Executive Summary

Standard Direct Insurance Ltd. is the direct marketing arm of Israel's third largest insurance company. Standard utilizes its own call-center to market insurance policies over the phone. Installing eXaudios Maginify at its call-center facility, Standard set a target of increasing its agent success ratio and overall sales per hour by 10%. Following a brief period of project planning, installation and agent training, Standard has exceeded its success target by four-folds - reaching a dramatic increase of about 40% to its two selected Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Following the pilot Standard Direct Insurance CEO, Ilan Bahana quoted "There is no doubt that eXaudios Maginify enabled us to achieve more revenues coupled with better quality sales. If I could I would have installed it a year ago".

eXaudios measured Key Success Factors

Like many other direct sales organizations around the world, Standard Direct Insurance is a data-driven results-oriented organization. Standard performance is measured according to KPIs. The three most important are: Hour-to-policy ratio (how many policies are sold per hour per agent), activity percentage (percentage of agent shift spent on calls), success ratio (percentage of calls ended with a sale). The organization issue and distributes daily reports detailing individual, divisional and organizational performance. All employees are measured, ranked and rewarded based on achieving these goals. Introducing eXaudios Maginify into the organization, Standard management aimed to achieve between 10% - 15% boost to its hour-to-policy and success ratio KPIs.

Implementation Process

Standard Direct Insurance pilot included 15 call center seats installed with Maginify Assistant plus two Maginify Supervisor seats. The brief implementation period included three distinct stages:
1. Planning stage: included setting the scope of the project, desirable outcomes and implementation times. Once these were settled, Standard picked groups of participating agents and supervisors and registered their past 9 month individual success statistics. Another group was picked to serve as a control group. The latter group did not use eXaudios solutions.
2. Analysis & tuning: 200 actual agent recordings were sent to be analyzed at eXaudios labs. eXaudios consultants analyzed these recordings for best practices and desirable call structure as well as for determining overall organizational noise levels and acoustics. The result was a better tuned engine and an application that could guide the agent at different call junctions.
3. System Implementation: After having gone through individual and group system training by eXaudios consulting team, and following a brief installation and integration process, the pilot group was gradually introduced to the application. At first only customer temperature and cooperation levels were available, followed a bit later by agent temperature and effectiveness level module. Finally the recommendation module was introduced allowing agents to match the right approach and wording to the right customer at the right time.

Results

"Our agents fell in love with the system", says Mr. Bahana, "They understood that eXaudios Maginify provides them with a built in advantage". Soon after installation eXaudios Maginify achieved its 10%-15% yard stick and went on to surpass it. After two weeks of operation the system stabilized on about 40% improvement over the control group and organizational averages. "I realized I can be more aggressive" Says Mr. Kobi Levi, a Floor Agent selling direct health insurance, "Judging by the customer temperature and cooperation levels I can quote higher premiums and increase my performance". Such reactions were not limited to the call center agents. Supervisors were also thrilled by having the ability to control their shift in real time. "I can now see exactly what's happening in my shift", Says Mrs. Dikla Milkin, a Floor Supervisor, "If I see a red call on my screen that does not change to yellow or green I can decide to check on the agent, intervene or take control over the call". Agents also found that they can use the agent temperature and effectiveness levels to their advantage as a real-time de-briefing tool to their own performance and conduct. The profile tool was another major hit. Using it agents found they can now employ the right approach to the right customer, "If I see a 'Lion' customer I know to reach him from below, giving him proper respect" Says Mr. Levi, "If I see a 'Flower' I employ a more equal and collegial approach". "There is no doubt Standard Direct Insurance is currently three steps ahead of its competition", summarizes Mr. Bahana, "The system has more than proved itself.