The on-demand link for the webinar is also available at the end of the blog.
The webinar is helmed by Aalap Gandhi – AVP – Distribution Innovation & Strategy, Future Generali India Life Insurance, to give insights about how Agents at Generali have been dealing with Digitizing post-pandemic.
The topic under discussion is- ‘Why do Agents not use their CRM?’
Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdowns have changed the face of many industries worldwide, with the insurance industry being one too. One of the biggest challenges that insurance companies had to face was pivoting to selling policies online. In India, insurance policies, mainly for health and life, are decisions taken with an agent’s help.
See what Aalap has to say about the insurance industry in India in the past 18 months-
How did the insurance industry brave the pandemic, and what were the changes it brought about?
“The first thing that should change when it comes to a new way of working is the mindset. All of us conduct our business in a way that feels right for us. At the beginning of the pandemic, we weren’t sure if it was even possible to sell insurance policies online. But the biggest challenge was the urgency with which we had to shift gears to undertake digital transformation. Having to shift millions of users within a short period was a nightmare.” Aalap said.
Making such a shift forces you to question the way you have been doing business. The pandemic has made the insurance industry realize why it is essential that the entire ecosystem is digitalized.
How did Covid change the user journey in the insurance industry?
In the early days of lockdown, Future Generali undertook a massive transformation program. In a country like India, the insurance industry is very sales-centric. We think of what we can do to enable our sales managers to make their day and life better. Even if is something as simple as simply having all the monthly collaterals available to them to be best equipped to deal with any kind of questions.
Insurance organizations should train their agents to make sure that they are adequately equipped to handle the vagaries of the job. We gave them communication platforms. We helped them create the entire business journey online.
What are the metrics to be tracked to measure the success of digital adoption?
Aalap used Vymo as an example of a tool they were using to compare the metrics.
“Should the metrics be only adoption and engagement? No, probably that wouldn’t serve our purpose either.
By partaking in many conversations with a few of my colleagues, we realized that there was one question on the lips of most of them.
“Why should I use what I use?””, Aalap mentioned.
Do you realize therein lies the problem? It is adoption. So, the first thing that we need to do is show the sales team how to use this platform and the kind of benefits they will get from it.
The agents should know that the tools that they are using are providing them with an incomparable convenience. One more thing that any leader in an organization should realize is that what you see as convenience might not be the same for everyone else.
Aligning IT and sales teams while adopting tools: A Challenge
For digital transformation, one of the biggest challenges is change management.
Alignment between IT and sales teams is crucial because both are entirely different and do not understand each other.
The strategy that Future Generali is following for digital transformation is to go into the field and ask- “Do you think this is the problem?”
Most issues may not be straightforward, so it is unwise to assume the problem without talking to the agents in the field.
Providing your agents and other stakeholders with adequate training will pave the way for a successful digital transformation undertaking.
After this, the next step is to see if the users are aligned based on the benefits they will get from it.
Challenges faced by Financial Institutions while adopting digital tools
There were two main challenges that Future Generali faced while digitizing.
Their sales team had these two questions that they wanted help with.
- The sales team says they get all the work done, including meeting sales prospects and clearing the targets. So they ask why they would need a CRM or a lead management tool they need to fill every day.
- Another issue that they have raised is if they start using this, is there a possibility that they would not only be taking care of their regular workload but will also have to do more work.
We can only solve this when our agents realize these tools only help them do their jobs better, and we can do that by deploying convenience for our agents when we are deploying these tools.
