see how the client prefers to communicate with you. If someone seems to focus on facts and data, accommodate this perspective by providing the information needed to support your positions. With clients who interpret the world on a personal level in stories and feelings, highlight the positive impact of your proposal on people and their relationships. For customers that push for a vision of the future, visualize with them how you will transform their vision into reality. Some customers prefer to take initiative and seem to know exactly what they want already. Focusing on this client's objectives and moving through issues efficiently accommodates this client best.
As you use your interpersonal sensitivity skills and use the success of your customers as motivation, help gain the commitments necessary from your clients by taking accountability for your service to the client and cater to their needs. Each of these core behaviors enables you to better manage the customer relationship and create new opportunities, expanding your ability to serve clients.
Robert Arzt CLU, ChFC, LLIF, is president and founder of Insurance Coach U, a coaching, training, and development company dedicated to agents and managers in the insurance industry. Mr. Arzt coaches insurance professionals who want to achieve more. He has been in the insurance industry for more than 30 years, and began his career as an agent and was a multi-year MDRT qualifier.
Insurance Coach U teaches individuals how to excel in the insurance profession by first conducting a diagnostic questionnaire to evaluate personal strengths and weaknesses. The questionnaire breaks down each of the 15 sales success factors into core behaviors. Visit their Web site at www.insurancecoachu.com/assessment to participate in their free diagnostic questionnaire and evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses. Insurance Coach U is also offering a free one-on-one 45 minute coaching session to readers of LIFE INSURANCE SELLING. Please email bob@insurancecoachu.com for an appointment.
