Telesales and Placement

[jdeasy]

Face-to-face has lots of advantages over telesales. Biggest thing is folks can't just hang up during the app process and you never get them back on the phone.

The two biggest advantages face to face are multiple writes in the home and replacements.

Especially replacements. And replacing multiple policies.

The fact finding before recommending replacement can take an hour or more in the home. Calling companies for info can take forever.

People are not doing that with a telemarketer.

On policies for kids that grandma is taking out will many times require not only grandma’s signature but a parent’s signature for HIPAA.

Most of the comments here are not from FE producers.

 

[JTS1]

When talking placement, I'm including not-taken business - folks who get approved and never make their first payment.

Your telesales team doesn't do 95% based on that definition of placement. But I could see 95% of people getting approved. That doesn't mean the policy was in force.

Exactly.

My definition of placement is how many folks make their first payment.

My experience (and the same for every telesales agent I've talked with thus far) has been roughly 30%-35% do not place when buying over the phone.

Of that number roughly 5% are cancellations or a decline that slips through (even with "instant decision").

The rest are literally NSF, NSF, NSF.

It's a variable--not insurmountable--but it exists.

If there's a shop doing better placement I'd love to know.

 

[theinsuranceman]

When talking placement, I'm including not-taken business - folks who get approved and never make their first payment.

Your telesales team doesn't do 95% based on that definition of placement. But I could see 95% of people getting approved. That doesn't mean the policy was in force.

Our NTO rate (not taken out) rate averages less than 5%. We get reports every month tracking our NTO rate, 4th month persistency, 7th month persistency, 10th month persistency and 13th month persistency. This report gives us the current persistency and the to date persistency.

For ex: The 4th month current persistency is for the persistency of only the business issued 4 months ago. The 4th month to date persistency is the average running total of 4 month persistency figures since the agent started writing business, and could be the last 3 years average if the agent started writing business 3 years ago.

Helps managers and agents alike to track the profitabilality of their business. After all, persistency is where the long term profit is, not the advances.

 

[theinsuranceman]

Face-to-face has lots of advantages over telesales. Biggest thing is folks can't just hang up during the app process and you never get them back on the phone.

That may happen for outbound dialing of leads, but not for live TV transfers.

 

[theinsuranceman]

Exactly.

My definition of placement is how many folks make their first payment.

My experience (and the same for every telesales agent I've talked with thus far) has been roughly 30%-35% do not place when buying over the phone.

Of that number roughly 5% are cancellations or a decline that slips through (even with "instant decision").

The rest are literally NSF, NSF, NSF.

It's a variable--not insurmountable--but it exists.

If there's a shop doing better placement I'd love to know.

As per our conversation on the phone the other day, live transfers from overseas call centers may very well have that dismal placement rate.

The live TV transfers doesn't have that experience.

 

[JTS1]

As per our conversation on the phone the other day, live transfers from overseas call centers may very well have that dismal placement rate.

The live TV transfers doesn't have that experience.

I agree totally a live TV transfer is probably the warmest lead in telesales besides a referral.

And 95% of those sold make their first payment--"place?"

 

[theinsuranceman]

When talking placement, I'm including not-taken business - folks who get approved and never make their first payment.

Your telesales team doesn't do 95% based on that definition of placement. But I could see 95% of people getting approved. That doesn't mean the policy was in force.

How much telesales experience do you have personally? If you have zero telesales experience how can anyone trust your posts about it? Our SLICE helps tremendously with getting a higher placement rate. You also don't have any experience with SLICE either.

Our TV leads average a monthly premium of approx $65 to $110 monthly premium, which is higher than our face 2 face monthly premiums of $40 to $70.

Face 2 face agents are working DM leads from a mailing of incomes of $50k and less. Ms. Jones may have an annual income of $70k and would never ever receive a DM lead piece in the mail, but she might see the TV commercial and respond because she still has an interets in burial expenses, and take out a policy of $85, which raises the monthly premium ave for telesales.

And the good news is since she has more disposable income she can afford that $85 premium much easier than a client, with an income of $50k or less, can afford their $50 premium.

And I'm using your definition of placment rate.

 

[theinsuranceman]

Face-to-face has lots of advantages over telesales. Biggest thing is folks can't just hang up during the app process and you never get them back on the phone.

If they hang up mid-conversation they wren't really a customer anyway. Since they hung up before being written, that might be a reason the placement % is better?

 

[jdeasy]

How much telesales experience do you have personally? If you have zero telesales experience how can anyone trust your posts about it? Our SLICE helps tremendously with getting a higher placement rate. You also don't have any experience with SLICE either.

Our TV leads average a monthly premium of approx $65 to $110 monthly premium, which is higher than our face 2 face monthly premiums of $40 to $70.

Face 2 face agents are working DM leads from a mailing of incomes of $50k and less. Ms. Jones may have an annual income of $70k and would never ever receive a DM lead piece in the mail, but she might see the TV commercial and respond because she still has an interets in burial expenses, and take out a policy of $85, which raises the monthly premium ave for telesales.

And the good news is since she has more disposable income she can afford that $85 premium much easier than a client, with an income of $50k or less, can afford their $50 premium.

And I'm using your definition of placment rate.

One doesn’t have to be a veterinarian to recognize a horse’s ass when they see one.

 

[theinsuranceman]

I agree totally a live TV transfer is probably the warmest lead in telesales besides a referral.

And 95% of those sold make their first payment--"place?"

Yes I'd say 90% or better make their 1st payment. And live TV transfers are HOT not warm. With live TV transfers you're not talking to broke or confused people.

Think about it like this: The overseas telemarketers are generating live transfers which are very inferior to TV live transfers. Why? Because that telemarketer is dialing multiple lines with a dialer, dialing do not call numbers too, which can bust your arse if you get caught.. The only people they talk to are the people who answer their phone with an unknown caller ID. They are the people on the low end of the income scale and the less likely to have their 1st draft clear. And they may be a little confused about that telemarketer's call, but the telemarketer still pushed that confused senior thru as if it was a decent lead...lol.

Ms Jones on the other hand has an income of $65k and she gets calls from the overseas telemarketer too. BUT she doesn't pick up the phone with an unknow caller ID so you never talk to her. BUT she may answer the TV commercial and be talking with an agent in less than 60 sec.

The age demographic is about the same with live TV transfers, but the income demographic is higher with the live TV transfers. This means higher closing rates, higher placement rates and higher persistency rates.

And I should know about these things. i've been doing FE exclusively since 1999, and we started FE telesales back in 2004....20 years ago, way before the other carriers started to do because of covid.