To maximize your insurance agency’s sales, you need to ensure that your team has sufficient training. One of the best ways to prepare your agents for various scenarios is to engage in role playing. This will let them practice some of the most common scenarios. It will also provide insights into techniques and arguments to convince potential clients who are resisting the sale.
Why Role Playing Matters for Your Insurance Agency
Role playing may seem like a waste of time, but it is crucial for your insurance agency. Remember that taking a little time to role play now will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your agents, as they will have practice. Think of it as a small initial investment for improved efficiency, like your Jenesis insurance agency management software.
The biggest advantage of role playing is that it gives your team experience. They get to practice phrasing for various scenarios and get feedback.
Your ultimate goal with role playing is to make your team more confident. Handling objections or just explaining your products will go much more smoothly for your agent and require less effort on their part, if they have practiced this in the past. After all, practice makes perfect and delivers confidence.
How to Get the Best Results From the Role Playing
Simply role playing with your insurance agents won’t be enough to give them the experience and training they need. There are some things you should do to get the most out of it.
Choose a Subject or Goal for Each Session
For every session, come up with a goal or subject. Examples include handling complaints, closing the sale, or improving customer rapport.
Don’t Always Close the Sale
Role playing should be somewhat representative of what really happens in your agency. It is a fact of life that you don’t close all of the sales. Make sure that at least some of the role play sessions don’t end in “closing the sale” within the scenario. This helps your team to not take a failure to close as a personal failure.
Consider Starting With Scripts
If your team is new to the idea of role play, consider using scripts. You should also strongly consider offering scripts for the first session or two for new agents.
Have the “Clients” Make It Hard
The idea behind role playing is to give your agents practice in the toughest scenarios. As such, you should encourage those acting as “clients” to be problem customers. They should be hesitant, standoffish, or demanding.
Have the Clients Include Incorrect Information
This may seem counterintuitive, but it is a great way to test your agents’ listening skills. Have your “clients” include inaccurate facts about services or products. This will not only confirm that your agent is listening. It will also give them practice gently correcting misinformed clients.
Have Observers as Well
The best role playing sessions will not just have the people actively involved in the role play. They will also feature observers. They can provide unique perspectives from the outside. Of course, this also gives them similar benefits to those actively participating in the role play.
Be Involved as Management
Don’t just leave role playing to the rest of your team. Actively participate. Management should be the agent in the first scenario of the session. This lets you lead by example. You can also act as the “client” later on, using your unique insights and experiences to help your team practice challenging situations.
Of course, having management there to observe also helps with delivering feedback. As management, you have more experience, so you can let your team know what you would encourage them to do differently. Observing also lets you confirm that your agents follow any standards your agency has set out.
Example Scenarios for Insurance Role Play
The sky is the limit when it comes to scenarios to test out in your agency’s role play. But the following are some good starting points if you aren’t sure what to do.
Declaration Copy Request
A client calls to ask for a copy of their policy’s declaration page. But they haven’t had contact with the agency in a few years, and their rates have increased slightly over that time. Maybe they don’t have an email address on file, which has made them harder to contact.
In this scenario, your agent would ask why they need the declaration page and work to convince them to stay with your agency. The ultimate goal would be to give them a requote and get them to stay.
A Cancelation Scenario
Another scenario would be if a client contacts you to cancel their policy. They want to cancel their policy so they can save $50.
The role play would focus on your agent calling this client to find out why they are canceling and get them to stay. You would try to requote them or otherwise help them save money and convince them to stay.
Conclusion
Regularly having your sales team role play helps them hone their skills and gain more confidence in their selling strategies. For the best results, have observers and management provide feedback.