NFU Mutual

Sharpening the Sharp End

In a recent bidding process, against strong competition Cedar Associates won two major contracts to help NFU Mutual, one of the UK’s top 10 insurance companies, to stimulate growth by training around 450 Agents in business planning and 900 of their staff in selling & cross selling. Read more…

Agents were subsequently able to plan their business development more effectively, and their Staff were helped to sell and cross sell successfully, while maintaining their famous friendly service. A practical three day programme on Business Planning resulted in all the participants developing their own three year plan. Central to this was encouraging participants to identify how they intend to develop their agencies to meet their company’s planned growth in a sustainable way.

The Sales programme was designed to give greater confidence to the participants in understanding and following through the sales process to provide greater customer service that in turn generates more sales. As a result of the course, even staff who didn’t regard themselves as sales people, recognised the correlation between giving good service and selling.

Cedar Associates utilised a team of ten trainers to deliver the projects to a consistent standard within the deadlines set. Consistency and quality of training were critical to meet the regulatory standards that the NFU Mutual has to comply with. The trainers were observed in the early stages of the project rollout, and midway through, to ensure consistency of delivery.

The success of both projects relied on the following process:

1. Research to establish the needs of the target audience
2. Design of the training course to meet those needs
3. Pilot course and evaluate over time, followed by further refinement
4. National rollout of the programmes
5. Review the impact of the changes following project completion

Significant time was invested by both companies before the programme rollouts, to ensure the provision of tailored training programmes that was valued by those attending and which met the organisations objectives. This has been fundamental to delivering the planned changes.

Since completion of the projects NFU Mutual are already seeing improved standards of customer service, increased sales activity and the implementation of plans to deliver their target growth.