Insurance Journal Forums

A blog reader asked me recently about creating a daily sales activity report where a manager could check an employee’s progress on a regular basis.

One thing I’ve noticed is that even with all the technology we have available at our fingertips, sometimes plain old pen and paper can get the job done.

While you might have more complex or on-going reports that you keep on your computer (like the agency New Business Log), a daily sales report would be one that I would consider doing manually.

Think about what items you want to track or address on a daily basis. Here are a few possible items:

# of Outbound Sales Calls
# of Referrals
# of Inbound Phone Calls
# of Cross Sell Quotes
# of Internet Leads
# of Sales

This list is really going to depend on what is important to your agency and might even vary between individual staff members.
I would include a daily goal for each category you select. So maybe you want your sales producers to have a goal of 20 outbound sales calls, 3 cross sell quotes, and 2 sales each day. Or you want your customer service rep to answer 15 inbound calls, get 3 cross sell quotes, and update at least 7 client profiles.

Create a spreadsheet form and print out copies for the next week or so. Have everyone keep a new sheet on their desk and track throughout the day. They can “turn in” their sheet to you at the end of the day.

Then review the numbers. Look at how much is being done, if one person is outperforming another, and where you can look for improvement. This is also a great way to track what is being done each day and establish some baseline goals.
Try out your new tracking sheet for a week or two and then edit it until it feels right. You might realize there is something else you want to track or a better way to list the information as you go along.

http://agencyupdates.com/track-your-ins ... -activity/

I worked for a major national brokerage that did this for a while. We spent more time filling out this activity log than we did actually servicing accounts. Several key AE's and AM's left because of this micro-management.

Big Dog is right on. Worked for a large insurance company for many years and saw this activity first hand. The micro management will kill moral and be distasteful to people whom produce.

We are already tracking everything we do on an account by an activity entry in our WinTam system. You can easily run a report that will show what each CSR is doing by date if you want to see what they are doing. Don't ask them to keep another manual log of what they are doing. This is just too much.

I agree with the others, that is too much. If you want to know, just run your activity report. You can sort by activity, by user, by date, by time, by client, etc.

Kay-Wa and Kfraiser have the right idea..run activity reports from your automation system. Export to excel...run some pivots and you will have what you want/need.

Using other excel tools...you can even calculate the time difference between activities....pretty slick. Just remember to use some logic if doing this. A 20 min gap between activities does not mean that person was idle or not working for 20 minutes.

Nothing more annoying to a person, than having some jerk running round with a stopwatch looking over your shoulder, making you log every single thing. The agency mgt report is the way to go...log productivity objectively across all producers, without intruding on their personal space every single second, and making them feel like meat.

IF THE CSR IS DOING THEIR JOB THEY WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO WRITE DOWN EVER PHONE CALL.

There's a win-win solution that will most importantly give you and your producers a tool to be more productive (close more policies) while also giving you the metrics you're looking for - it's called a lead management system.

The key is the win-win that an LMS brings to the table. As everyone before me said, forcing your producers to log simple metrics makes zero sense. But, using an LMS makes their lives easier (staying organized with leads, having a ton of automation on their side which they will love) and giving you reporting into all the metrics you're looking for.

I use Leads360 and it's worked incredibly well for me. It's simple, affordable ad specialized for insurance.

Good luck!

MM

Please accept my apology in advance if I sound a bit skeptical. Just would like you to verify that you are an "honest-to-goodness" agency owner/manager and/or producer. So many times this forum gets responses that turn out to be pure advertisements for a particular product someone acting as a shill for a third party who is promoting a certain product.
I personally am always looking for ways to be more productive-the dangling carrot always seems to be just out of reach!-and would be more than willing to try Leads360 if it is even partly as successful as you imply it is. What could be better than simple, affordable, and industry specific(other than free!)
Thank you

No worries! If I wasn't an honest-to-goodness agent I wouldn't have recently made a post on an AMS I'm looking to implement in my agency (I suppose that doesn't mean much?). That aside, finding the 'right' system for you just takes some time (as do most things). I gave you one recommendation that may be a great fit, but it may not be. Every agent/agency is different. Good/bad news is there are plenty of options. But, if you're anything like me, you probably like to focus on selling and training your producers to be selling instead of looking for lead management systems. But, as a wise man once said - you have to sharpen your axe before you chop wood? Or something like that, hopefully you catch my drift!

"IF THE CSR IS DOING THEIR JOB THEY WILL NOT HAVE TIME TO WRITE DOWN EVER PHONE CALL."

I have to comment on this statement, with a contradictory, if a CSR is doing their job well, they WILL write down every phone call. That is not to say that they have time to physically write down every phone call, but they should be logging the activity into whatever management system they are using. Even the most simple of management systems will allow adminstrators to run a report of what is going on.

I agree that it would be a time waster, as well as very "micomanagey" to have to separately keep track of this information. But not keeping track of it in some way is a big E & O waiting to happen!

My 2 cents....

Yikes....daily sales reports for CSR's? Watch your turnover spike and morale drop like a rock.

That's one of those ideas that sounds great to the bean-counters, and pencils out on the chalk-board.....then when you implement half your people are gone within 12 months and so is most of your revenue!

Reporting of successes weekly - by word of mouth in sales meetings or in practice meetings that include CSR's - great.
Monthly CRM reporting....hopefully this occurs as it happens into the system but Sales Management Reports don't need to be pulled more than monthly...

Speaking from experience - both as a producer and running offices and regions for public brokers.

Cheers

If the agency has any kind of management system for recording sales and commissions, it will tell you which employees are producing. In our agency, all employees except administrative are on some commission basis. Commission is easy tracked and the incentive is a bigger paycheck.

Earlybird, what management system do you currently use and are you satisified with it?
Looking to improve effectiveness and be able to track and input non-retained commissions as received.