Leading insurer Hill House Hammond (HHH) has undertaken training for its branch sales advisers to help them close more potential deals over the phone.
HHH identified from branch sales figures that although sales advisers had high standards of customer service, the one area individuals needed support and training was in closing the sale.
Learning and development specialist Right Track was called in to analyse the situation and develop the appropriate solution to equip sales advisers with the techniques and confidence to enable them to focus on closing the sale as well as stepping through the process with the caller.
Right Track has identified four common causes of failure to close sales; fear of rejection, apathy, lack of skills or simply forgetting to do it.
HHH employees were very enthusiastic about their roles and neither apathy nor lack of skills were issues. The major problem for not closing deals were fear of the potential customer saying no and simply forgetting to do it.
Sue Turner, training manager from Hill House Hammond, said: "We chose Right Track because they tailor made the right training course to suit us and demonstrated a true understanding of our business.
"Although it is too early to talk about concrete results from the training, there has definitely been a change in mindset among the sales advisers towards closing sales. Even those employees who were initially sceptical about an outside agency coming in and training them on something they did every day of their lives, were completely turned around by the end of the training."