"At Bulgaria Insurance JSC, our business is to earn people’s trust. Since implementing Salesforce CRM, we know each of our clients personally and are able to provide the right service and solution”
Emil Vuchkov, a member of the Board and CEO of Bulgaria Insurance JSC
The invisible product
Bulgaria Insurance JSC has been on the market of financial services in Bulgaria for over 13 years. The company provides services to over 50 000 clients and is one of the leaders in health insurance in the last 4 years. Furthermore, it successfully develops its portfolio of Property, Personal Accident and Travel, Cargo Insurance and more. “Our product cannot be touched, felt, smelled or unfolded, it has no color, smell or shape – what is visible is only the contract we sign”, comments Vuchkov. This document is a complicated list of conditions that people hardly understand. “We sell trust! And that trust is earned when we know the client, when we stay close to them.” says Vuchkov Earning people’s trust is a challenge that our sales reps need to handle every day. What’s most important for them is the first meeting with the client. When the salesman knows the client well, they are able to offer them the right solution and there is a greater chance of signing a contact. “This is something that artificial intelligence will never be able to replace”, claims Vuchkov.
The launch had to be a BOOM
Salesforce CRM began operating in Bulgaria Insurance JSC in the beginning of January 2017. The launch needs to be be rapid and decisive, not step-by-step. Launching the product rapidly is usually shocking for sales reps. Even though the entity’s management team tried hard to avoid this: the sales team is involved in the process as early as the stage of preliminary analysis. They were asked to take part in preparing the implementation, to give their feedback. Even though, the system was ready for launch by September 2016, the management decided to wait for the busiest period – the last months of the year - to be over, to make sure the work with Salesforce can start smoothly.
Automating the routine
“How do you sell trust?...The sales reps collect information about the client. They carry out the first meeting, where it is very important to make a good impression. They represent the company. They present the options and solutions. They learn more about the client! Then they prepare an insurance quote. If necessary – they obtain their direct supervisor’s approval. This is followed by negotiations with the client, improvement of the quote and eventually closing the deal” explains Vuchkov. There are three crucial steps in the process: first meeting, negotiations and deal closing. “Everything else is supporting, administrative work. All these additional steps we managed to replace and automate with Salesforce. Having information about the client is key for conducting the first meeting with the client. It is a basis for building the right strategy on how to make the first contact. Afterwards, the communication starts flowing, while we keep paying attention to every detail of the client’s profile. As part of the implementation, Salesforce is integrated with the existing core system of the company. “We have an IT system but it was not convenient for sales management. Now Salesforce is integrated with our core system” Vuchkov points out. All data on signed contracts is entered automatically, along with information about the client and all supporting details, history of quotes sent in previous years, including relationships with client employees as individuals.
Light and flexible
“In my career I have had a few unsuccessful attempts to implement a CRM system. The issues have always been related to the scale – many of these systems are expensive, complicated and require purchasing and maintaining additional hardware” shares the CEO of Bulgaria Insurance JSC. The nice thing about Salesforce, in his words, is the outstanding flexibility, the effortless integration with other systems and the omni-device capability (PC, smartphone). Next Consult, on the other hand, possesses the extensive experience in business consulting, high efficiency in implementing the system as well as great flexibility, given the fact that with such projects, changes to the initial system are always required.
A reason to trust
After the implementation of Salesforce CRM at Bulgaria Insurance JSC, we have the information about everyone of our clients available at all times. Managers and sales reps enter client data from all interactions and touchpoints, including the initial contact, insurance quotes made, feedback received, history of working with the client, other available contracts, etc. That enables us to offer the most suitable insurance solution to every client. The quoting process is fully automated. Premium calculation is also automated. Approvals are quickly received electronically - the Sales Director can approve a quote while on a business trip abroad or even on vacation. After the client accepts the offer, all the data is automatically inputted into a contract (insurance policy). Writing reports becomes unnecessary. Thanks to Salesforce all activities performed by sales reps for each client are visible at all times. This saves time and allows sales reps to focus on what is most important – the contact with the client. I believe that we are starting to achieve what is most important to us: happy sales reps, who fulfill their main responsibility – to be with the clients and earn their trust” shares Emil Vuchkov.
Next Consult - Agile and Flexible
Back in April 2016, the project for implementing Salesforce CRM in Bulgaria Insurance JSC started with analyzing the business processes. In June we were ready for the first phase of testing. By September the system was all set and running. “Next Consult are good in process analysis”. They helped us map our sales processes so that they are clear and in practice the system simply supports the processes. Without such reengineering there is no point in using a CRM system” adds the company’s CEO. The consultants’ flexibility is just as decisive for the project. “Regardless of how good the blueprint is, the reality always turns out different. The experts from Next Consult are flexible and when changes were needed, they were always responsive and reacted fast. We did not have to develop new blueprints. Next Consult’s approach to our project was incredibly flexible.” The speed of delivery is obvious. According to the top manager of Bulgaria Insurance JSC, the speed is impressive since only the preliminary analysis usually takes a year or more. However, Next Consult completed this stage in 3 months.
