Common Pitfall 5: Inconsistent articulation of training

Training quality decreases as its physically delivered across a widely distributed sales force. It is literally diluted by each new round of Train the Trainer. The corporate trainers are trained by the developers and designers. They in turn train the regional trainers, who train the district trainers, who train the coaches in the field. The result, especially in large organisations, is that at the end of the process the training bears little resemblance to the original.

Digitised blended training removes dilution and ensures consistency.

• Digitised blended training ensures that everyone in the organisation receives the same high-quality level of training with the desired outcome of a consistent increase in sales and quality.

 

Common Pitfall 6: Change for changes sake

When organisations appoint new Learning & Development Managers, these people tend to want to create change to demonstrate their added value.   Quite often they fall back on their previous materials with which they are familiar and introduce changes to the content and the way learning is delivered.   The impetus for change in this situation reflects the personal ambitions of the Training Director and not necessarily the success of the current training system.

This change for changes sake often leads to excellent training being ditched and being replaced by poorer quality materials, even if the existing content is gaining traction and transforming sales skills.

A digitised training system will reduce the chances of this happening as:

• The costs of replacing digitised quality training can be prohibitive and undesirable.
• Data insights about learners, provided by an integrated Learning Management System, would prove the evidence that the material is working.
• Any changes would obviously attract a higher level of organisational scrutiny.

 

Common Pitfall 7: Allowing compliance and regulations to quash learning engagement

The wind of regulatory change has blown through many of the mature Bancassurance markets, bringing improved customer protection, greater professionalism, and increased transparency.   Over time, principle-based regulation will further shape the Bancassurance industry in less mature markets across the world, and rightly so.

But allowing key regulatory obligations to be the driver of Bancassurance training content and outcomes quashes the learners’ engagement and diminishes their motivation. Generally, regulatory training requirements are dry and the process of learning feels more like a box-ticking exercise than an entertaining and enlightening learning experience.

Regulation and compliance can be allies to enhance the skills of salespeople.

• Organisations should view compliance and regulations as their ally and actively use them to enhance the core skills of their salespeople.
• They can do this by integrating the principles within engaging content that develops higher quality skillsets and reflects customer centricity; something desired by many Bancassurance organisations but rarely achieved.

Being ‘regulation ready’ and integrating industry and marketing compliance requirements into optimised training materials – even if you’re operating in an unregulated market – will provide security that the training material remains robust in a new regulatory environment and allows the business to stay well ahead of its competitors.

 

Common Pitfall 8: Unresolved issues around sales relationships

In many organisations, the importance of the involvement of everyone in generating insurance sales opportunities is underplayed or rarely reaffirmed by bank senior management.   This can lead to an obvious disconnect where there is no mutual trust or respect between sales teams and business units.   Indeed, it has been acknowledged by some that Bank Relationship Managers and Insurance salespeople are actively discouraged to operate as a cohesive team with joint responsibilities and KPIs, and this is a real opportunity missed.

Lead Generation activity is also not always considered a priority and it can be that it is not rewarded, encouraged, measured or trained.   Since this is the source of all insurance and many core banking business opportunities, it has obvious negative consequences.

For many years, leads have been created by using data and, generally, salespeople have failed to display the skills needed to convert these into virtual meetings and discussions.   They simply have not been trained in conversational selling and so the customer is rarely made aware of the benefits of a real or virtual meeting. This has led Bank Relationship Managers to rely on the top 10% of customers in their portfolio – even asking them to buy to help them achieve their targets – while the other 90% of customers remain largely ignored.

When searching for solutions, there is one simple place to start.

There are multiple and human factors at play in any sales environment and not all are covered here. In short, finding the funds and the appetite to implement new ways of upskilling salespeople is the simple place to start. Digitised blended learning journeys for your salespeople can:

• Include key elements to appeal to all learning styles and content consumption preferences.
• Target the training content to specific needs like lead generation skills for banking staff and sales skills for insurance staff.
• Deliver sales manager and sales leadership training that arms them with the soft skills and the tools and solutions to deal with every opportunity and contingency.
• Provide the benefits of conversational selling training; a more productive skill for the digital sales environment of today.

 

The optimisation of Bancassurers lies in digitisation

Reviewing these pitfalls has prompted Ian Watts, CEO of InPartnership International (iPi), to ponder the current Bancassurance landscape. “The best practices to create success are well-understood but often fail owing to poor execution” Watts said. “Just consider the number of past Bancassurance ventures that should have flourished but have consistently underperformed. When opportunities like those above are still being missed by organisations, it highlights why the road to an optimised Bancassurance partnership is strewn with problems.”

Collaborative agreements and hybrid strategies are essential for accessing local distribution networks, and Bancassurance is certainly paving the way. This is no more apparent than in the ASEAN region where various exclusive agreements have recently been agreed. There, industry players also now realise that digitising processes and training is also essential to a smoothly functioning Bancassurance operation in the future.

In pursuit of this, many of Asia’s Bancassurers have been spending 1-2% of their gross premiums annually on digital projects (in addition to general IT spending) and this is expected to increase in the future more strategically.

Digital training solutions increase consistency and reduce costs.

“Never more than now do Bancassurers worldwide need to ensure that training becomes a digitisation priority” declared Rod Shay, a strategist with more than 40-years-experience and knowledge of developing and implementing successful Bancassurance businesses.

This is particularly relevant in 2021 as Covid-19 has driven people away from classrooms and skill sets are being eroded as a result.   “The virus has compounded the rationale for Bancassurers to train their staff using digital solutions. Digitised training programs should help increase consistency, avoid quality dilution and reduce costs.   And the content needs to be easily accessible, interesting and fun. But training effectiveness is wholly dependent upon the quality of the content,” Shay continued.

Some Bancassurers believe that face-to-face can never be beaten as a sales and training practice and live in hope that it will return, even in the face of reducing persistency ratios.

Others are realising how digitised blended learning and conversational selling can bring new solutions to old problems.

What’s clear is that if organisations fail to address common pitfalls like those included above, they will fail to fully optimise their Bancassurance business.

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IPI Global Learning LMS supports learning methods that are appropriate for the current generation. Our content is designed with a ‘Digital First’ approach.

 

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Article Author

Rod Shay Director & Board Advisor MORE