Insurance Telemarketing Services Outsourcing - Increase Your Agency's ROI

Before your insurance agency can present the benefits of using your services, you need to meet them first. Basically, it’s a really simple concept that is often forgotten by company management.

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing helps put you in front of your target audience by generating sales leads and pre-qualified appointments. In brief, you knock on many doors via telephone and qualify those who open the door. Afterward, depending on how your company prefers, an appointment is set with the sales prospect or transferred in real-time to your in-house sales team to avoid delays.

Sales Development Process

This is part of the sales development process of an insurance business. That is to say it is the front-end of the sales cycle: identifying, connecting with, and qualifying leads. Basically, this involves cold calling prospects and following up with top-of-funnel leads to schedule sales appointments for an agent who will deliver a detailed sales presentation.

The purpose of insurance telemarketing services outsourcing is to delegate the prospecting of sales leads, allowing the in-house insurance agent to spend time only on pre-qualified sales opportunities.

DISCLOSURE: Nexus Teleservices is a Nearshore Insurance Telemarketing Services Outsourcing business provider.

1 – Insurance Telemarketing Services | Lead Generation

Insurance lead generation takes a variety of forms, consume resources, and require lots of effort. Specifically, insurance prospect leads can result from cold calling,  website inquiry forms, inbound telephone calls, social media, referrals, and more.

These insurance prospect leads lose their value if they are not converted to sales appointments. So, insurance telemarketing services outsourcing focuses on moving them through the sales funnel, to finally get closed by the in-house sales staff.

The insurance business revolves around existing customer policy renewals and portfolio additions, plus new customer policies. So, where does insurance lead generation services fit in? Specifically, for potential customers, it is related to prospecting, qualification, follow-up, and supporting your in-house sales team closing the qualified prospects.

The following are various insurance lead generation activities:

2 – Prospecting

Insurance agencies need a constant flow of leads and appointments for their in-house sales team.  While following up on leads and appointments, they have to split their time telephone prospecting for new sales prospects. Consequently, since your in-house sales team is motivated by sales commissions, they will always prioritize sales closings over sales prospecting.  Basically, money talks loudly!

Instead, your in-house sales team should focus on closing sales and not making prospecting calls. Accordingly, you should use insurance telemarketing services outsourcing since it offers the personnel, systems, infrastructure, and experience to do better prospecting, and at a lower cost. In brief, using this business strategy gives your in-house sales agents more opportunities and time to close sales.

Insurance sales prospecting requires research, searching homeowner listings (consumer home, auto, and life insurance), and commercial listings (business liability, employee health, etc.)  Also, lots of cold calling, which takes time and results in a high level of rejection and stress.  Consequently, with a limited number of hours in the day, that means your in-house agents are not focusing on closing the hot deals, personal networking, or getting referrals.

Your insurance agency needs to have a sales process that spans prospecting to signing the insurance policy. However, there are different skill sets and experience required between prospecting and closing a sale.  When you use insurance telemarketing services outsourcing for sales prospecting, you make better use of your experienced and more expensive in-house sales agents to win new business.

Here are various insurance telemarketing prospecting activities:

3 – Appointment Setting

Appointment setting is one of the most difficult parts of business development and is a major challenge to growing your insurance company. Because new sales won’t be possible without first directly speaking to a prospect.

As the company owner, you should be more focused on your in-house sales team closing more policies and not making cold calls. Rather, this is the job of a telemarketing appointment setter. Consequently, if more time is spent on appointment setting rather than selling, YOUR SALES TEAM ARE NOT SELLING. Basically, insurance telemarketing services outsourcing gives you more opportunities and time to close sales.

Some of the primary benefits of insurance telemarketing appointment setting services are discussed below.

Speeds Up The Sales Cycle

If your insurance agents are setting their own appointments, they could be spending more than 50% of their time prospecting, generating leads, and scheduling appointments with potential clients. Instead, insurance telemarketing services outsourcing allows your in-house team to double their time spent in face-to-face meetings and increase the number of policy signings.

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing results in sales appointments with pre-qualified prospects who are genuinely interested in your services. So, your in-house sales team will be more motivated, will sign up more policies, and produce more commissions for your company.

Fill The Sales Pipeline

Your business sales pipeline starts with prospects that need to be found, qualified as leads, and then set up as sales appointments. When you focus on this process, you are not converting sales appointments into new customers. Conversely, when you are converting sales appointments, you are not focusing on prospecting, lead generation and appointment setting.

Cost Effective And Scalable

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing is often cost-effective for an in-house sales team with limited experience and sales/marketing resources. For example, start-up time for appointment setting services is less than investing in in-house staff, considering recruitment, training, facilities, and technology acquisition. Consequently, fast completion and review help you determine whether this strategy is cost-effective, producing the results expected.

An insurance telemarketing provider can scale services according to the demands of your business and budget. For example, let’s say you want to start with a small pool of prospects in a new market and gauge the results first. Then, you can grow as they can scale up their services.

Measurable Results

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing provides measurable business goals. Particularly both qualitative and quantitative goals are used since appointment setting lends itself to highly measurable results.

In summary, insurance telemarketing services outsourcing allows you to manage costs, reduce risks and provides clear metrics of the results and Return-On-Investment (ROI).

4 – Insurance Telemarketing Services | A Different Skill Set

It should be obvious that not all insurance agents are built the same. While some excel on the telephone, others thrive when meeting prospects, and some ACTUALLY enjoy the challenge of cold calling. Basically, if you don’t like or are not good at cold calling then you simply SHOULD NOT DO IT. Because cold calling is a very poor use of your insurance agent’s specialized, high-value skills.

Insurance telemarketing requires gathering data, repetitive dialing, persistence, and other skills that most insurance agents dislike doing.  Rather, they want to shine in negotiations, close deals, and be the hero, not do drudge work.

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing helps achieve the best results versus an in-house solution. Because an outsourcing provider employs professional appointment setters who cold call, pre-qualify the prospect, and know the techniques to set appointments daily.

They have the training, experience, and mindset to consistently produce results. Accordingly, they will tell the insurance prospect just enough to grab attention and then suggest an appointment to expand further.  Then, your in-house sales team takes over to close the deal.  Basically each offers different skill sets that should work together.

5 – Insurance Telemarketing Services | Leverage

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing is a strategy that allows your company to leverage significant business growth opportunities.

Previous/Existing Customers

Studies indicate that it is less expensive and more profitable for a company to keep its existing customers versus finding new customers. Consequently, whether it is increasing revenue per customer or new sales referrals, your insurance agency´s existing (and previous) customers provide a solid the base for future business growth. Accordingly, telemarketing services facilitate talking with your company´s clients. Because the objective is to improve customer retention, expand customer portfolio, and grow new customer acquisition.

Know Your Market

Insurance telemarketing services outsourcing helps companies by gathering data to understand their existing and/or potential market. While an insurance agency understands that knowing the local market is important, it often receives lower priority among other tasks. Conversely, outsourcing telemarketing market research is a process that is rapid, unfiltered, precise in detail, and highly flexible to change. Consequently, you can answer questions like What area are personal incomes rising? Which sector is better for commercial policyholders? Who is the new competition and what do they do differently? What do your customers think of working with you? Obviously, the list can be wide-ranging.

Customer Database Cleansing

Your insurance company’s customer database naturally grows over time and usually results in a drop off in quality. Basically, this is due to the loss of or changes to existing customers (contact, telephone number, Email, go out of business, etc.). As a result, your company´s customer database drops in quality and value as a means for generating new business and referrals. Accordingly,  insurance telemarketing outsourcing services cleans a company´s customer database to produce a high-value sales asset.