Keeping sales reps highly motivated after moving to a non-commission-based structure
Centralizing and cutting down on data systems
Solution
Contests: Creating a culture of friendly competition Dashboards: Track, visualize, and measure employee performance, and allow them to compare this to each other
Results
More motivated sales reps and friendly competition between employees
United and aligned teams working together to achieve common goals
Company Background
If P&C Insurance is the Nordic's leading insurance company, providing car, dog, life, accident, and home & contents insurance to over 3.7 million customers across Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Baltics. A subsidiary of the Sampo Group, they boast a processing time of fewer than 24 hours for 60% of the 1.4 million claims they receive yearly.
If’s 7,900-strong employee base has been recognized for prioritizing the satisfaction of its customers and bringing the greatest insurance expertise with 90% of customers giving the insurance giant top marks for their claim handling.
The Challenge
Daniel Toft, Outbound Sales Team Leader at If Forsikring (Denmark) tells how, "When you remove commission, you remove a lot of people’s motivation doing sales work. So, that has been our main focus. How do we still keep employees motivated?"
Simultaneously, the company was on a mission to centralize its exhaustive stack of systems used across different countries within the firm.
The Solution: Why Plecto?
“Salespeople are competitive, whether they want to admit it or not,” remarks Daniel. It’s this competitive nature that made Plecto the best solution for If Insurance. With Plecto, sales teams at If are visualizing and comparing performance, as well as running fun contests to keep sales reps motivated–so they continue to offer exceptional insurance expertise while guaranteeing long-term customer satisfaction, that If is renowned for.
"With Plecto, people have been more engaged and have been competing a lot more than we used to. Our reps are also reaching out a lot more to each other, and saying ‘OK, I will sell more than you today,’ for example."
Daniel Toft
Outbound Sales Leader (Private) at If Forsikring
Results at a glance
4 TVs to display performance
A clear, complete overview of performance
Keep the whole company aligned and motivated
177 real-time dashboards to compare performance
36 separate data sources
Centralized and integrated into one place
Cut down on unnecessary data sources & systems
Towards the goal of the entire company
3550 km walked in 28 days per team
Each team contributed to a virtual trip across Europe
Location-based team "Walk Challenge" completed
The Results
A complete shift in culture and competitiveness
With Plecto, If achieved a level of competitiveness and motivation that they had been aiming to achieve since their pre-commission-based salary model. “There has certainly been a shift in culture regarding people’s competitiveness,” notes Daniel.
"Since introducing Plecto, people have been more engaged, and have been competing a lot more than we used to. Our reps are reaching out a lot more to each other, and saying ‘OK, I will sell more than you today,’ for example."
Daniel Toft
Outbound Sales Team Leader at If Forsikring
Smaller competitions, like “whoever makes the most sales in a day, receives a gift card” got reps within teams to race against each other, inciting a level of performance reminiscent of when reps received a commission.
Teamwork makes the dream work
If found a solution to bring teams closer together and stir up some friendly, fiery, fun. They reserved bigger competitions for team contests where teams would work towards a common goal. Simple prizes like going out to dinner together were the perfect way to get teams to collaborate, with the drive to enjoy the reward and celebrate.
The insurance giant ran an innovative contest that saw teams work together to compete against other branches and walk their way from Stamholme (Denmark headquarters, just outside of Copenhagen) to sunny Costa del Sol. In addition to encouraging healthy habits during the lockdown, the challenge was the perfect way to keep employees motivated and connected to their teammates, irrespective of location.
It not only evidenced what the beauty of working together as a team can achieve, but it also showed how succeeding in smaller milestones along the way helped to accomplish larger victories, and as such there were celebrations and rewards for smaller achievements along the journey!
*For data security purposes, the following dashboard image is a recreation of If's walk challenge they ran with Plecto. Names and numbers have been replaced for legal reasons.
"It’s not just me motivating my employees, they motivate each other because all of a sudden they need to work together to meet a target."
Daniel Toft
Outbound Sales Team Leader at If Forsikring
Motivation without Commission
Going straight to the heart of the problem, Daniel discusses, “How do we still keep our employees motivated? Well, Plecto is a massive part of that. Because every person in sales will always be some kind of competitor. The competition itself, to measure yourself against another person, is so easy and valuable, if you use it in the right way."
Employees also have personal dashboards so they compare their own performance to their teammates selling to the same market. Daniel explains how this gets sales reps really motivated: "Before Plecto, we just used a whiteboard and a marker. It was hard to tell the difference and compare performance. If my colleague made 5 sales, I couldn’t see that on the board–but we can see that in Plecto. I can see, ‘OK, my colleague has made 5 sales, I have made 3, so I need 2 more to reach them or 3 to pass them.'"
The celebrations continued in external sales teams with Plecto Achievements and Instant Notifications. Badges next to the name of high-achieving employees were used to recognize and reward everyday efforts. Since dashboards were displayed on TVs throughout the whole organization, everyone was able to see colleagues’ performance and get involved in celebrating individual employee milestones and achievements!
Daniel duly noted that the employees are happier to be there and If experiences a much lower employee turnover as a result, thanks to the help of Plecto.
An app to close the remote work gap
The Plecto App became the performance hub during COVID-19 and beyond, for example, when someone is working remotely from the office. Staying connected with colleagues is as simple as pulling up Plecto on their phones or checking their computer dashboards. This is a particularly successful solution for external field salespeople at If, who spend their days visiting customers.
Centralized systems to cut down confusion
The 37 data sources and systems If currently integrates with Plecto, can be centralized and visualized as desired–slashing tons of time and hassle spent manually logging data in so many different and complex systems.
The Next Step
Daniel positively remarks, “We’ve been really happy with Plecto. It’s something that really motivates people to compare yourself to each other. It’s something we really value at If.” So much so that the insurance giant is keen to make it a staple throughout the whole company–from B2B sales departments, to inbound teams like customer service, and across borders to the other Nordic locations.
Final Thoughts on Plecto
For others thinking about using Plecto, Daniel offered, “Just do it. It’s added a lot of value for us at If Forsikring. Not only would I recommend it, I have recommended it.” He continues, “It’s easy to get into. Easy to use, really easy to use. Great and easy overview.”
And Daniel’s final words of wisdom:
“Use Plecto’s support–not just in the beginning, but also throughout. The Plecto team has a lot of ideas and know how to use Plecto to the full extent, and how to use the tools within Plecto in the best way possible. I have only had great experiences with Plecto.”
*Disclaimer: We are committed to data privacy. All dashboard images in this blog post have been provided by our customer, If Forsikring. Names and identification photos have been blurred out for security. Plecto does not access customer dashboards without written consent.
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