Introduction
All insurance agencies have a sales process. A sales process is a series of steps you and a lead take together on the journey to them becoming your client. There are many ways to manage your sales process. This guide highlights the solutions in AgencyBloc that can help you manage your sales process.
IN THIS GUIDE
Step One: Get leads into AgencyBloc
Step Two: Organize leads
Step Three: Nurture leads
Step Four: Put together proposals
Step Five: Convert leads to clients
Step One: Get leads into AgencyBloc
A comprehensive sales management experience allows for more informed decisions and streamlined sales processes. Your current lead generation and management efforts can be easily transitioned to AgencyBloc.
Transfer leads to AgencyBloc
API
If you have leads in a third-party system, connect it to AgencyBloc using API. Once connected, you can move everything (notes and attachments included) over to AgencyBloc. Learn more about using API.
Data import
If API isn’t an option, compile all your lead contacts into an Excel spreadsheet and import it into AgencyBloc. Learn more about using data import.
Generate leads in AgencyBloc
Lead forms
In AgencyBloc, you can create lead forms to place on your website. When someone visits your site and submits a form, AgencyBloc will automatically create a lead and put it into your queue for follow-up. Learn more about using lead forms.
Lead integrations
In the insurance industry, there are companies and services, known as lead vendors, that capture and provide leads for you. If you get your leads from a lead vendor, ask them if they can set up an integration. This would allow them to send leads directly into AgencyBloc and save you time with data entry. Learn more about using lead integrations.
Step Two: Organize leads
Once you have your Group/Individual leads in AgencyBloc, you will want to establish a business process for filling them out. The more field data you can capture, the better because it feeds into other AgencyBloc features that help with lead management and analytics, such as the Leads List and Sales Dashboard.
Important data to track on your leads
In addition to contact information, you should track the following on your Group and Individual leads:
- Type - What kind of organization or person the Group/Individual is to your agency. If you're using Type Categories, this field will also connect your lead data to other AgencyBloc features that help you manage and work leads. Learn how to set up Type Categories.
- Status - Where the lead is in your sales process. Have you contacted the lead? Is the lead qualified?
- Servicing Agent - Who the lead is assigned to. You can assign leads to people in your agency via Agent records. This allows you to restrict a person's access to only their assigned leads. Learn more.
- Lead Source - Where the lead came from or how you acquired the lead (ex. referral, website, lead vendor, etc.). This improves searchability and Dashboard analytics.
- Lead Date - When you acquired the lead. This improves searchability and Dashboard analytics.
Having the right field data allows everyone at your agency to make more informed decisions. In particular, it gives agents and producers the information they need to nurture new leads coming into AgencyBloc.
Step Three: Nurture leads
When a new lead comes into AgencyBloc, your next goal is to educate and let them know of the value your agency could bring. Take actions (e.g., call, email, meet, etc.) that will help the lead move forward in your sales process.
Find new leads to work
When you have many leads, finding new ones can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Thankfully, AgencyBloc has some tools to help you out.
- Quick Search (Groups & Individuals) - Has a simple dropdown filter for separating leads from clients based on Type Category. You can narrow your results using keywords.
- Advanced Search (Groups & Individuals) - Has additional filters that can be adjusted to find new leads that come from a specific lead source (notably Lead Forms). You can save Advanced Searches to quickly reuse later and create real-time updating lists on your Dashboard.
- Leads List - Allows you to get straight to your Group and Individual leads (if you’re using Type Categories) so you can take action. You can manage your leads by creating Activities and Sales Opportunities, and initiating contact via email (if you have an email handler for your web browser) with no delays. Has filters for finding unassigned leads, stale leads, and more.
When you find a new lead, you’re ready to initiate contact.
Contact leads and schedule follow-ups
Consistent contact with leads is an important part of the nurturing process. As soon as you get a new lead, you have a narrow window of time to initiate contact and distinguish yourself from competitors.
You can kick off emails (if you have an email handler for your web browser), and create activities to document all your points of contact from the Leads List.
After making the initial contact, give the lead some time to think. You may need to follow-up a couple of times until the lead is qualified. Use Activities to assign to-dos and follow-up reminders. View and keep track of your Activities on your AgencyBloc Calendar and Activities Dashboard. Please note, an Activity must have a due date to show up on the Calendar.
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View all your due Activities for a particular day, week, or month in a familiar calendar format. Please note, an Activity must have a due date to appear on the Calendar. |
View all your assigned Activities in a list format. You can design your Personal Dashboard to show everything you need to get your day started. |
Continue this process until the lead is qualified to move forward in your sales process.
Never miss a follow-up
Follow-up is often a manual process. Things can sometimes fall through the cracks, especially when the enrollment season hits and new leads flood your agency. You may not have time to get to each one. Thankfully, you can offload some of those tasks onto AgencyBloc’s Automated Workflow.
You can configure this automation tool to email links to additional educational materials and create activity follow-ups for new leads. Check out our pre-built New Individual Prospect workflow. It's ready for you to use and personalize.
Step Four: Put together proposals
As you contact and follow-up with your leads, you will learn about their background and insurance needs. When you have enough information, you can run quotes and put together proposals.
At this point, you’re ready for Sales Opportunities (Opps), which allow you to track your proposals. Opps are like pre-Policies, specifically designed to support and enhance your sales process in AgencyBloc.
Opps help you to:
- Track sales productivity and performance
- Forecast revenue for your agency
- Document the whole marketing and sales journey
To create Opps, you need a Sales Pipeline to put them into. A Sales Pipeline is a funnel for Opps. It is segmented into stages based on your sales process. See diagram below for an example of a Group business Pipeline.
As an Opp moves through your sales process, you can update its position in your Pipeline.
In AgencyBloc, you can see visual representations of your Pipeline on the Sales Pipelines Board. You can work your Opps in this space and gain insights into your Pipeline’s productivity and performance.
Track productivity and performance in your Pipeline
The Sales Pipelines Board displays your Opps in a Kanban-style view. You can more easily visualize an Opp’s status by its placement on the board. Also, this view and the Sales Opportunities List have filters for drilling into your Opp and Pipeline data. Quickly pull up your high-value Opps, search Opps by Producer or Sales Team, and locate stale Opps.
Protect against stale opps
If an Opp sits in a stage for too long, you could risk losing the sale. Pipelines have a built-in, optional Stage Aging setting that, if turned on, indicates when an Opp is going stale in several places with visual cues.
You can also use Automated Workflow as an early warning system for stale Opps. When you create an Opp workflow, set up its actions with delays based on your Pipeline’s Stage Aging. If an Opp moves into a stage and sits in it for too long, the workflow will kick off an email or activity follow-up for the Opp’s assigned producer.
Monitor Pipeline health on the Sales Dashboard
The Sales Dashboard displays your lead and Pipeline data in high-level, visual charts and graphs. You can use each chart/graph to uncover trends and patterns in your sales process, which gives you more ways to evaluate your sales performance.
Some ways you can use the Sales Dashboard include:
- See your top-performing producers
- Forecast your Pipeline revenue for the next 13 months
- Compare Pipeline revenue year-over-year
Document the full marketing and sales journey
Opps document the full marketing and sales journey from start to close. Every Opp has a timeline of events that logs when changes are made and who made the change.
There's also a place to add products and services to Opps and keep track of what you’re selling.
In addition, you can relate email conversations to Opps to add extra background and context to all the efforts that are going on behind the scenes.
If the Opp is Closed Lost, you can document the reason why for later follow-up and review of your sales process. If it’s Closed Won, you’re ready to convert the lead into a client.
Step Five: Convert leads into clients
Congratulations, you’ve made a sale! You’re now ready to convert the lead to a client in AgencyBloc. The process may differ depending on your sales process but in general, you will want to finish setting up your Policies and kick off onboarding.
Finish setting up Policies
After you sell an Opp and move it to Closed Won, you can associate it with Policies—both new and existing. This attaches a client’s marketing and sales history to their Policies and allows you to quickly access and recall the entire relationship from start to present day.
This history gives your account services team additional background and context for helping clients when they call in about their Policies.
Kick off onboarding
Onboarding is a key part of the client experience. It is a time to welcome new clients into your family and make them feel at home. It’s also a time to set expectations and provide them with the resources they need to confidently make health care decisions.
With a little setup, you can have Automated Workflow handle your onboarding kick-offs. Workflows help you save time and ensure consistency in your communications.
You can create workflows that automatically email new clients a welcome package with the following information when their Policy applications are approved:
- Policy # and links to online enrollment portals and resources
- Servicing agent contact information
- Business hours and any other servicing information
After onboarding, the sales process is complete and you can transition your new clients over to account services and commission processing (if you have the Commission Processing module).