How different is North India and South India?

In the insurance industry, every new person you reach – counts!

Selling insurance in India is one of the most competitive careers, but those who do it well agree it’s also one of the most lucrative.

When customers make a purchase decision, their loyalty already lies with you. They will purchase your product and prefer it over your competitors’ options.

Owing to the sales differences that emerge in different geographies of India, how should organisations maximize rep impact and conversions in each?

This study focuses on
– Identifying sales differences between North & South India
– Identifying sales reps’ behavioural differences between North & South India
– Engaging sales reps differently in different geographies

Sales differences between North & South India

How do you stand out in the crowded marketplace that is insurance sales? Getting new insurance clients in 2020 is different than in the past. Much different.

Looking back at 3+ years of our data from leading financial institutions and over 1M+ unique leads we’ve engaged with, the average ticket sizes for South Sales is drastically higher compared to other regions.

In the North, while the number of leads being generated is on a rise, the Lead Conversion Ratio seems to be the lowest. Maybe there are some learnings that can be carried forward across regions afterall!

Sales reps’ behavioural differences between North & South India

The global pandemic has driven up customers’, agents’, and insurers’ desire for comfort around digital and remote interaction models.

Agents are currently navigating legacy products that require offline execution, such as physical signatures and medical underwriting. Many customers do not want to engage in a physical medical-underwriting process for fear of contagion.

Crunching our numbers, and learning from the leads we’ve engaged with, lower-ticket products have more leads created in the North whereas higher-ticket products have more leads created in the South. Despite the higher leads created in Northern India, South proves to deliver significantly better lead conversion rates.

Our recommendation?

Target your engagement for South sales reps towards higher volumes of lead creation at the very beginning of the sales journey or campaign.

And increase your engagement for North sales reps towards lead nurture throughout the sales journey.

Sales reps performance in North and South India

Now this is a really interesting one!

We always look into how best to improve a sales reps performance, understand best practices, and help drive the team! According to our data, the percentage of untouched leads increased by 3x by month end in the North, way higher than what we’re seeing in the South.

Our recommendation?

Your reps could use a little extra nudging during the end of the month to close those untouched leads! Incentivisation could help the process, maybe offer them a little something to look forward to.

Also, for the South, you could consider nudges and reminders that can be spaced according to your reps performance – something that has proven to deliver results!

To understand how customer preferences have changed, insurers can use zero-based design to rethink existing processes, experiences, and products to be more appropriate for the next normal!

The goal is to return the business to scale fast, especially as knock-on effects of the virus become clear.

Do you know how many leads decay before they’re picked up for an initial outreach?
Prioritizing leads & assigning them in real-time can have a 10X upside. From what we’ve seen, leads are reached out only after 7-8 hours after they flow in. 90% of warm leads decay within the first 4-8 hours. If you’re reaching out to them with a time lag post first interaction, you’ve already lost them to your competition. First touch response time has a definite impact on conversion.” – Varun Ravichandran – Head of Industry Solutions, Vymo
We went through 5 Levers we think will define and streamline your lead pipeline, help your managers help their sales teams drive productivity, and yes, increase conversions!

Vymo helped optimize its people-heavy workflow across geographies and eliminated the subjectivity in how leads were being assigned. While earlier, supervisors assigned leads based on ‘equal opportunity’, Vymo enabled impact based allocations. Supervisors were able to create rules for these allocations, so leads were pursued by the right Sales representative.
Vymo’s Intelligent Personal Sales Assistant has helped 125,000+ insurance agents and salespersons to effectively track upcoming renewals and increase sales through existing customers by 3X even during the global pandemic.

Vymo makes it easy to capture customer interactions, identify (winning) behaviours, and marry it to (deep) relevant contextual information to deliver proactive nudges for sales teams to work from anywhere! It’s also about making sure that your workforce has the right opportunities, tools, resources, and culture to excel in this marketplace going forward.