Segmented incentives and multi-audience technology drives agent sales
How a Fortune 100 insurance company increased independent agent sold policies by infusing sales and non-sales incentives.
Prior to working with ITA Group, our client had a handful of internally managed regional programmes all attempting to reach their 40,000 independent agents. They were struggling to measure the impact of SPIFFs and contests while also bearing the administrative burden of running so many small concurrent incentives.
Our recommendation – to 1) segment the audience with a tiered approach on one streamlined engagement portal, and 2) reward with both sales and non-sales activities – spurred an increase of policy applications and sales in this indirect agent audience.
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A streamlined engagement platform allowed for a scalable programme approach.
Personalising the experience supports additional audiences and tiered approach
The core strategy is to make a scalable programme that can launch additional enterprise-wide initiatives. In the first phase, the programme targeted independent partner agents. After a successful launch with quick positive growth, our client looked to us to extend the programme to additional audiences, including career agents and call center employees.
Programme audiences
- Independent agents – Earn awards for cross-selling, enrolment in supplemental products and participating in non-sales activities.
- Career agents – Earn awards for policies and enrolments, cross-selling supplemental products and participating in non-sales activities.
- Call center employees – Earn awards for cross-selling and lead generation.
- Field personnel – Advocate for the programme with their agents.
Growing into segmentation
Because there wasn’t enough history with indirect agents to jump right into a segmented programme, the operations teams kept a close eye on activity across the first few months to start building what would later become five core segments: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Ambassador. Each segment promotes agents’ progress and inspires them to unlock new awards at each level.
Rewarding non-sales behaviours
To help differentiate the programme in the market and also adopt best practices in incentives and loyalty, non-sales behaviours were built into the strategy and geared toward each segment. The goal of the non-sales behaviours was to increase activity in areas that lead to higher sales. Things like gaining knowledge, understanding how to use enablement tools, attending virtual events and using marketing credits were tied to incentives to drive desired behaviour in agents while also staying front and center month-to-month with our client’s brand.
Personalising the experience
Messaging is tailored based on segment and is reflected in partner portal content and ongoing communications. This personalisation lets agents see their progress, know what action to take next, and keeps them earning for both sales and non-sales behaviours; reinforcing the behaviours that make them experts in the insurance field.
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Personalized engagement platform kept participants informed on their progress.
Custom-crafted engagement portal integrates existing technology
A standard SaaS implementation wasn’t going to cut it to bring to life a flexible earning structure unique to each of our client’s multiple audiences. The best solution for our client was to pull core modules in to meet 70% of their needs and then create customisation for scalable segmentation, non-standard incentive calculations and a custom UX. This allowed the client to continually bring more audiences into the programme and adapt the earning structure to keep those audiences motivated.
Additionally, the programme platform consolidated all our client’s disparate channel technologies into one portal with a single sign-on. With all information in one place, agents have an overall view of ongoing programme progress and can redeem earned points and marketing credits.
Technologies integrated
- Marketing portal: Place for agents to earn points for using marketing assets and gain access to more materials
- Ongoing certification and education: One tool to track all certification and higher learning
- Programme point redemption: Simple method for seeing available earned points and redeeming
Reporting and administrative support
Bringing multiple audiences into a single platform eased administration for all their stakeholders. They now have all the pertinent data and reports at their fingertips, including details about performance, engagement, payouts and enrolment. They can even track programme performance to multiple budget centers – a must-have for bringing on additional audiences. Now, stakeholders can easily see the real-time results of the programme to make decisions about next steps, and their analysts are elated with data that can be automatically sent back to them or pulled down with on-demand reports.
Not only is reporting simpler, our client has a dedicated ITA Group operations team managing the programme for all their audiences and ensuring new promotions, SPIFFs, portal content, earning auditing and communications run smoothly – freeing up internal teams to focus on strategy, relationships and steering the business.
Motivating communications drive enrolment and capture attention
A comprehensive communication strategy was created to inspire agent participation. A key element was launching the programme to make a splash with independent agents. A hype kit was built for field personnel to educate them on the programme and showcase how to garner buy-in from agents.
Communication examples
- Programme guide: All the info agents need to get rewarded for their work
- Portal content: One place to see programme rules, access training sessions and redeem awards
- Enrolment video: A reminder of how easy it is to be recognised for making an impact
- Programme calendar strip: Visual reminder of the programme
- Marketing tip emails: Additional tips to keep agents growing, learning and earning
- Promotional videos: Announcement of more ways for agents to fuel programme earning
- Monthly programme update emails: Segmented communications congratulate agents for a job well done
- Activity nudges: Personalised communications nudge agents to up their game by notifying them when they’re close to moving to the next tier and congratulating them on achieved goals
Our client appreciates not only the quality of our communications, but also our ability to work with compliance, and awarded our team additional channel communications business.
A compeling enrolment video created enthusiasm for the programme.
A robust communications campaign kept partners informed
Exceeding expectations and reaping quick results
The programme reached significantly more agents in the first year than our client expected, including new selling agents who now actively take advantage of the programme. Our client’s goal for the first year of programme operation was to reach and enrol 65% of independent partner agents that are certified and contracted with our client. Within 10 months, the programme exceeded 160% of our client’s enrolment goal and is still growing!
162% of client's enrolment goal for the programme was reached in the first 10 months
2x more applications produced by enroled partner agents vs unenroled partner agents
5,000 previously dormant independent agents now sell policies
25% of total sales from the independent agent network coming from these newly selling agents