Sales Force Effectiveness and Improved Results

The Challenge:

Green Shield operates in a highly competitive industry where the Canadian market is largely controlled by the ‘Big 3’ benefits providers. Group benefits represent more than 80% of total annual revenues and large Groups tend to renew infrequently and with their existing providers. The ultimate challenge for Green Shield was to become more competitive in order to capture market share. The approach was twofold:

1) Improve the effectiveness of the Sales Executives in order to have them be more active in identifying new opportunities and closing deals. Processes over time had become very administrative which impeded the Account Executives’ (AE) ability to spend more time developing relationships and actively moving sales opportunities.

2) Create role clarity for the 3 main functional groups operating internally. Overlap compounded with the administration of ineffective or redundant processes needed to be addressed to provide role clarity and help set up groups in a support function for the Execs.

The Results:

• 5% increase in profits achieved through new business generation.
• Sales process for each market sector defined and augmented to allow Account Executives more face time with brokers.
• Meeting Activity was defined and tracked in order for Management to begin measuring the amount of client contacts that were occurring on a weekly basis. On average there were 10 new contacts being generated each week.
• Activity Analysis was completed with all functional groups to understand key roles and responsibilities. Master job descriptions were created as a result to delineate roles and provide clarity for individuals within each group. The result was a transfer of responsibility and the creation of several ‘specialty’ groups in order to relieve some of the administrative burden.

An elaborate on-line Sales Management System was designed and installed to track key indicators throughout the selling cycle:

• Weekly AE Meeting Activity
• Weekly Quoting Activity
• Value of Quotes in “The Mill”
• Conversion of Quotes to Orders
• Value of Policy Terminations

Changes to existing processes were developed within each of the three core functional groups with most changes having an impact on all three:

• Implemented a Quotes Team to handle Quote generation in order to alleviate the administrative burden to the AE.
• Streamlined Plan Design Change Process to minimize number of hand-offs.
• Centralization of files and creation of sharing drives as a central repository for all client files to minimize rework and time spent searching for information.
• Developed Master Application to eliminate multiple forms and excessive sign-offs and multiple touches.
• Developed a centralized Booklets & Contracts Team to eliminate hand-offs and free up time for CSR to aid in account management.
• Automation of rate inputs for renewals to eliminate the need for manual system inputs.
• Created letter automation for pooled renewals to minimize time spent manually creating.

The Client Experience:

“Carpedia quickly identified the key areas which would free up enough time for our sales force to focus on sales activities. We implemented a Sales Activity Management system to manage the proposal process. This provided statistical information to enable more effective sales planning and better results.”

Vice President, Green Shield Canada