Using Quality Tools and Concepts to Improve Sales
•Download as DOCX, PDF•
1 like•191 views
This is a white paper that I submitted for the 2009 Decision Science Institute (DSI) in New Orleans which documents a large scale quality project I undertook. In the project quality tools and concepts were used to analyze two virtual call centers and look for opportunities for sales improvement.
![Analysis of a Virtual Sales System with Call Centers in Two Separate Locations<br />By: Thomas Kaster<br />608-843-0394<br />Tkaster27@gmail.com<br />Note: Due to the proprietary nature of information discussed, company name, location name and personnel names will be labeled generically.<br />Paper Background and Purpose:<br />The purpose of this research was to analyze a call center sales operation system to identify opportunities for quality improvement in regards to improved sales and customer service. The system that is discussed is a direct to consumer, individual health solutions, sales call center. The call center has two distinct locations but is considered a virtual call center. Through the utilization of call routing technology, when a call is received, it is routed to the next available agent in either location.<br />Calls are driven through mailed marketing materials, e-mail and television advertisements. Consumers are provided an 800 number to receive further information. A call center specialist, who is licensed to sell health and life insurance in the caller’s resident state, answers the call. The specialist determines the eligibility of the caller, identifies what product fits their needs, provides a quote and tries to sell the quoted plan. If the consumer agrees, a health assessment survey is completed and the survey is submitted to underwriting to determine eligibility and provide a final offer of coverage.<br />The main product is an individual health insurance product, which offers a wide array of health care coverage options including Individual Major Medical or Heath Savings Account (HSA) Qualified insurance plans that have deductibles ranging from $1000 to $7500. Although the health plans are the main product, there are three ancillary products which can be added to the health plan. These optional benefits are strong profit drivers for the division. The ancillary products consist of a term life insurance product, a comprehensive dental insurance product and an accidental benefit rider.<br />For the purpose of this paper, the names of the call center locations will be referred to as the North location and the South location. As mentioned earlier, the call center is considered a virtual call center. To better understand the dynamics of the operations of this system, it is important to provide further detail on the definition of virtual. Both locations utilize the same software applications, take the same calls, and have shared management. All management teams report through the same lines of leadership. There are also members of the training department in both centers who report to the same leadership. From a resource and leadership team standpoint, there is no quantitative difference between the locations. <br />Although the locations are virtual, there are several non-quantitative factors that need to be considered. First, geographically, the centers are on opposite sides of the country. The demographics of each location are completely different. The North location has primarily Caucasian and the South location has primarily Hispanic and African American employees. In addition, although the lines of leadership reporting are the same, the upper management resides in the North location. All these differences create needs for high levels of diversity understanding as well as communication obstacles. Some of these needs will be discussed later in the paper.<br />Unfortunately, like many sales operations, internal competition is a factor. Because of this, there is the continual debate of who is selling better. From a raw numbers standpoint, counting number of health policies sold per month, the South location is higher. However, the South Location has approximately 60 sales associates while the North has 45. The South location has 15 more so the number of total sales will be more. As a result, if one were to look at performance based on sold policies alone, it would not be an accurate analysis of performance. Other sources of measurement need to be considered.<br />Considering these factors, the goal of this project is to improve overall sales for this sales operations system. <br />Methodology<br />As with all sales call centers, a wide array of metrics are readily available to judge performance. However, for this project it was important to choose the most fitting metrics that would provide equitable insight into sales performance. Since we are dealing with a significant difference in the number of sales individuals in each location, choosing total sales would not be a fair measurement. As a result I chose the following measurements to evaluate sales performance:<br />,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/thomaskasterbus761finalresearchpaper1-12738295467444-phpapp01/85/Using-Quality-Tools-and-Concepts-to-Improve-Sales-1-320.jpg)
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (9)
Similar to Using Quality Tools and Concepts to Improve Sales
Similar to Using Quality Tools and Concepts to Improve Sales (20)
Using Quality Tools and Concepts to Improve Sales
- 2. Metric # 2: Dental Sales Conversion Rate
- 3. Metric # 3: Supplemental Accidental Benefit (SAB) Conversion Rate
- 4. Metric # 4: Life Insurance Sales Conversion Rate
- 6. The completion of an initial health assessment survey (application)
- 7. Consent to a Medical Information Bureau Recording (MIB)
- 8. Receipt of payment information
- 9. Test: Based on system driven dispositions and reporting, each sale is analyzed to determine if:
- 10. Based on the information available at the time of the sales interaction the consumer was eligible
- 11. The MIB was completed
- 12. The method of payment was received
- 13. The health survey was completed
- 14. The health survey was forwarded to underwriting
- 16. Test: Base on auto-generated tracking from our application management system, each step is recorded when completed. Once the following system noted steps are recorded the application is considered issued:
- 17. The application is converted to underwriting
- 18. UW has reviewed the medical history and provided an offer
- 19. The consumer receives the offer
- 20. The consumer accepts the offer, signs and returns the documents
- 21. The signed documents are received by the underwriting department and processed to the billing and enrollment department
- 22. Twenty-four hours later, the applicant is listed as a member in Billing and Enrollment
- 24. Looking at each location as its own system, and analyzing between group variation, during a nine month timeframe
- 26. Additional training was provided to help sales reps better understand the value of the SAB rider, how it can help their consumers and how they can sell and position the product.