1. Draw blueprint drafts and technical details

An obvious use of a mobile device with a digital pen is to draft or sketch blueprints and technical details while out and about, even when in front of a client. The user has to be neither an engineer nor an artist: unlike in maintenance or technical design, the sketches serve only the purpose of telling a story, not to be a measure. However great work your sales enablement team is doing, there can be times when the rep is not equipped with the blueprints and detailed designs he or she needs. But expertise and some drawing skills are there to move the deadlock.

2. Sketch processes

Especially in B2B selling, reps need to present complex processes that lead to the solution the client requested. However, the complex nature of these processes require a complex explanation and that is sometimes too much for the other party – not to mention the important details that can be lost meanwhile. In order to make things easier, reps have a great tool at their disposal. They can make a quick sketch of the process they are talking about at any point in the presentation! Prospective clients will also feel unique as the meeting notes come with handwritten sketches, made only for them and following their own requests.

3. Highlight important points

Personal conversations are invaluable but so much can be lost while talking. By highlighting (underlining, circling, etc.) important points of a presentation or a product documentation, salespeople can make sure the agent will have the most important messages delivered even when forwarding the materials later to the client. Reps themselves might find it useful as well to get a quick overview of the points they need to act on.

4. Make presentations complete

Presentations are mostly known as the boring variations of stories. Surprises, on the other hand, will help get the attention of the audience. They come in many shapes and forms but sketches are certainly among them. So how to show the client that an agent is listening to them? By drawing and writing missing information in the presentation during the meeting, it is more than obvious that the agent listens and makes an effort to add even more relevant details to what is being told.

5. Take handwritten notes

Handwriting is more comfortable for many than typing and, therefore, can be quicker. But there is another aspect of handwritten notes: it suggests a higher level of authenticity, so it is great for building trust with clients. You should never underestimate the power of trust: the average sales cycle has gotten longer in the recent years and it has been paired with a growing skepticism from the part of the prospective buyer. The only thing that is able to speed up the process now risk-free is trust, and any tool that helps build it should be honored and nurtured.

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The post 5 Ways Drawing and Sketching Help Reps in Selling appeared first on Scolvo.

When above all that a new regulation appears on the market, many sales leaders tend to think that it is only another nuisance they have to comply with. In other cases, they might think it is none of their business after all. However, a significant part of the regulations are created as a reaction to changing demand, and no sales leader can ignore these changes.

For example, the freshest version of the European Payment Services Directive, or PSD2, in effect since January 2018, reacts to the demand of financial services customers who want to take advantage of the single market by using even more and more secure services. They expect the service providers to increase transparency and give the control of user data into the users’ hand.

The most important consequence of implementing PSD2 was that it cleared the way to the so-called Account Information Services Providers (AISPs) and Payment Information Service Providers (PISPs). These service providers connect the financial institutions and the clients as a third party and develop new solutions for the financial industry, mostly by offering an easy overview for the clients of their existing assets and credits at the different accounts in different institutions.

One of the primary goals of PSD2 is that these third parties that are handling sensitive data and offering services on the market anyway, were kept accountable and under stronger control. Already in January, many fintech startups registered as AISP or PISP, according to the directive. The most well-known aggregators are probably Consents Online and API-developer Truelayer but the list is growing almost by the day.

The new regulation also stimulates market competition among current and new players. Thanks to the new services, pricing structures, conditions lists, and the client management of different financial institutions are becoming more transparent. This is a call to action for the incumbents. Not only should they passively provide data or access to their systems but also develop innovative solutions.

What Does the Client Want?

Shortly after the publication of the directive, between February and June 2016, Accenture conducted a survey with the participation of 800 clients using online banking or payment services. The survey provides an important insight into the initial reactions of clients to the directive.

The analysis highlights three major factors: trusted brands are better accepted as AISPs, the different approach to the management of banking data and other personal data, and the fact that the age and the number of accounts are strongly correlated to the likeliness of trusting the new services.

Putting it simply:

• The clients expect mostly (65%) traditional banks as AISPs, and the trust in these institutions serves as a base for sharing other account information, but 40% would also trust well-known online retailers.
• However easily people share their personal data on different forums, they consider financial data more sensitive and, therefore, 70% would not trust them to a third party outside of the banking environment.
• The attitude towards AISPs is defined by several other factors as well. Interestingly, the more accounts someone has in different places, so there should be a motivation to use aggregators, the less likely they would try one. Attitudes are also characterized by age: 52% of those between 55-64 said they would not trust a third party, while only 15% of those between 18-24 years said the same.

How Should Banks Keep Up In This Competition?

As shown above, banks should not only the threat but also the opportunity in PSD2 as their established brands and the sense of trust that comes with it could be a perfect base for the implementation of new services.

The banks that go beyond passive data transfer to third parties and make an effort to develop new solutions within the redefined framework will be the winners of this game.

Such a new solution could be, for example, a functionality built in a mobile application that could map the client’s financial situation with the input of only one account number, suggest products, and create an opportunity for further planning. This could provide useful data not only for the client but also for the bank: how the client uses his or her assets at other institutions, what services does he or she use and how often.

How Does PSD2 Relate to the Sales Reps’ Job?

In creating the currently applied sales strategies, one fact played a major role: namely, that a particular financial service provider could only work based on their own data and some unconfirmed information shared by the client when providing assessment and personal financial management services.

However, digitalization, mobile devices, and other consumer services motivate clients to want to manage their financials in an easier, more transparent way. Addressing this new demand is a range of new technology companies entering the market every day.

In this environment, in-house retail banking sales reps have a huge opportunity literally at hand. Terminals and mobile devices are already in use at many financial institutions, and the applications installed on these devices are helping sales reps and clients to assess the current financial situation, the accessible services, and future planning.  

If these (mobile) applications have integrated aggregator functions, they can support the rep in every sales situation. When the client gives the green light to access his or her data (bank account numbers, the institution can see what financial assets he or she possesses, or what loans or other outstanding debts does the client have, and can even find data regarding other pieces of assets, such as real estate.

It doesn’t work without strong trust but also has its advantages for the client. The first step of the consultation, the assessment, will be significantly shorter, the client doesn’t have to fill out even a short form, the answers to the usual questions will automatically be extracted from the account data to the application. That flow of data can be controlled by both parties during the personal meeting. By automating that important step, the administration becomes faster.

An even bigger advantage of such a function is that it opens new horizons in personal financial management. Using the initial assessment as a starting point, an improved AISP is able to use, for example, with artificial intelligence, to use the gathered data for recognizing patterns and suggest solutions to the clients to reach their financial goals in the future while also reducing risks.

Prudent financial management has always included getting to know the client as much as possible, including exploring his or her financial situation, risk-tolerance, and other circumstances (family, health, etc.). Technology now gives an opportunity to do the same but supported by facts and data and presented in a way it is easy to overview and control for the client.

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Voice Command Is Taking Over

Humans love to have their voices heard – you can see the proof in the ever-growing popularity of voice-enabled digital assistants or VEDAs. The likes of Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are invading the households. What’s more, they are effortlessly slipping through the “personal mental firewalls,” a phenomenon that surprised many opponents concerned about privacy issues.

Consumer technology that becomes so popular so soon always finds its way to the offices. Think about mobile devices, and you are only a step away from the thought of robotic assistance fighting for a cubicle. Putting it simply: they will come regardless of you liking it or not. Besides, you have to love what your customers want to stay competitive.

Don’t try to find counterarguments just yet. Accepting VEDAs to the workplace is a spectrum rather than a point in time. The question is, what’s your stance on that spectrum? Are you looking to replace all your sales reps with a cheaper alternative, are you entirely against robots, or are you trying to find a compromise?

Naturally, some industries and professions are more prone to such automation of workflows. Translation, customer service or logistics are the first to come to mind, but legal, medical, or educational professions are not safe, either. Plus, wherever administration occurs, voice-activated functions will appear and, well, take people’s jobs.

On the other hand, it is still a long way until they can accurately analyze a person’s tone and realize emotions. It is also a long way until human customers get so comfortable with robotic interactions that they don’t mind a non-human selling them something. Today, Capgemini data shows 20% thinks so, and it will grow to 31% by 2020. So until then? Let’s make friends!

Reps and Bots = BFF?

So voice-enabled digital assistance might as well be a beginning of a beautiful friendship, and not just based on commanding a shopping helper hidden in a speaker in the living room. After all, is it that bad if the new digital assistants do the dirty work and make sure all the data is in place or flowing in the right direction? The administration is something humans hardly ever enjoy and, besides, the strengths of our kind lies more in finding creative solutions.

Voice assistants can be the first line of contact and sales enablement can support them by providing the data for the initial communications and research. Further along the pipeline, human reps can take over and give the different quality of the connection. Remember, empathy, caring, or even competitiveness are emotional traits that have a big say in a deal, and they all belong to the human character.  

So reps don’t have to abandon their newly found BFFs even during a personal sales meeting with clients. When you integrate a VEDA into the mobile sales app, the whole experience changes for both the rep and the client and not as to exclude the agents.

The bottom line is that voice command function facilitates for example, the note-taking during and after the meeting when on the go, but if further developed by artificial intelligence, it can also “take part in the conversation,” and find out in the course of the meeting what materials it should present at which point.

Analytics and emotional intelligence: the digital assistants can analyze tons of data that helps the rep understand the client better and use his or her emotional judgment to find the right time and place to offer the right product.

Meanwhile, the personalization of VEDAs is an issue that you cannot ignore. Languages, accents, or “just” preferences and mental pathways are some of the things users expect their digital friends to recognize – sales reps are no exception. The best is when the sales reps know their way around programming: they can then make the voice assistant their partner and not their competitor.  

Integration: The Peace Treaty of Sales

The basis of the friendship between a rep and a VEDA is the proper integration of the artificial intelligence into the systems used. Speaking of sales, it goes without saying that CMS or CRM will be the top references and the data within these systems peculiarly clean. Other than that, the integration itself is not rocket science, and it is available for mobile apps, too – so reps can take their new friends with them wherever they go.  

You might want to develop your interface on the platform of Amazon, Apple, or Google, but integration is a more viable option you should consider. That is the starting point if you want to upgrade your mobile business application to the latest standards, and it only involves some particular API’s completed with the specific tools provided by your developers.

Essential voice assistant features for sales can be the following:

• Communication: Your VEDA will call, text or email anyone on the contact list
• Content: It mines the documents, presentations, images the rep needs
• Scheduling: Appointments, follow-up calls, conference attendances, report preparation times
• Navigation: Finds the way to and from meetings

For that, you will need some key technology like speech-to-text (STT) and text-to-speech (TTS). Furthermore, it can even have noise reduction and voice biometrics (to recognize the rep’s voice). We bet it will not be long until even more features become mainstream and VEDAs will be able to adjust their tones and languages to the user automatically or also develop their personalities.

No matter how artificial intelligence and voice assistance is all the rage these days, let’s not forget about conscious professionals to provide the right input for the technology and use the human creativity to find out more business cases where robots can add value.

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It Won’t Work Without Measurement

Before we take a look at the figures that show how much the business can gain by enabling sales, it is essential to stop for a minute. The mentioned numbers would not be available without companies measuring their efforts.

Sounds so fundamental, right? However, you would be surprised how many of them forget about that in the rush of implementing the new workflows. Alternatively, according to our sources from around the online water cooler, each of the stakeholders considers different measures the most relevant and the projects slip on disagreement.

Don’t be that company! Arrive at an agreement with the C-suite on the measures in advance and continuously monitor your KPIs – just as you are already doing it with your targets. Sirius Decision’s State of Sales Enablement 2017 study shows that 57% of the companies use some impact-based measurement of their sales enablement efforts.

Have the Cracks Been Fixed?

So many hard-working hours and good intentions can fall through the cracks if those have not been fixed. Processes tend to erode over time and, before you introduce any new technology or method, they should be checked for faults and fixed.

The most common mistake is letting data gather in different systems that are not integrated with each other. The bottom line is your CRM is well-connected. Even better is a mobile app, combined with the CRM, that can also function as a distribution and command center for sales ops. From a C-suite perspective, that central hub becomes essential when creating the reports, which are only as good as the input of data.

The other well-known phenomenon is the inability to react to changes midst the complexity of the products and customer demand. More complex products require more consultations, and engaging today’s more informed customer requires competent advice all the way through the buyer’s journey.

Numbers, please!

So if everything goes as planned and you have avoided all of the above pitfalls, how far can you get with sales enablement? With 44% of Sales Tech survey respondents stating that failing to get approvement from the C-suite for their sales technology purchases, it is more important than ever to see clearly about the return of such investment. However, sales enablement is even more than tech: it needs to help the organization excel in many ways.

A 67% improvement in closing deals

One of the significant advantages of sales enablement technology is that it can closely align the sales efforts with the marketing operations, e.g., by providing content for all steps of the journey the potential buyer goes through. With this close cooperation, companies can become 67% better at closing deals, as well as grow their revenues 24% faster and their profit 27% faster in three years’ time, according to a Wheelhouse Advisor infographic.  

At least 10% increase in conversions

In their Sales Enablement Practitioner Survey of 2016, Highspot found that half of the respondents could increase their pipeline conversion rates by at least 10%, with 12% of the companies recording an over 30% increase. Higher conversion rates mean the revenue per rep increases, too.

59% of top performers use it

Of those organizations that earned more than their targets, 59% have a dedicated sales enablement function. Moreover, of those that could do even better, achieving a 25% growth compared to goals, 72% had already invested in sales enablement, a Forrester Insights and Brainshark joint report claimed.

17%-21% potential improvement in quota attainment

An essential pillar of sales enablement is training, including the onboarding of new reps. With a dedicated investment in the necessary services through sales enablement, the potential to attain quotas improves by 17.7% for conventional methodology or process training and 21.3% for onboarding, according to the Sales Enablement Optimization Study by CSO Insights.

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It is the first of two blogs presenting the opportunities AI can bring to sales, this time from a management perspective.

As much as we are living in an age of digital transformation, according to current knowledge, robots will not replace sales reps any time soon. It means your task of managing humans remains. However, it is true that AI is finding its way in assisting the workers. The best thing about it is that you can be among the first to adopt it as a management tool: Adobe found that only 15% of enterprises are using it currently, but 31% plan to introduce it in the coming year.

1. Empowering and Developing the Team

A well-functioning sales team is vital for the business operation and, as a leader, it’s your task to provide advice and direction to your reps. From the onboarding of new colleagues to the motivation of old ones, you should welcome AI as a useful companion.

The first thing you want to make sure of is that you have all the tools to provide data. Moreover, since the intelligence making sense of a mess is yet to be discovered, data needs to be as clean and as consistent as possible.

You shouldn’t rely on the reps administering the contacts and logging the meetings. Artificial intelligence can dig their email correspondence for new leads. It can keep a log of the calls. It can be integrated into a mobile business app and used by field teams so you can see the data flowing in from all directions, to a central place. By motivating the reps to answer some simple question, AI can even assemble a todo-list based on the logs of the pipeline and schedule (follow-up) meetings with clients.

Then, further down the pipeline, AI will give the team a sense of accomplishment while setting the reps free of the tasks that everyone hates. It doubles for all of your team members as a  personal artificial assistant and empowers them to focus on personal selling. AI gives the data (ideally from the CRM) to begin the conversation, finds highly relevant content (see sales enablement) that fits the situation of the client, based on industry, deal size, stage, and other factors. With the more tailored pitches, sales reps can win the well-prepared and demanding customer who expects the agent to know them.

2. Evaluating Performance

Effectiveness is always crucial for sales leaders as they need to meet the quota of the current quarter or business year. However, that’s when AI comes into the picture and can add value. From the data collected by the reps and their apps, the new intelligence can extract a meaningful analysis of performance.

You might have learned to look out for performance peaks or red flags in particular data sets: imagine that a machine not only learns that from you and delivers the actionable items to your fingertips, but also suggests new measurements of actions that can be translated to business performance.

How is it possible? AI is never in a time constraint to check the relations between all elements of the formula. Does the length of the meeting have an impact on deal success? How many times does an agent have to follow up? What is the ideal skill set for a winning team? With some settings of your preferences, you can find the answers to these questions in the automated report.

3. Forecasting Opportunities

This one is huge: the team of you and the AI will be winning every time you correctly recognize a business opportunity. So all the performance analysis serves one purpose: to improve the processes so that the business can profit from it.

You do that by trying to improve the accuracy of forecasting and predicting future events and translate it into figures to depict the earnings. By learning what actions and behaviors lead to sales, managers can act adequately on the opportunities, e.g., by setting the right priorities.

The artificial element of a corporate application can tell by the analysis of previously successful activities what the future actions should be. CRM’s powered up with AI, for example, can build new pipelines with priority rankings, out of the previous interactions with contacts. Also, the analysis of the deal sizes and contributing factors allow the AI to predict what the reps can bring in in a selected period. Now how is that for support of business planning?

In the next part, we will present you five up and coming AI apps that you can use for sales.

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Enablement Is More Than Support

Has your marketing team created content (brochures, presentations, photo galleries, white papers, ebooks, blogs, infographics) to support your sales team? If it has: great! But you’re not done just yet. (If you haven’t got such assets, our best advice is to stop reading this article right now and create some.)

Have you ever asked around if the sales agents use those materials? More often than one would think, the answer is no. And the reason, more often than one would think, is: “I have no idea where to find them.” Or, sometimes: “It doesn’t fit my client’s needs, and I have no way to customize it.” In fact, stats show that, although 95% of clients make a buying decision when they get content at each step of their journey, 65% of reps can’t even find the content the clients are expecting and 90% of them avoid using the material they locate because it is outdated and not fit.

Thus, putting the corporate content in a central place is the first step. The next one would be automation. When you have a well-specified workflow, it is quite easy to associate the right content with the right step of the process and offer the agent just the piece he or she needs at the right moment. For example, the sales insurance products always starts with an assessment and most likely goes on with product presentations. Sales enablement automation will make sure the assessment questionnaire is the first content piece an agent sees and that they won’t see any presentations until that questionnaire is clicked through.

Having the content in place is the support that forms the base for enablement, where the material provides a seamlessly integrated background to the sales rep’s work, i.e., using the persuading power, product knowledge, and personalization skills to offer a tailor-made solution to the client’s problems.

Enablement Triggers Efficiency

Sales reps are pushed from two directions to increase their efficiency: the employer wants them to contribute to more profitability while the clients expect them to save their time while helping them make well-informed decisions.

By its very definition, sales enablement does just that: it creates a business-friendly environment by giving the agent all the engagement tools and information that he or she needs to forward the sales process.

If this is too vague, let’s take a closer look. The most critical barrier to efficiency, according to a survey conducted among sales practitioners but also confirming common beliefs, is the time spent in the CRM. However, searching for content is also among the most time-consuming activities. When enabled by technology, sales reps have a more streamlined process for CRM use (as it is integrated into the sales enablement tool), and a central place to look for the content they need for their work. In return, the conversion rates, as a measure of efficiency, have improved at 95% of the companies of the survey mentioned above, at least to some extent.

A sales enablement automation tool also support the sales managers in being more efficient. The technology can log all the processes, all the time measures, and all the content usage, that managers use to inform themselves and make decisions. These logs are then quickly put together into a report and can be automatically sent to the management level. The time previously spent on administration and chasing down reps for the report now can be spent to work on strategic initiatives!

Mobilization Puts the Icing on the Cake

Today, when no technology is binding sales agents anymore to their desks for any tasks, sales enablement cannot be complete without a mobile solution, either. Companies are already investing in mobile technology, hardware and software alike, and it’s just a bonus that some of those solutions have the potential to also enable their sales teams.

The interaction that requires the most support from mobility is the personal meeting. In today’s customer-driven business environment, not being able to respond to a client request immediately and adequately easily becomes a dealbreaker. Meanwhile, a mobile device, equipped with a corporate app specially developed for these sales interactions, is a tool that delivers accurate information to the prospect, in real time.

A mobile sales enablement tool is the sales rep’s Swiss army knife: it has all the functionality for the assessment and the engagement of the prospect, as well as all it takes to contract on-site. What functions are we talking about? We have mentioned questionnaires and product presentations before, but integrated client data, emails, todo-lists (either by the manager or by the agent himself), multimedia, electronic signature, or voice notes. Furthermore, tracking and reporting is also an essential part of any mobile sales enablement tool.

The sales profession has exciting times ahead as the digital transformation allows the traditional interactions to develop in many ways. Technology helps to achieve a sense of purpose again by offering opportunities to win the almighty trust of the prospects. Who, in turn, become more engaged by experiencing a new type of sales activity. As much a higher achievable pay, this engagement will drive the agents’ commitment, too, and motivate them to perform better and better.

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Too Much Or Not Enough Data

We all know the primary reason why: the time it takes to send a document back and forth before it contains all the information correctly and gets signed by all the parties is just too much. According to a survey commissioned by Qvidian, 75 percent of sales operations, management, and enablement professionals work with an average of four persons on a proposal, many of those are in product teams or remote locations.

The data to fill is just too many and, in the midst of circulating it, it’s quality also deteriorates. If a CRM and some templates are involved, at least the reps don’t have to fill the data manually. Still, the redundancy of registering information is usually way too high and, again, circulating that many copies take its toll on time-effectiveness. The worst part: the more time the agents spend on such rounds makes the client more likely to look elsewhere and find a better deal.

Time to Automate and Accelerate!

Automation in itself won’t solve all the problems of an organization or even a proposal-making process, but it does contribute its fair share to the acceleration and improved efficiency of a workflow.

There are several levels of automation that each adds a severe degree of life-points to both the reps and their managers:

• Digitalization of documents (templates, presentations, calculation databases): Flipping through pages is outdated, did you know? Unless you work in book sales, your clients will likely expect to get the material from you in a digital format. It’s also easier to search this way.
• Cloud storage (of documents): A central storage location for all the records cuts the searching time significantly while ensuring data safety. According to Brainshark, 41% of top-performing companies say they want seamless and fast content access in the field.
• Integration of CRM and quote calculators: No more typing and retyping client data or missing figures in a quote. Reckoning in the head is right for your brain but not always for the accuracy of a quote.
• Mobile app with electronic signature feature: The most advanced automation of proposal preparation is when the sales reps take it with them. Mobile business apps on tablets free the agents from the latest barrier of purchase: location. If completed with the option for electronic signature, the deals can be closed right on site.

Beyond the Speed

Clients and businesses are equally busy in the rat race of processing and reacting to information faster. Time is money has never been more valid but what if we concentrate too much on speed and forget about the rest of the equation?

Right automation shifts gears in creating proposals yet it remains relevant because it combines quickness with personality and transparency. Automating bids through a mobile app is one level higher: the agents sit next to the clients while showing the presentations, the client clicks through the integrated calculator, and the meeting ends with a digital quote made by the app, ready to be signed electronically.

Because the reps use the same database for the calculations, the same service will always cost the same for the client. Such process gives an impression of professionalism and trustworthiness. And are any of you, sales managers, familiar with the onboarding of new reps and how painful it can be and with what an uncertain outcome? Now a mobile app can navigate the agents through the same process every time and gives them the same documents and add-ons, making sure they check all boxes of the to-do list consistently.

Sales proposal automation has just reached its maturity with the introduction of mobile software, creating a culture of efficiency and success among the sales professionals and a rise in the almighty client engagement.

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The post Be the Winner Who Takes It All with Mobile Sales Proposal Automation appeared first on Scolvo.

Meanwhile, clients expect even more personal and up-to-date solutions from the financial service providers. With mobilization, the sales of insurance can be better controlled, the data quality improves on the back-end, resulting in better, more tailored offers for the clients.

Digitalization with a Doubtful Outcome

Insurance distributors have already realized that they need to take steps to stay competitive, so the establishment of new working methods and technologies that make workflow more effective has already begun. There is some CRM to store client data and some registration system for the agents, and digital calculators, questionnaires became an essential part of everyday work.

But some problems emerge more often than others: because of the employment specialties of the agents, quality assurance is cumbersome, the administration is hardly free from paper, and there is not enough information available about the clients. The management is struggling to get an idea of what is going on at the personal consultations, let alone to control it, so the options to control the outcome is also limited, at least with management tools.

Have the agents made it to the meeting? How much time did they spend there? Did they present all the necessary documents? Did they ask all the essential questions? Did they assemble the quote according to the real demands of the client? If the client calls of the appointment, how can it be rescheduled efficiently?

When the agent faces these questions, the answers show the amount of administration (signing in to more systems, mixing paper and electronic documents, the difficulties of data recording and reporting) puts the margin of error too high.

Mobile Solutions Preferred

Finding all that you need for your job in one place, regardless of whether you work as an agent or a manager – sounds impossible? However, that is precisely what a mobile application has to offer. Adapted to the particular challenges of insurance distribution, SCOLVO Sales, for example, provides access not only to client data stored in a CRM or to corporate email but also to other back-end systems, and they can also be synchronized on the go. The agents can also find all the presentations, contract templates, or corporate calculators in the app.

All this is easily manageable on a mobile device since the agents only have to log in once, to a single application. After that, all the crucial information appears on a simple dashboard, together with the tasks for the day.

The mobile app offers an interface for the management as well, to communicate tasks and changes more simply and quickly. They can schedule the team’s resources on demand, in real time. They can also see where, in what timeframe, and what kind of information did the agents deliver to the clients, and what new data could he or she could get.

Well-managed Information = More Clients and More Engagement

Thanks to the central management available through the mobile app, the daily organization becomes smoother and more efficient, and it gives more information to the managers about the contents of a personal meeting. The work of the agents is trackable, and the team can do the tasks following best practices. Meanwhile, the management receives automatic and instant feedback on that.

The easy-to-use application and the easy-to-understand, easy-to-oversee functions allow the agents to record data easier and quicker, improving data quality. They don’t abandon the CRM for difficulties of usage, so it also becomes more accurate, more current, so more useful for the business.

The better data quality allows the management to get to know the clients better. The summarized information, completed with other, automatic reports made during the personal sales meetings (like the length of the session, the material presented, emails, follow-ups), result in offers that better suit client demand and promote further sales opportunities (upsell, cross-sell).

SCOLVO Sales – The ultimate selling machine for financial institutions has arrived:

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In a best-case scenario, three months from now all the countries of the EU will have transposed a regulation of their own to comply with the rules of the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD).

The market players, on the other hand, will have seven months to prepare for the implementation.

The draft laws and amendments are ready in most of the countries we covered below, and the market players that had complained about the shortage of implementation times now are more likely to make headway in their implementation projects.  

CEE Market Snapshots

The Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, the elections held in the autumn set back the legislation processes, and it may be still set back by a dysfunctional parliament in 2018. So it is yet to see whether the country manages to fulfill its transposition obligations with the IDD on time. Fincentrum’s Legal and Compliance Director Vladek Krámek claimed the efficiency of the new regulation for the sector would come with “approximately one year delay.”

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic has already approved the necessary modifications to the Financial Intermediation and Financial Advice Act, to transpose the IDD into national law. However, the negotiations with the financial intermediary sector did not lead to the desired outcome, from the sector’s perspective. The Association of Financial Intermediaries and Financial Advisers finds it positive to see changes in commission rules but expresses concerns over the guarantees of professionalism of agents.

Croatia

The Ministry of Finance in Croatia is already done preparing the amendment to the current insurance law and waiting for it to be approved. On a recent conference, the Croatian Insurance Days, top professionals of the sector discussed the possible consequences of the regulation, together with the challenges they’re facing. Andreja Radic Blazin, Head of Insurance at the Supervisory Agency of the Croatian Financial Services, said that, despite the scarcity of sophisticated products on the market, it would still not be so easy to comply with the IDD requirements for the distributors. Generali CEE’s CFO added that the fast-changing technology landscape might make compliance a double challenge.

Poland

The final version of the act was approved by the Sejm on November 9, 2017, and passed on to the Senate. If it will also accept it, and the President signs it, the original timeframes can be kept, and the act will come into force by February 23, 2018. Depending on the decision of the EU about pushing the implementation deadline further, the Polish legislator might also have some room to adjust the dates, CMS Law-Now reports. Sooner or later, market players will need to comply with the new act, and if they fail at it, the penalties might amount to as high as 5% of their revenues.

Hungary

Hungary has already published the amendments to its Insurance Act in November, containing the necessary changes for the transposition of the IDD. Besides the act coming to effect on February 23, 2018, several regulations of the European Commission regarding the details of the implementation of the directive will be legally binding for the market players. In a recent roundup, CEO’s of the leading financial institutions considered IDD one of the most substantial challenges of 2018 but hoped that the interest of the customer would justify the efforts.

Romania

The Ministry of Finance has published the draft law for the transposition of the IDD in Romanian legislation in September. After the Parliament has it approved, the bill will come into force on February 23, 2018, and cancel all the previous regulations regarding insurance distribution in the country.

Germany and Austria

The German Parliament was way ahead of the other in approving the country’s IDD Implementation Act in July 2017. The state will be the only one to keep a prohibition of passing on insurance provisions so to protect insurance intermediaries are from decreasing margins and the need to close more deals to make up for that.

Contrary to the German preparedness, Austria was still to send a draft bill in December with the amendments to the current laws affected by the IDD. The Ministry of Economics needs to have the Industrial Code and possibly other laws updated.

Make compliance with IDD easy, workflows paperless, and customers happy – with a mobile solution:

The post Is CEE Prepared for the Insurance Distribution Directive? appeared first on Scolvo.

We break down the significant points of debate between a laptop and a tablet when used for the work of a field sales agent.

The Standalone Issue

Choosing either a laptop or a tablet for field sales tasks depends much on whether the new device is supposed to be a complementary or a replacement for the office computer.

Previously, it was apparent to consider a mobile device only as a secondary slate as portability take its toll on productivity. However, with the evolution of tablets and laptops and the rise of corporate hybrids, it is not necessary anymore to have two or more of the mobile equipment.

Hybrids also make it unnecessary to bring even a tablet just for quicker and more beautiful presentations while on the go, and the professional line tablets make serious efforts to close the performance gaps between the laptops and the everyday use tablets.

If you think the price tags are too much for these types of devices, you might reconsider when adding up the values of the multiple device purchases.

The Field Sales Solution: A pro tablet, equipped with as many of the capabilities of laptops and desktops as possible.

The Writing Issue

No judging but it’s a fact that laptops have physical keyboards and tablets do not, and that point alone can make or break a deal on any of them. Think about the writing issue: if your job as a sales representative involves much typing, then, of course, you will prefer a physical keyboard and, therefore, a laptop.

However, not everyone has to write a lot all day: some like things put in letters even if that’s not an obligation, while others might prefer drawing, sketching, or multimedia to complete their tasks.

The typical sales workflow instead includes more of the “click&see” or “click&show”. Reviewing client data before a personal meeting, scheduling those meetings, presenting products or updating the sales pipeline information doesn’t require much writing. Similarly, the best allows the agents to send automatic reports and assemble personalized offers with a few clicks only.

Also, the dictation-based note-taking feature of Siri in the iOS11 or a similar function in Android can save the day when typing is not an option or is just too much hassle.

Not to mention the ever-evolving precision of styluses and the capabilities of some wide-screen, high-resolution tablets would make them perfect for the presentation of slides and product videos.

The Field Sales Solution: A tablet with a dictation feature for voice notes and a stylus for sketching, drawing, or electronic signature.

The Portability Issue

For workers who are on the go every day for long hours, the portability of a device is of utmost importance. Still, that can be affected by several factors that should all be considered when choosing between a laptop and a tablet.

The smaller and the lighter a gadget is, the longer the rep can carry it around – this is a no-brainer. But often, battery life will suffer the advantages of the restricted physical dimensions. If a sales rep is, in fact, out and about the whole day, every day, the battery with the most extended endurance will be the deal breaker. Remember that these days, you don’t have to consider taking a charger with you all the time.

The Field Sales Solution: Tablets, as they are increasingly made to last longer by apps that don’t use that much power to operate and massive computing is not required for the job anyway.

The Platform Issue

Sometimes the choice is not even determined by the type of device, but the operating system. What platform the operating system is running on determines the compromises the user has to make when using the gadget out of the office.

For sure, the two major mobile (tablet) platforms, iOS, and Android will lack the extensive functionalities of a Mac or a Windows laptop. Their functionality will depend on the selection of available apps, including productivity and security applications.

On the other hand, field sales reps don’t need the full desktop functionality of the software to get their jobs done. Weaker multitasking capabilities of a device can even result in more focused work and, therefore, more productivity. Plus, secure access to enterprise documents is also possible through cloud services.

With the right applications specially developed for business, there is no limit to efficiently tackle the day’s tasks and just them – no distraction from other programs, just pure GTD. Enterprise apps also have the advantage as their usage and settings can be entirely controlled by the management and IT. A true win-win!

The Field Sales Solution: A tablet equipped with industry-specific, easy-to-use business applications.

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