For any agent, keeping track of customers, clients, prospects, and a thousand other things is not an easy task. It demands hard work and undivided attention just to keep things moving. But utilizing CRM (Customer Resource Management) tools built by InsuredMine helps agents get things under control. With very easy setup and simple instructions to use, these tools are making life easier for agents everywhere. Deal Boards and CRM tools for insurance agents built by InsuredMine helps agents automate and monitor sales, service, and engagement.
After speaking with agents from almost every state, we learned policy sale is a personal process. Everyone sets their own processes. Nothing wrong in it; if it works for you great! We also learned there is a great opportunity for most to improvise with technology and make their processes more efficient. Research indicates automated lead management shows 10% and above increase in sales revenue in just 6-9 months. So it is important that independent agents use the best Deal Board CRM tools for insurance agents to manage deals. As an independent agent, you are well aware that all leads do not convert to customers, but require equal attention and work to tilt the scale in your favor. Taking time to organize these first steps will save a lot of time as agents continue their pursuit of conversion. Your sales CRM tool should be able to efficiently differentiate, target, and customize each lead in your sales pipeline.
According to our internal research, independent agents using tools and products built by InsuredMine to manage their sales pipeline experience anywhere from 20-30% increase in their productivity, that roughly translates to 30% increase in their revenue. So why wait to boost your agency when you have all the right tools available instantly? Besides the increase in revenue, agents can free up their time and focus on other ways to engage and service their customers.
Deal Board CRM tools for insurance agents can help your agency in the following ways:
- Deal Boards help focus on the most important tasks: Deal Boards help you focus on sales pipeline by ranking and shuffling your activities as needed. At the top of the stash is the work that you consider a priority followed by the next steps. Deal board as your sales funnel, provide you a unique visual on the value of each stage in your funnel so you can adjust your strategy to focus on that specific stage in your deal. You’ll always be able to see a well organized and streamlined view of your sales process, gain clarity, and get your sales team up-to-date information.
- Personalize your Deal Boards CRM: As stated earlier, every agency tailors its own processes. As such, agencies define their own sales stages accordingly and create their own personal sales funnel. Splitting these sales process into stages will provide insight on:
- Stages doing better than the others
- What is working or not working in any specific stage
- The aggregate value of any stage at any point in time.
- Templates and communication specific to stages can be automated based on specific business rules. Eg. For a stage waiting for payment, you can send an automated reminder based on an email template.
- Deal Boards provide rich visuals: Reviewing and analyzing your actions is as good as the action itself. It is important to reach out to sales leaders to evaluate their sales process and know their strengths and blind spots. Deal board analytics help you achieve exactly that with the help of rich visuals. It helps you focus your actions and help you close more deals. With visually enticing boards, nothing falls through the cracks and you get better at your own game.
- Deal Boards provide timely reminders and notifications: Setting up stages in your deal board creates the sales funnel and segmentation in the process. Approach to manage these segmentations can be customized to manage them effectively and efficiently. Early stages may be more email heavy with drip campaigns and information about the product to create value for the prospects, whereas later stages are more in-person/Phone/Text conversations or follow-ups to close the deal. Deal boards can be set to send out activity reminders and notifications by stages so you don’t have to spend countless hours doing the same. They can be used to manage a prospect’s progress through the process of sales, ongoing marketing or service cycles.
- Deal Boards CRM integrates with your agency’s communication system: Prospect Management tool – Deal Boards, the core part of InsuredMine CRM system, works intimately with our engagement platform which includes communication with prospects via email, text or phone in an automated process or a customized manual approach. All these communications are reflected in prospect 360 CRM profile in an email, text message or calendar view.
Deal Board Management Tips for Better Outcomes
- Focus on best leads: It takes about the same time to close any deal from start to finish. Agents should identify high-value leads and concentrate their efforts on pursuing those. They should make sure these leads are the right fit for the agency from risk and potential client perspective. A client’s response during the sales cycle will serve as an indicator to evaluate the prospect.
- Don’t chase ghost leads: A dead lead is when a prospect makes it clear that they would like no further contact or otherwise imply that they are not interested. Letting go can be hard, but it is important to know when to prioritize a lead and when to drop the dead ones.
- Remember to follow-up: Best sales people understand that follow up is a priority to land a sale. But most of them give up after 2-3 attempts. Though following up is considered one of the biggest challenges for sales, it is one of the most important tasks. Use tools and processes to make sure the right business logic is built and designed to support your consistent follow-up processes.
- Monitor Metrics: Agents must have a good grip on sales metrics like the number of deals, the size of the deals, the number of deals that you closed, etc. Tracking metrics provide an overall view of how your efforts are paying off and any modifications required to have better results. Don’t forget to set aside a window of time on a weekly basis to analyze these metrics.
- Review processes regularly: Sales techniques are constantly changing. So what works today might not work tomorrow or what works for a segment of prospects may not work for others. It is important to periodically review and make updates and changes as needed to your sales techniques to stay relevant. You can also identify any bottlenecks and blockages that might be hindering your efforts. Your best friend in these situations are business data, that will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. Follow Start, Stop and Continue approach when starting new things based on results.
Incentives Hard to Ignore
Deal Board analysis can help you identify improvements within your sales pipeline. It also helps agents move prospects from one stage to another quickly, and provide growth in revenue. A study by Harvard Business Review found that there was an 18% difference in revenue growth between companies that defined formal sales, marketing, and service processes to the ones that didn’t.
Agencies cannot afford to underestimate the value and importance of sales, marketing and service cycles. If your sales pipeline is not managed successfully, you risk losing out on new business. Similarly, if your marketing strategies aren’t innovative, you risk being lost in the status quo. Agents should emphasize on providing the best customer experience, which might help them get new leads. Streamlining your sales CRM and lead management systems will provide efficiency for your agency and better customer experience for your clients. Take your lead management to the next level with practices discussed above. Organize, structure, analyze, and shorten your sales, marketing and service cycles, and help boost your agency’s growth and profits.
