The success of your insurance agency rides on your ability to build a team of high-performing agents. But if you’re finding it difficult to improve or even maintain agent productivity levels, you aren’t alone.
Since COVID-19, the insurance sector has faced increased operational demands. You need the right tools and the right strategy to maximize your team’s time and resources. In this article, we’ll cover how to increase insurance agent productivity, including tips for everything from goal setting to process optimization to continuous learning and development.
Set Clear Goals and Track Progress
Before attempting to boost your agents’ output or speed up their processes, get clear on what you want to achieve. Start by defining goals and monitoring progress.
Establish Measurable Objectives
First, set objectives for your agency. Avoid vague goals like selling more insurance policies, improving client retention rate, or reducing average call handle time. Instead, use the SMART goal framework:
- Specific: Explain exactly what you want to accomplish and why
- Measurable: Quantify the goal so you can confirm if you’ve achieved it
- Achievable: Choose a goal that’s realistic, given available resources
- Relevant: Pick a goal that aligns with larger business objectives
- Time-bound: Set a deadline for reaching the goal
For example, an agency-wide goal might be to increase new policy sales by 15% by the end of Q2 (compared to Q1) to expand the agency’s customer base and set the stage for leveraging cross-sell opportunities in Q3.
Once you’ve defined goals for the agency, assign individual objectives to each agent. Align them with larger organizational efforts to make sure every agent contributes to greater business growth.
Implement Effective Monitoring Systems
To ensure agents reach their goals and make consistent progress along the way, monitor the steps they take. A typical system has two main components:
- Performance monitoring to track lead generation, customer interactions, and new enrollments
- Scheduled check-ins (e.g., monthly) to review progress toward goals and provide feedback
Keep agents motivated by rewarding their milestones. If you find that they’re falling short of sales targets, revisit their action plans and revise their goals if necessary.
Leverage Technology for Efficiency
With the right technology, you can work toward individual and agency goals more efficiently. Use these guidelines to build the optimal tech stack for your agency.
Adopt Agency Management Software
Instead of running your agency via multiple disconnected tools, adopt an all-in-one agency management platform. Software like Applied Epic or AMS360 builds proposals and manages policy documentation. It even acts as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to track qualified leads, potential clients, and current clients.
As dedicated platforms for insurance companies, these powerful tools also help you handle accounting, manage insurance carriers, and find opportunities for revenue expansion. They can store virtually all agency data, generate reports, and automate repetitive administrative tasks, freeing up more time for higher-level work.
Use Productivity Tools
Many agency management platforms have built-in task management tools. While these tools guide agents to complete routine tasks and stay on track toward goals, they aren’t productivity analytics tools.
Instead, use a platform like Teramind to track agents’ time and tasks. Teramind provides data-driven insights that reveal the tasks, software, and websites that demand the largest percentage of your agents’ time.
Our platform also identifies workforce productivity trends and shares valuable insights into how the technology your team uses affects productivity. Since Teramind can monitor custom key performance indicators (KPIs), it easily aligns with agency productivity goals.
Embrace Digital Transformation
Are your agents spending hours each day generating quotes, inputting applications, and managing client policies? Improve the agent and client experience by replacing phone calls with online quotes and enrollment applications. Go paperless by managing both current and prospective client documentation in the cloud.
Use digital tools to transform your agents’ workflows, too. Instead of scheduling in-person meetings, allow teams to check in virtually or even asynchronously. Encourage virtual client meetings to boost customer satisfaction and agent convenience.
Consider a hybrid model instead of requiring daily in-office attendance. According to a Gallup poll, 52% of hybrid workers have benefitted from increased productivity.
Optimize Business Processes
Next, put your tech stack to work and simplify your business processes. Start by identifying essential tasks and routine workflows that take substantial time out of the average agent’s day.
Analyze these time-consuming tasks by reviewing client communication or agent activity data. What are the biggest bottlenecks for your agents? Make a plan to reduce friction so agents can work more efficiently.
For example, many insurers’ processes involve manual tasks or physical client records. Digitizing applications and using automation tools for policy renewals can dramatically improve employee productivity.
Pay close attention to your agency’s sales approaches. A McKinsey Global Institute study found that about 33% of sales tasks can be automated, which can completely transform the average agent’s productivity.
Develop a Continuous Learning Culture
Agents may be unable to reach increasingly ambitious client acquisition goals using their existing skillsets. Many will need to upskill. To work toward enhanced productivity, encourage learning and development.
Identify Training Needs
If your agency doesn’t already have a standard training program, this is a smart place to start. Aim to teach agents insurance essentials and share informative content, such as your agency’s customer service and sales strategies. This way, your entire team can build from a similar foundation.
But don’t assume that everyone will retain the information or continue to learn. Conduct skills assessments regularly (e.g., quarterly) to identify knowledge gaps, such as lead generation strategies, cold call frameworks, or positive client interactions. Then, offer or recommend training programs tailored to individual agent needs.
Encourage Professional Development
Ideally, you want your team to hone their skills and advance their careers. Providing in-house professional development opportunities isn’t always realistic. But that doesn’t mean you can’t facilitate external learning and growth opportunities.
Guide agents through standard professional development tracks. Work with them to pursue certifications in risk management, underwriting, or data analytics. Consider funding part or all of these opportunities, knowing that you’re investing in your agents’ skillsets and productivity.
Think beyond online courses and certifications. Encourage agents to attend in-person insurance industry conferences and seminars. Create a calendar for networking events, so your team can meet industry experts and stay on top of industry trends.
Foster a Growth Mindset
Instill a drive to improve and upskill by making ongoing education part of your agency’s culture. Here are a couple of ideas for fostering a growth mindset:
- Set up a lunch and learn program and ask agents to take turns leading. Let team members suggest topics so they can share knowledge and best practices with colleagues.
- Organize a mentorship program and ask senior agents to lead. Create small groups based on certain competencies to help junior agents learn and grow.
Recognize your agents’ efforts to grow and reward their hard work. Have human resources (HR) and leadership work together to align these professional achievements with the agency’s career ladder. When you link professional development with promotions, you’ll provide an extra incentive for agents to level up.
Prioritize Agent Well-Being
Agents also need a strong sense of well-being to reach optimal productivity. Use these ideas to prioritize mental and physical health throughout the agency.
Promote Work-Life Balance
Good agents work hard and put in the hours to reach their goals every day. But the best insurance sales agents aim for a healthy balance between their professional efforts and their personal lives.
Agencies play an important role in helping employees achieve work-life balance. Here are a few ways your agency can do its part to support insurance salespeople:
- Allow flexible work arrangements: Studies have shown that flextime improves employee productivity and increases sales. Flexible work translates to better performance, higher revenue, and happier agents.
- Encourage time off: Highly driven employees may feel compelled to skip vacations and breaks. Since studies prove that time off improves focus and productivity, make time off mandatory.
- Provide mental health resources: Mental health concerns can compromise productivity. Help agents do their best work by offering employee assistance programs or access to mental health apps and resources.
Support Physical Health
Mental health is just one piece of the puzzle. To reach peak performance, your team also has to maintain good physical health. Eating well and exercising regularly are good starting points.
Wellness programs don’t have to be complicated or expensive. Here are several ways to encourage agents to make healthy choices at work:
- Offer fitness programs or memberships: Make keeping up an exercise routine as easy as possible. Include a corporate gym membership in your benefits package, or host lunchtime workout programs.
- Promote healthy food choices: Busy agents may not have time to prepare nutritious meals. Give your team smarter options by stocking your cafeteria, break room, or vending machines with healthy choices.
- Support an ergonomic work environment: Invest in workspaces that support good posture and allow employees to alternate between standing and sitting. Monitor noise levels and air quality in the office, too.
Enhance Workplace Culture
One of the best productivity hacks is creating a workplace where agents want to do their best work. Begin by fostering an inclusive work environment where everyone feels welcome. For example, offer a diversity training program or demonstrate how to use inclusive language that boosts employee morale and makes everyone feel valued.
If employees have concerns or suggestions, make it easy for them to connect with HR or leadership. Create open communication channels so agents can schedule check-ins or share asynchronous feedback.
When teams achieve goals or hit key milestones, be generous with encouragement. Highlight their wins with shoutouts in organization-wide communication channels. The more you celebrate, the more you’ll inspire other agents to improve conversion rates, process more enrollment applications, and increase client retention.
How to Improve Agent Productivity with Teramind
Teramind is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance the productivity of insurance agents through our comprehensive employee monitoring and behavioral analytics features. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to leverage Teramind to improve productivity in your insurance agency:
- Activity Tracking: Use Teramind’s monitoring features to track how much time agents spend on various applications and websites. This data helps identify patterns and potential distractions.
- Screen Recording: Enable screen recording to review workflows and identify areas where agents might need additional training or support.
- Productivity Reports: Generate reports that detail how agents are spending their time. Look for trends and patterns that indicate inefficiencies or areas for improvement.
- Behavioral Analytics: Use Teramind’s analytics to assess productivity trends and identify high-performing versus low-performing agents.
- Workflow Analysis: Review the data to find bottlenecks in workflows. For instance, if agents are spending excessive time on data entry, consider automating or streamlining these processes.
- Customized Training: Use insights from Teramind to create targeted training programs. For instance, if certain agents struggle with CRM software, provide additional training in that area.
Conclusion
You need a team of high-performing agents to build a successful agency that consistently meets its goals. From training programs and productivity tools to health resources and professional development, these strategies can optimize productivity and maximize agent potential.
Maintaining or increasing productivity levels may seem daunting for any insurance business, especially when you’re facing unpredictable market trends and a challenging economic environment. But with the best practices above, you can ensure your team makes consistent progress that propels your agency forward.
