Insurance Lead Management

MEMOIRE DE RECHERCHE

2012/2013

NOM et PRENOM de l’auteur : Dhankhar, Avikar Singh

SUJET DU

MEMOIRE

How online leads in insurance could be converted to customers by combining online

distribution channels and physical sales force through lead management?

Presentation and analysis of AXA Group‘s recommendations

- NOM DU DIRECTEUR DE RECHERCHE: Prof. Dr. Thierry Boudès

CONFIDENTIEL Non

La diffusion de ce recueil est

strictement réservée à

ESCP Europe.

ESCP Europe

Strategy, Organizational Behavior, and Human Resources Department

European Research Project

How online leads in insurance could be converted to customers by combining online

distribution channels and physical sales force through lead management?

Presentation and analysis of AXA Group‘s recommendations

Director of Research: Prof. Dr. Thierry Boudès

Student: Avikar Singh Dhankhar

Master in Management Grande Ecole student

Student number: e113038

11 May 2013

Key Words

Digital – Multi-access – Internet – Lead– Lead management – Lead generation – Lead

prioritization – Lead allocation – Lead nurturing – Lead conversion

Abstract of the paper

This research paper explains and analyses the recommendations given by AXA Group

regarding how to do lead management. First lead management is introduced and existing

literature on lead management and its various processes are reviewed. Then why lead

management is important in today‘s digitalized world is explained before explaining AXA

Group‘s recommendations on how to do it. For better explaining the recommendations

practical examples from AXA Group entities and external benchmarks have been provided.

Then AXA Group‘s recommendations are compared with existing literature to find gaps.

Gaps have been found in AXA‘s recommendations and also it has been found that existing

literature is not exhaustive and there is scope of further research on lead management. Also, in

the end, AXA Group‘s recommendations are tested on the lead management model of one of

AXA entities and it has been found that all the recommendations are not applicable to every

entity. Entities need to test and learn to find the right set of recommendations applicable to

their lead management process.

Résumé du mémoire

Ce mémoire de recherche explique et analyse les recommandations du Groupe AXA en ce qui

concerne la façon de faire le Lead management. Tout d‘abord, le Lead management est

présenté et la littérature existante sur le Lead management et sur ses divers processus est

examinée. Deuxièmement, la raison pour laquelle le Lead management est important dans le

monde digital est expliquée avant passer aux recommandations du Groupe AXA sur la façon

de le faire. Afin de mieux expliquer les recommandations, des exemples pratiques tirés des

entités du Groupe AXA et de références externes sont fournis. Ensuite, les recommandations

du Groupe AXA sont comparées avec la littérature existante pour trouver des écarts. Des

écarts sont trouvés dans les recommandations du Groupe AXA et on constate aussi que la

littérature existante n'est pas exhaustive et qu‘il est possible de poursuivre les recherches sur

le Lead management. Finalement, les recommandations du Groupe AXA sont testées sur le

modèle du Lead management de l'une de ses entités et il en résulte que toutes les

recommandations ne sont pas applicables à chaque entité. Les entités ont besoin de tester et

apprendre à trouver les recommandations applicables à leur processus de Lead management.

Contents

1. Lead Management – Introduction .......................................................................................... 1

1.1. Definition of lead ................................................................................................................ 1

1.2. Scope of thesis ..................................................................................................................... 1

1.3. Type of leads - Hot/Cold leads ............................................................................................ 1

1.4. Definition of lead management process .............................................................................. 1

1.5. Lead management objectives .............................................................................................. 2

2. Review of related literature ................................................................................................... 2

2.1. General literature relating to lead management overall ...................................................... 2

2.1.1. Summary of general literature relating to lead management overall ......................... 4

2.2. Literature review related to lead generation ........................................................................ 4

2.2.1. Summary of literature relating to lead generation ..................................................... 7

2.3. Literature review related to lead prioritization and allocation ............................................ 7

2.3.1. Summary of literature relating to lead prioritization and allocation ........................ 10

2.4. Literature review related to lead nurturing/conversion ..................................................... 10

2.4.1. Summary of literature relating to lead nurturing/conversion .................................. 12

2.5. Summary and insights from the literature review ............................................................. 13

2.6. Literature review and research question of the paper ....................................................... 13

2.7. Methodology and data collection ...................................................................................... 14

3. Insurance and lead management .......................................................................................... 15

3.1. Types of insurance and lead management ........................................................................ 15

3.1.1. Life and savings (L&S) ........................................................................................... 15

3.1.2. Property and causality (P&C) – focus of lead management .................................... 15

3.2. Distribution channels under scope of lead management at AXA ..................................... 15

4. Effect of digital and multi-access on insurance business .................................................... 17

4.1. Effect on customer behavior and expectations .................................................................. 17

4.1.1. Information gathering .............................................................................................. 18

4.1.2. Buying online ........................................................................................................... 19

4.1.3. Freedom of interaction ............................................................................................. 19

4.1.4. Customers‘ willingness to use mobile devices to decrease insurance premiums .... 20

4.2. Effect on Insurance Business Operations .......................................................................... 21

4.2.1. Transformation of value chain ................................................................................. 21

4.2.2. Changes in competitive dynamics ........................................................................... 22

5. AXA‘s digital and multi-access transformation levers and lead management .................... 23

5.1. Objectives 23

5.2. Transformation levers ....................................................................................................... 24

6. How to do lead management: AXA Group recommendations ............................................ 25

6.1. Lead generation ................................................................................................................. 25

6.1.1. Define scope ............................................................................................................ 25

6.1.2. Sources 25

6.1.3. Managing marketing campaigns – Preparation ....................................................... 26

6.1.4. Managing marketing campaigns - Execution .......................................................... 27

6.1.5. Measure and improve marketing campaign performance........................................ 28

6.1.6. Best practice for lead generation from existing customers: an example of ING ..... 28

6.2. Prioritize and allocate leads .............................................................................................. 30

6.2.1. Prioritize leads ......................................................................................................... 30

6.2.2. Allocate leads ........................................................................................................... 31

6.3. Nurture and convert leads ................................................................................................. 34

6.3.1. Conversion and nurturing of web-based leads ......................................................... 35

6.3.2. Increasing lead conversion through KPIs ................................................................ 38

6.3.3. Increasing lead conversion through engaging agents .............................................. 42

6.3.4. Increasing conversion through good governance of lead management process ...... 44

7. Lead Management Gap Analysis: AXA Group‘s Recommendations and Existing

Literature/Sources ................................................................................................................ 46

7.1. Gaps in lead generation ..................................................................................................... 46

7.1.1. Scope of improvements in AXA Group‘s recommendations .................................. 47

7.1.2. Scope of future research in lead generation ............................................................. 47

7.2. Prioritize and allocate leads .............................................................................................. 47

7.2.1. Gaps in lead prioritization ....................................................................................... 47

7.2.2. Gaps in lead allocation ............................................................................................. 49

7.2.3. Nurture and convert ................................................................................................. 50

8. Value proposition of lead management and practical implications of recommendations ... 52

8.1. Basic financial approaches of sending leads to sales ........................................................ 53

8.1.1. Billing leads ............................................................................................................. 54

8.1.2. Price charged by lead generating and distributing companies ................................. 54

8.2. Business case of lead management ................................................................................... 56

8.2.1. Key learning from the 5 different scenarios ............................................................ 66

8.3. Lead management‘s profit calculation: Upsell/cross-sell/retain ....................................... 70

9. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 71

9.1. Recommendations for future research .............................................................................. 72

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………............... 73

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………. 76

Declaration of

honor/Affidavit………………………………………………………………………..............79

List of tables

Table 1: Different distribution networks at AXA .................................................................... 16

Table 2: People considering buying auto insurance online, US ............................................... 19

Table 3: Companeo's price list ................................................................................................. 54

Table 4: Insuranceleads.com price list for leads of different insurance products .................... 55

Table 5: Insuranceleads.com price list of auto insurance leads ............................................... 56

Table 6: Monthly income statement of lead management ....................................................... 57

Table 7: Monthly income statement of lead management if leads are sent for free................. 58

Table 8: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead prioritization..... 60

Table 9: Monthly income statement of lead management after lead prioritization and

increasing the number of leads generated by twice .................................................................. 61

Table 10: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead prioritization and

increasing the number of leads generated by four times .......................................................... 62

Table 11: Monthly income statement of lead management after gaining 2 years of experience,

starting lead prioritization and increasing the number of leads generated by two times ......... 64

Table 12: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead nurturing,

gaining 2 years of experience, starting lead prioritization and increasing the number of leads

generated by two times ............................................................................................................. 65

Table 13: Monthly key results of lead management process of ‗AXA entity in country A‘ as

per different scenarios .............................................................................................................. 67

List of figures

Figure 1: Main steps of lead management ................................................................................. 2

Figure 2: Lead Source Metric Comparison ................................................................................ 6

Figure 3: Initial dials to leads that become contacted by hours ................................................. 9

Figure 4: Initial dials to leads that become qualified by hours .................................................. 9

Figure 5: Leads contacted/qualified by 5 minute interval ........................................................ 10

Figure 6: Importance of social media feedback in selecting insurance provider ..................... 18

Figure 7: % of very likely and somewhat likely people who would switch to other companies

if their company would not provide a multi-access communication channel .......................... 20

Figure 8: Number of people willing to accept using mobile to reduce their insurance premium

.................................................................................................................................................. 20

Figure 9: Market share of traditional and direct insurance players in the US .......................... 23

Figure 10: AXA's transformation levers and lead management .............................................. 24

Figure 11: Google search result of keyword ―assurance auto‖ in France and AXA‘s

positioning ................................................................................................................................ 26

Figure 12: Outbound and inbound marketing campaign management .................................... 29

Figure 13: Private client website of ING ................................................................................. 30

Figure 14: Lead management portal of AXA Equitable fully integrated with CRM ............... 32

Figure 15: Lead file sent by insuranceleads.com to sales ........................................................ 33

Figure 16: Different categories of web-based leads ................................................................. 36

Figure 17: Flowchart of lead nurturing through telesales ........................................................ 38

Figure 18: Allianz‘s digital KPIs and targets for France ......................................................... 40

Figure 19: AXA Ireland‘s KPIs for lead management ............................................................. 40

Figure 20: Performance monitoring of a US based insurance company .................................. 41

Figure 21: Online lead management performance monitoring – illustrative numbers ............. 42

Figure 22: Conversion rate of health products‘ leads in AXA Germany ................................. 44

Figure 23: Gap analysis of AXA Group‘s Recommendation and existing literature on lead

generation ................................................................................................................................. 46


prioritization ............................................................................................................................. 48


allocation .................................................................................................................................. 50


nurturing ................................................................................................................................... 51

Figure 27: Key costs associated with revenue of 100 Euro in Insurance ................................. 53

Figure 28: Per year profit from a typical lead management process ........................................ 69

Figure 29: Importance of optimum number of lead generation in lead management .............. 70

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1. Lead Management – Introduction

1.1. Definition of lead

As per AXA, a lead is a customer or a prospect who corresponds to AXA‘s target segments,

who contacts AXA (inbound contact) through one channel (phone, website, mail, point-of-

sale, e-mail, etc.) or who is qualified to be contacted through a direct marketing campaign

(outbound contact).

In simple terms, lead could be defined as a person who would be potentially interested in an

AXA product and for whom, AXA have at least one contact detail.

1.2. Scope of thesis

This thesis will focus mainly on online leads generated from the company‘s website or other

online sources.

1.3. Type of leads - Hot/Cold leads

As per AXA, leads could be classified as hot or cold leads. Hot leads are people who

complete the online quotation and ask to be contacted by AXA. Cold leads are people who

start or complete the online quotation but do not ask to be contacted by AXA.

1.4. Definition of lead management process

It is a process through which insurance companies improve conversion of leads generated

through web/telephone. This is important, since, still the conversion on pure online selling is

low and lead management represents a strong value-creation lever in AXA‘s Digital and

Multi-access model1.

As per AXA, overall lead management is a very transversal process involving three main

steps (see figure 1): generation of leads, ‗prioritization and allocation‘ of leads, and ‗nurturing

and conversion‘ of leads.

1 See section 5 for further details

2

Figure 1: Main steps of lead management

Source: AXA

1.5. Lead management objectives

The main objective of lead management is acquisition of new customers. Through lead

management a company could acquire new customers since the process will help it in

generating qualified leads and sending them to agents for conversion. Also, through sending

only qualified leads to agents, it enables agents to concentrate their efforts on leads which are

most likely to get converted.

Other objectives of lead management are to increase sales to existing customers (through

cross/upsell) or increase their retention.

2. Review of related literature

First, the general literature relating to lead management will be reviewed. Then, the literature

focusing on specific parts of lead management including lead generation, lead prioritization

and allocation, and lead nurturing/conversion will be discussed. Also, it is to be noted that the

literature review of lead management has not been limited to insurance sector, since in

insurance this is a relatively new term and not much research has been done.

2.1. General literature relating to lead management overall

Gebert H., Geib M., Kolbe L., and Brenner W. (2003) described lead management as one of

the six main customer relationship management processes. The other five processes

mentioned include campaign management, offer management, contract management,

complaint management and service management. Further they defined lead management as a

―consolidation, qualification, and prioritization of contacts with prospective customers”. In

their combined model of knowledge management and customer relationship management

called customer knowledge management, they placed lead management as a process to be

governed by both marketing and sales.

3

Dous M., Salomann H., Kolbe L., and Brenner W., (2005) surveyed 1000 CRM executives to

gather data on various CRM processes used by them. In the survey, they categorized the

processes under four themes: Service processes, Support processes, Analysis processes, and

Management processes. Customer scoring and lead management was placed under Analysis

processes. In terms of degree of implementation customer scoring and lead management

process received 12.9% (fully implemented), 20% (mostly implemented), 25.9% (partly

implemented), 22.4% (hardly implemented) and 18.8% (not implemented).

Rechtin M. (2012) described his interview with George Borst CEO, Toyota Financial Services.

During the interview, George Borst described Enterprise Lead Management program

launched by Toyota Financial recently. In the program, Toyota Financial calls customers six

months before the lease of their car is due to expire. After gathering information about the

customer‘s future needs, this information is provided to dealers through an automatic CRM

tool. George Borst said that 94% of the leads are contacted by dealers within three hours and

then they try to close the deal.

Cordo J. (2012) explained how lead management is the main area of misalignment between

sales and marketing. The major issue he described is how to transform the data marketing

department has on customer intelligence in to sales intelligence to increase efficiency of both

marketing and sales. He further described 5 ways to transform data.

Croft S. (2002) identified various important steps to manage leads. However, the context is a

B2B lead generation process, thus all the concepts are not relevant to this thesis. Some of the

things that might apply to B2C lead management include identifying your buyers, conducting

research and building relationship with buyers.

Blake T. (1999) explains how house renting agencies can gather and store data on their

customers or potential customers easily using a computer. Also, he explained various lead

management software companies could buy. This computerized tracking could also help

companies in increasing their marketing ROI, he explained.

4

Marketo2 has described what companies need to do to sell products to leads that are not sales

ready (as per a survey done by RainToday, of the total leads generated 25% are disqualified,

25% are sales ready and the rest of 50% needs to be handled appropriately to convert them).

Some of the steps explained include lead nurturing, lead scoring to identify strong leads,

giving all necessary information about leads to sales, tracking marketing campaigns, tracking

anonymous visitors to the website, and continuously learning about needs of customers.

SmartLead3 explained benefits of a lead management system and how companies should do it.

As per them, lead management is a six step process the first step is to capture the inquiries

received. Then, it is important to qualify these leads and rank them. After this, the leads must

be nurtured and distributed. The final important step is to track the journey of a lead

throughout the process to measure effectiveness of various steps.

2.1.1. Summary of general literature relating to lead management overall

Most of the early studies put lead management as a part of customer relationship management.

There has not been any significant study on insurance; however there have been studies on

house renting and automobile sectors.

The main sources are practitioners such as Marketo and SmartLead. Marketo has published an

extensive range of white papers which describe essentials of lead management. These include

qualifying leads, lead scoring and lead nurturing, giving detailed information to sales and

following-up with them, tracking all marketing programs and segregating them to see which

are more effective, and tracking anonymous visitors on the website.

2.2. Literature review related to lead generation

Aquino J. (2012) quoted the survey on 1200 US SMBs conducted by a research company

Techaisle to highlight importance of marketing automation. Some of the marketing

automation components used by SMBs include email marketing, message personalization and

campaign management. Lead capture was included in the components SMBs plan to explore.

Also, nearly half of the survey respondents highlighted importance of marketing automation

2 Marketing software providing firm

3 Lead management company

5

to enhanced management of sales leads: 46% observing better demand generation and 42%

better marketing ROI through marketing automation.

Shea P. (2012) described lead management as ―acquisition and maintenance of prospective

leads”. He conducted various interviews to investigate lead management in property market.

He interviewed Israel Carunungan, director of property marketing at Greystar. Carunungan

highlighted the advancement of their lead tracking platform, through which, they are able to

allocate 100% of leads to their sources. This helps Greystar to optimize their marketing ROI.

Also Carunungan described how through this lead tracking platform, they are able to identify

the trend of more leads being generated through online sources. Eric Broughton, president and

COO of RentSentinel, described importance of keeping various marketing channels and also

gave importance of each channel with online as primary channel. Kim Atkinson, director of

marketing and public relations at Mark-Taylor Residential, indicated the importance of their

company website in generating leads with nearly 50% of their walk-ins, emails and phone

calls generated through their website. Also, Atkinson described how rise of social media is

affecting online lead generation with Facebook bringing more prospects to their website than

search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.

Hosford C. (2012) described how we might be entering a great time for lead generation with

the ability to create personalized emails, rise of social media and new data analytical abilities.

Also, he highlighted how various sales channels coupled together will be more effective. He

quoted Yuchun Lee, VP-general manager of IBM's Enterprise Marketing Management Group

saying that augmenting the sales channel through lead generation by digital channel might be

―the most fruitful next step in lead generation”.

Marketo4 explained in detail how to bring more people to companies‘ website and then how to

convert those leads. For lead generation, they explained the importance of being in first few

Google search pages. In terms of how to allocate leads they explained about allocating leads‘

pipeline revenue to marketing programs as per first touch (allocation to the marketing

program that originally generated lead e.g. only Google) and multi touch (allocation to the

marketing programs involved in the entire process of lead conversion e.g. Google+website).

This helps to optimize advertising revenue.


6

Marketo explained that it is important to use all the channels including social. For social they

have provided extensive list of recommendation explaining how to effectively use social e.g.

what kind of status updated, how to measure your effectiveness, type of cove photo, etc.

SmartLead5 has given some best practices to generate leads by using referral programs with

the current customers or leads, in the current difficult scenario. As per them, for the referral

program to be a success the reward given must be good enough to motivate the customer or

lead to give referrals. This reward must not be based on luck and must be of appropriate

amount. Also, if the company has no money to allocate to rewards, a simple process of adding

a link ―refer a friend‖ in the thank you email could also help.

Mandelbaum A. (retrieved 2013) described companies should measure ―amount of spend on a

lead source (LSGC)” and ―Lead Effectiveness” (amount generated from each lead source).

Then they could be plotted on a bar and line chart to analyze their effectiveness. In the

example given by him (see figure 2), the LSGC for print is highest with a low lead

effectiveness. However, LSGC is lowest for webinars with the highest lead effectiveness.

Thus, companies could determine which medium they must focus on in the future.

Figure 2: Lead Source Metric Comparison

Source: Mandelbaum A. (retrieved 2013)


7

2.2.1. Summary of literature relating to lead generation

Lead generation has both academics and practitioners as authors. However, academics‘

research is also based on interviews with practitioners in industries such as technology (IBM)

and residential mortgages/renting. Literature highlighted the importance of lead generation

and lead-tracking.

Some of the key findings from the literature on how lead generation should be done are to

include various marketing channels (including social media), allocating resources to different

channels as per their importance or lead generating capacity and tracking leads. Marketing

automation is important to generate high ROI and also it is important to track sources of

different leads and thus measuring effectiveness of leads coming from different marketing

campaigns. Other important suggestions include being in the first few Google search pages

and using referrals from existing customers to generate leads.

2.3. Literature review related to lead prioritization and allocation

Hosford C. (2012) through an interview with Ken Fredman, head-digital programs &

operations, at J.P. Morgan Asset Management described how J.P. Morgan Asset Management

generates leads online and then confirm them through their or third party databases. Only then,

these leads are sent to telesales teams. The result is that these leads have a better conversion

rate.

Croft S. (2002) identified the three most important aspects of lead management as qualifying

leads, developing right sales strategy and knowing when to walk away. She further described

each of the individual aspects in detail. To qualify and rate leads from 1 to 5, she identified 17

factors to be taken in to account such as lead‘s financial status, whether or not our

product/service mix matches with lead‘s needs and lead‘s potential to introduce to new leads.

For developing sales strategy they described to make a good pitch team and keep in mind the

budget. She further gave 6 conditions when to walk away from lead.

Marketo6 has given a complete guide on lead scoring. They explained that lead scoring is

required because on an average 75% of sales leads generated online are not ready to be sent to


8

sales teams. They further explained scoring could be done on basis of fit of lead (someone

you are interested in and someone interested in you) and interest or behavior (e.g. going to the

prices page, opening emails, watching demo videos). Fit could be done through explicit

functions such as demographics, BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) and

Firmographics (details about their company, more for B2B) and implicit functions such as ISP

and data quality. Also, they explained the necessity of integrating social media scoring. Then

they explained 3 advanced scoring techniques that could be applied: score degradation

(reducing scores over a period of time in-case of inactivity), product scoring (score interest on

specific products) and account scoring (score all leads from a company, more for B2B). After

deciding scores and variables, they signified importance of deciding what is the threshold (e.g.

in case of 100 score it is a hot lead). They explained the matrix methodology to identify

qualified leads, which is an advanced method to only putting threshold on total scores. Then

after identification of good lead, they said it is important to set targets for sales people

receiving those leads (contact within 24 hours and process within 7 days).

Also, one another interesting concept Marketo explains is lead lifecycle. After sending leads

to sales and they are contacted, it is important to further score them. If they are not interested

at all, the reason for that must be noted and the fit/behavioral scores must be reduced, this will

help in lead nurturing process also. Further, if lead says that they will not buy now but after 3

months, it must be recorded and that lead must be put back in the system after 3 months. They

further explained how to show these leads to sales agents, and for that they took their example

and mentioned how they do it through number of stars and flames with stars showing quality

of lead and number of flames showing urgency of lead. Also, sales reps must have access to

leads‘ behavioral history. As per them, to do lead scoring practically the first step in to start

small and learn. Then, it is important to continuously review the scoring data.

Marketo7 has identified importance of effectively handing over leads to sales channels. They

highlight the importance of sending leads with information to sales thus increasing their

chances of converting them. Also, they advise to take regular feedback from sales to improve

the overall process.


9

SmartLead8 gave advantages of distributing only hot leads to sales force. The advantages

include sending all leads have a negative impact on the value given by sales reps to all the

leads, it is costly to process all leads, and the time taken to reach hot leads increases which

increases the chances of them going to the competition.

Elkington D. and Oldroyd J. (2007) conducted research to determine the best day and time to

contact leads. Their research showed that the chances of contacting and qualifying a lead drop

significantly with time. After one hour, chances of contacting a lead ―drop over ten times‖

(see figure 3) and chances of qualifying (being able to collect relevant data) reduces by six

times (see figure 4). Also, “The odds of contacting a lead if called within five minutes versus

30 minutes are 100 times greater” and the odds of qualifying are 21 times greater (see figure

5)

Figure 3: Initial dials to leads that become contacted by hours

Source: Elkington D. and Oldroyd J 2007, InsideSales

Figure 4: Initial dials to leads that become qualified by hours



10

Figure 5: Leads contacted/qualified by 5 minute interval


2.3.1. Summary of literature relating to lead prioritization and allocation

Main sources are practitioners with a few articles being also published by academics. The

literature highlights the importance of categorizing/scoring leads and sending only hot leads

to sales channels to increase conversion rate. Also, the importance of walking away or

disqualifying leads is important to save time.

An advanced way of scoring different leads is scoring them as per various indicators (explicit

and implicit indicators) and thus classifying them as per: Hot (send directly to sales channel),

Warm (send to telemarketing) and Cold (nurture by marketing).

2.4. Literature review related to lead nurturing/conversion

Marketo9 explains the lead nurturing process in detail. First they explains that since 50% of

the leads generated need further work before sending them to sales representatives or making

them hot, lead nurturing is important. Then they explain how it could be done in three main

steps:

1. Incoming Lead Processing: Establish which leads require nurturing and which leads

are sales ready. This can be done by lead scoring. Then it is important to establish

which leads are ready to be nurtured and what medium is preferred by them e.g.


11

call, email. Also, it is important to make an option available to prospects to opt-out

when they want.

2. Stay in touch: Key is to keep yourself in the leads‘ mind and make them to contact

you when they want to buy. For this, leads must be categorized in three categories

early stage (just learning), middle stage (evaluating possible solutions) and last

stage (making buying decision). Different content must be send to these leads to

maintain their interest in the company. Also, if possible, leads could be categorized

as per industry, their role, geography; and material must be send accordingly. The

frequency to send this content needs to be customized and this could be asked from

the lead, how many tomes per month they want the content.

3. Lead recycling: It is the process of tracking and reassigning leads that are not or

could not be contacted by sales representatives. Sometimes the leads are not

contacted and sometimes they are contacted by sales recycle the leads back since

they are not ready now. The marketing department should keep these leads and

must send them back to sales whenever the timeframe mentioned by sales is over.

However, at the same time, marketing department of Marketo maintains a

scoresheet and if their score goes above threshold, leads are anyways sent back to

sales. But key is, to make sure sales representative are sure that the lead will come

back when they recycle a lead to marketing.

Marketo, in collaboration with Spear Marketing Group, explained how companies can

increase efficiency and get started in lead nurturing. The paper is more focused on B2B. In the

paper they tackled issues of how to set-up a goal for lead nurturing program, how to analyze

the current lead nurturing process, how much effort to be put in and gives the 80/20 rule of

lead nurturing, how to be innovative in the content you send to nurture (use of blogs), how to

generate better response from the lead nurturing emails (keeping it relevant), how to respond

to email inquiries, how to start (test and start small).

Tangwall D., Cecil J., Soucie W. (2011) explained the advantages of using social media for

lead nurturing. Social media enables prospects to select the company instead of company

selecting them. This is particularly possible since everyone can see and share the social media

content. Social media through its media groups and other filtering options allow companies to

post relevant and customized information to their prospects. Social media has the capacity to

12

influence people. People share content and their passion on social media and seeing them,

many other people start trusting the products and start following. Also, it is easy to interact

through social media and it has the capacity to build long-term relationships.

ActiveConversion10

described how companies should prepare their lead nurturing content.

They explained lead nurturing content must have a “consultative tone” which would help to

increase company‘s reputation. Then, it is important to send content relevant to your customer

– which could be done by segmenting customers. Finally, prospects must also be segmented

on the basis of their stage of buying a company‘s product.

Brownell A. (2010) gave the 4‖P‖s of lead nurturing. The first P is Permission Marketing

according to which companies should take permission from prospects the way they would like

to be communicated. Next P is Preferences which signifies importance of knowing what kind

of material prospects would like to have for nurturing. The third P is Personal according to

which it is also important to have people calling prospects apart from email messages. A

personal contact would help companies understand what is really required to nurture that

specific lead. The final P is Pulling which is about getting to know prospects in greater detail

and then offering them relevant nurturing content.

2.4.1. Summary of literature relating to lead nurturing/conversion

Practitioners are the main sources of literature relating to lead nurturing. The key highlights

from the literature are that it is important to involve leads in the lead nurturing by asking their

permission, preferred medium of contact and frequency of material they want to obtain. Also

for nurturing it is important to establish the stage of cold lead in the lead nurturing and thus

sending them customized lead nurturing content. Social media is also highlighted as an

important medium to nurture leads.

For lead conversion, it is advised to include sales in the lead management process by taking

their feedback and leads must be sent to sales with additional information. Also, the literature

highlights that even after allocation of leads to sales channel they must be tracked and their

scores must be revised so that the leads not converted or contacted could be recycled thus

10 Marketing measurement company

13

increasing conversion rate. These leads must be send back to agents in the timeframe selected

by them or when their score goes above threshold.

2.5. Summary and insights from the literature review

The review of relevant literature has provided insights regarding what different practitioners

and academics think about lead management and also about the three main topics of this

research paper, lead generation, lead prioritization and allocation, and lead

nurturing/conversion. Main sources of literature are practitioners such as Marketo and

SmartLead. The literature is more general without focusing on one particular industry.

However, there is not much of literature regarding lead management highlighting it is a new

topic.

General literature relating to lead management overall gives a good understanding of various

necessary processes in lead management. Literature relating to lead generation highlights the

importance of effectively generating leads and how it should be done with various sources to

include and importance of measurement. Literature relating to lead prioritization and

allocation gave insights about the importance of lead prioritization and how leads could be

allocated after being prioritized. This is a critical step to increase the efficiency of lead

management process, since if right leads are sent to right sales force, the chances of their

conversion is good. Finally the literature relating to lead nurturing/conversion gives insight on

how we can gain the maximum out of every lead being generated ensuring maximum

conversion rate.

2.6. Literature review and research question of the paper

Literature review has helped to increase understanding of how lead management could be

done and various processes associated with lead management. Now, this will be used to assess

the lead management process recommended by AXA Group to its various entities. After

understanding and analyzing AXA Group‘s recommendations, a gap analysis will be done

between AXA Group‘s recommendations and existing literature11

. Through this gap analysis,

we will be able to see how different the AXA Group‘s recommended process is as compared

11 See section 7 for further details

14

to the literature and if there is any scope of improvement to AXA Group‘s recommendations.

Also, we will observe if there are some existing literature‘s recommendations which could not

be applied to AXA or there is scope for further research. Thus, this literature review will be

critical to the analysis of AXA Group‘s recommendations.

2.7. Methodology and data collection

In order to fully understand AXA Group‘s lead management recommendations I used my

experience in the Group‘s marketing and distribution team as an intern from May to

December 2012. During my internship, I attended various workshops and seminars conducted

by AXA Group to share its recommendations and best practices related to lead management

with AXA entities. Thus, I was able to gain a good insight of the topic and also understood

the concerns of AXA entities from a practical point of view.

Apart from my experience at AXA, I also had access to the lead management documents

prepared by AXA Group. These documents have been prepared by doing extensive internal

and external benchmarks of lead management and best practices from these benchmarks are

recommended by AXA Group to its entities. To further insure that I am staying up to date

with the recommendations proposed and not limiting myself to my knowledge and AXA

Group‘s documents, I interviewed people at AXA Group. Through these interviews I tested

my hypothesis and scenarios to ensure that this paper is very close to what is being done

practically at AXA.

Also, I carried out extensive search on the internet and research databases to explore existing

literature and find some best practices by companies in lead management and other relevant

information to support and validate my opinions in this paper.

Before analyzing the lead management recommendations of AXA Group, in the next few

sections the importance of lead management in insurance and at AXA will be highlighted, and

why it has become a focus now.

15

3. Insurance and lead management

3.1. Types of insurance and lead management

3.1.1. Life and savings (L&S)

These are complex insurance products which are sold once and then the buyer gives premium

after a certain time period depending on the initial contract. Since these are complex, it is not

easy to sell them online and thus lead management is not focusing on these products. This is

highlighted by direct channels having a small share in L&S distribution12

.

3.1.2. Property and causality (P&C) – focus of lead management

Property and causality could have both complex and simple products. The simple products

under P&C are sold online and thus lead management is focused on these simple products.

This is highlighted by direct channels having a large share in P&C distribution11

. Some of

these simple products include motor insurance, health insurance, and property insurance.

3.2. Distribution channels under scope of lead management at AXA

The distribution channels in insurance could be broadly categorized into proprietary and non-

proprietary networks. Proprietary channels are the distribution networks owned by insurance

companies. Non-proprietary networks are not owned by insurance companies and usually sell

multiple insurance policies. As per AXA, these could be further subdivided as in table 1. It is

to be noted that lead management covers only proprietary distribution networks at AXA. The

distribution channels in scope of lead management are direct, salaried sales force, exclusive

agents generalists and exclusive agents specialists. Non-proprietary networks are not included

in lead management since they could sell policies of multiple companies to customers and

thus AXA could not make sure that to a lead send by AXA they only sell policy of AXA to

that lead.

12 See Appendix 1

16

Table 1: Different distribution networks at AXA

Type of

network

Intermediate

consolidation

Name of

channel

Definition

Proprietary

networks

(client base

owned by

AXA)

Direct Direct There is no involvement of sales person or

intermediary and sales are done directly through

internet, telephone, etc.

Salaried Sales

Force

Salaried Sales

Force

This include AXA employees selling insurance

policies to retail / SMEs, large account managers

selling to corporate business, and also the insurance

policies of AXA employees taken without a

distributor

Agents

Exclusive

Agents

Generalists

These are independent distributors (not on the payroll

of AXA). As generalists, they sell both L&S and

P&C insurance

Exclusive

Agents

Specialized

These are independent distributors but specialized in

certain category E.g. selling only motor in P&C

Multi-tied

agents

(proprietary)

These are independent distributors that could sell

multiple companies‘ policies. However, after they sell

the policy, the client is owned by AXA and not them.

Non-

proprietary

networks

(Client

base

Brokers/

Independent

Financial

Advisors

Brokers

General

These are independent insurance intermediaries who

negotiate with insurance providers on behalf of their

customers selling L&S and P&C

IFAs These are independent financial intermediaries who

17

owned by

the

distributor)

(IFAs) negotiate with insurance providers on behalf of their

customers usually advising on L&S

Multi-tied

agents (non-

proprietary)

These are independent distributors that could sell

multiple companies‘ policies and after selling the

policy the client is owned by them

Bancassurance Bancassurance Agreements or JVs with banks or financial

institutions selling policies through their networks

Other

distribution

partnerships

Car dealers Agreements with car dealers to sell policies

Other

partnerships

and JVs

Other agreements or JVs

Source: AXA

Thus it is clear from above section that lead management covers mostly P&C insurance

products and proprietary distribution networks (excluding multi-tied agents). Now in the next

section, the focus will be on how these channels and insurance sector are getting affected by

rise of online and digitalization.

4. Effect of digital and multi-access on insurance business

Digital and multi-access implies various online and ICT mediums available to customers and

companies these days to interact. It has changed the way customers interact with insurance

companies and also their expectations. Also, it has significant impact on the way insurance

companies operate their business and various processes within.

4.1. Effect on customer behavior and expectations

New mediums are available to customers today with the rise of digital and multi-access.

Insurance customers are accustomed buying retail products online through sites such as

Amazon. Also, they expect seamless interfaces and one click information as given to them

18

through products such as Apple store. This has considerably changed their expectations and

way to interact with insurance companies. As per a insurance study done by Accenture on

7000 consumers in 13 countries, around 60% of people13

use mobile devices to get

information on insurance products, do operations related to insurance and subscribe an

insurance service or product. The number is expected to increase to nearly 70% in next 2

years.

4.1.1. Information gathering

With the rise of digital and multi-access consumers are changing their buying behavior.

Consumers are spending more time online to learn about the insurance products. ―72 percent

of consumers use the Internet to learn about auto insurance” (Accenture 2011). ―Fiftyone

percent of consumers search the Internet before making a high-value in-store purchase”

(Accenture 2011). Thus now, customers have more transparency regarding insurance prices

with rise of aggregators (online websites giving combined information of products of various

insurance companies) and other online channels. Also, social media is changing the way

customers gather information regarding insurance products. As per Accenture survey in 2011,

30% of the people said that they took in account of feedback of other customers on social

media. This percentage is even higher among people in lower age group (see figure 6).

Figure 6: Importance of social media feedback in selecting insurance provider

Source: Accenture 2011

13 60% in each category separately

19

4.1.2. Buying online

With rise of internet, more and more people are buying insurance online. This is especially

facilitated with rise of aggregators which simplified the process by providing information

about various insurance companies at one place. As per comscore, a company measuring

internet usage, number of people in the US likely to buy auto insurance online has increased

from 28% in 2008 to 34% in 2011 (see table 2). These numbers are on the basis of a survey

conducted in February/March on 4 000 US internet survey.

Table 2: People considering buying auto insurance online, US

Percentage of Respondents

2008 2009 2010 2011

Likely to Purchase Online in

the Future

28% 35% 32% 34%

Unsure of Purchasing Online

in the Future

25% 25% 45% 44%

Unlikely to Purchase Online

in the Future

48% 39% 22% 22%

Source: comScore 2012

4.1.3. Freedom of interaction

Today, customers in the insurance sector wishes to be able to interact with their company

using various channels. 84% of consumers expect insurers to provide multi-channel access

(Accenture 2011). 71% of younger clients said it is possible that they will start an operation

using one channel and pursue it further using different channels (Accenture 2011). Also, it is

critical to have multi-channel access to retain customers as customers will switch to

companies giving multi-channel access (see figure 7).

20

Figure 7: % of very likely and somewhat likely people who would switch to other

companies if their company would not provide a multi-access communication channel


4.1.4. Customers’ willingness to use mobile devices to decrease insurance premiums

Significant amount of customers are willing to use mobile devices to lower their insurance

premiums. This gives a good opportunity to insurance companies and also makes a strong

case for them to offer such products. As per the Accenture survey, 60% of the people buying

P&C products and 45% of the people buying L&S products are very or somewhat interested

in using mobile to reduce their insurance premiums. Some of the applications of mobile

devices to reduce insurance premiums include recording how a customer is driving through

their mobile device, life insurance premiums depending on the daily activity level, etc. (see

figure 8).

Figure 8: Number of people willing to accept using mobile to reduce their insurance

premium


21

4.2. Effect on Insurance Business Operations

Since, customer behavior and expectations have changed with the rise of digital and multi-

access, insurance companies need to change the way they do business. Also, with the use of

digital and multi-access insurance companies could improve efficiency of their processes.

4.2.1. Transformation of value chain

The entire value chain of insurance companies needs to adapt with the rise of digital and

multi-access. The various modifications on different steps of the value chain could be:

Source: AXA

New point of contact with customers through channels such as website, mobile

Opportunity to do target marketing, since more customer data is available

New mediums of markets enabling companies to remain connected with customers all the

time such as Facebook and twitter

Opportunity to create customized products

Ability to provide new services to clients such as mobile apps

Necessity to simplify products since customers will be buying online without getting any

expert advice

Selling directly through online channels

Leveraging different channels to improve efficiency of all of them e.g. giving leads

generated online to agents in the field

Rise of aggregators

Generating quotes automatically for basic policies online

Giving certificates and policies online

Ability to do necessary changes in the client‘s policy online e.g. change of options,

change of address, etc.

Option to allow customers to file their claims and track the status of their claims online

Ability to share customer‘s file with different sales channels

Marketing

Offer

Development

Distribution

and sales

Claims

mgmt

Underwriting

& Policy

mgmt

22

4.2.1.1. Transformation of distribution network

Among the changes in value chain, transformation of distribution is one of the key challenges

and also the focus of this paper. In the new environment the way to access the client has

changed with new marketing channels. Also, the number of people going to traditional

insurance agents is reducing with more people buying online. This will have an impact on

value sharing agreements between insurance companies and agents e.g. change in

commissions. Also, there is possibility that insurance companies might need to reduce their

distribution footprint, which might led to greater political and economical issues. Also, with

the rise of digitalization insurance companies need to find ways to link all their different

channels, ensuring that instead of different channels competing against themselves, they assist

each other in achieving better results e.g. lead management process.

4.2.2. Changes in competitive dynamics

Apart from internal changes in value chain, external environment has also changed

considerably and especially the competitive environment. Insurance industry has become

more competitive due to rise of digital and multi-access. With the rise of digital, the entry

barriers for new entrants have reduced significantly since now they do not necessarily need to

have large scale agent network on the field. Also, digitalization has enabled customers to

collect information about different insurance products in the market easily. Clients have

become more demanding regarding services and speed online. This increases the chances of

customers switching to competitors and has decreased client royalty.

These two impacts could be easily seen with the change in market share of insurance

companies in the personal lines P&C market. Direct insurers are growing faster than

traditional insurance companies, taking their market share. As seen in figure 9, Progressive

and Berkshire Hathway (direct insurance companies selling only online) are taking market

share from traditional companies such as State Farm and Allstate. Since, they offer easily

designed products at low prices. ―By using the direct access of the internet, you minimize our

costs and eliminate all sales commissions, allowing us to pass savings on to you without

compromising product quality”- BRKDirect.com.

23

Figure 9: Market share of traditional and direct insurance players in the US

Source: PwC, SNL data, website of Progressive, website of Berkshire Hathway

Thus it is quite clear that digital and multi-access has transformed the way insurance

companies used to conduct their business. Their customers are researching on the internet

before buying and also buying on the internet. Customers‘ expectations have changed as they

expect to interact with their companies using various digital channels and not only the

traditional physical channels. Customers are even willing to share their data through mobiles

to reduce their premium. Also, the industry has become more competitive with reduced entry

barriers.

Due to this change in customer behavior and competitive environment insurance companies

are adapting their business model. In the next section, how AXA is adapting its business

model as per this new environment through transformation levers will be explained. Also how

lead management fits in this new model will be highlighted.

5. AXA’s digital and multi-access transformation levers and lead

management

5.1. Objectives

Considering the impacts digital and multi-access have on insurers and their customers, AXA

has decided to build a multi-access model focused on building a differentiated customer

experience by providing public & private digital services on all devices (web, mobile,

touchpad) and new digital tools and processes for distributors (paperless, e-signature). Also,

24

AXA aims to develop businesses originated from distant channels (online/telesales) through

developing simplified and adaptive offers, and providing choice to buy through full distant

channels or agents and increasing cross-selling to the existing customer base.

Another objective is to achieve a cultural shift towards experimentation through focusing on

increasing tests on innovative offers or relationship models, leveraging new technologies and

new media. Also, to switch towards a test and learn approach

5.2. Transformation levers

To achieve these objectives, AXA identified nine levers. Four of the levers have specific

focus with others being more transversal. Two of the nine levers are specifically related to

Lead Management (which is the main focus of this paper):

4. Multi-Channel Purchase funnel/CRM

7. Distribution Transformation

Figure 10: AXA's transformation levers and lead management

Source: AXA

Thus in AXA, lead management is a very important process in fully achieving the distribution

transformation necessary with the rise of digital and multi-access. To ensure that all the AXA

entities could perform lead management, AXA Group did an internal and external

benchmarking study to identify best practices and thus give recommendations on how to do

lead management. The results of this study, combined with my own research through my

internship, internet and interviews is presented in the next section describing AXA‘s

recommendation on how to do lead management.

Lead Management

identified as number #1

priority

25

6. How to do lead management: AXA Group recommendations

AXA Group gives recommendation to entities on how to implement different phases of lead

management process. In this section, these recommendations for three operational processes

of lead management: generate leads, ‗prioritize and allocate‘ leads and ‗nurture and convert‘

leads will be presented. Also, some best practice examples have been included to further

elaborate how it could be done in real world.

6.1. Lead generation

Lead generation is the first step of the lead management process. This is where insurance

companies find contacts of potential future clients. The recommendations by AXA include

following:

6.1.1. Define scope

The first step of lead management process is defining its scope. This includes some of the key

decisions including the product to be sold, the type of lead to target and whether the objective

is to acquire new customers or to cross-sell/upsell/retain existing customers.

The product must be decided in advance and the product should be a non-complex product

such as motor or health insurance so that leads could be generated online14

.

6.1.2. Sources

The leads must be collected through all the different channels available. The possible

channels to generate online leads include mail, email, aggregators (third parties) and website.

Also, it is important to be on top of Google search results. There can be two ways to be on top

of Google search results: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization

(SEO). SEM is a way to be on top of search results by paying the search engine. SEO is a way

to be on top of search results through optimizing website and other methods on which search

engine selects and prioritize results. AXA recommends its entities to use SEM and pay for

being on top of Google search results, since it is quite hard to be on top through SEO due to

14 See appendix 1

26

lack of knowledge of how Google sorts its data. This can be seen in the screenshot of Google

search result of assurance auto (see figure 11). www.axa.fr is the second link on the

advertisement related to auto assurance (SEM). Also, it is second in the list generated by

Google through its prioritization methodology.

The third recommendation by AXA Group is that the data collected at different sources must

be same. The data collected must enable the entity to be able to identify and contact leads.

Also, it must have qualification data, enabling the entity to classify lead as hot/cold. E.g. one

qualifying data could be their behaviour on the AXA website. Which page they visit (main

page, buying page, products page), whether they complete the form or not, how far they go in

the buying process (generate quote or not).

The final recommendation for sources is that online channels must have necessary resources

to collect data. To do this online quotations must be provided to visitors on the website and

online forms and questions must include data which will help to classify leads in hot/cold and

enabling the entity to send them directly to agents/telesales.

Figure 11: Google search result of keyword ―assurance auto‖ in France and AXA‘s

positioning

Source: Google.fr

6.1.3. Managing marketing campaigns – Preparation

After deciding the scope and sources next step is preparation of marketing campaigns. The

marketing campaign must be designed keeping in mind the objective (sell, cross-sell, up-sell,

retain, etc.) and the target population (segment, demography, etc.). Further to prepare a good

27

marketing campaign, it is important to keep agents in the loop and ensure that the campaign

fits their needs.

Another key aspect of preparation of marketing campaigns is to select the right combination

of marketing actions. An appropriate action or a mix of actions must be selected based on

objective, resources and target population. There could be four main types of marketing

actions possible: ―advertising‖, ―push direct marketing‖, ―online lead generation‖ and

―experience based lead generation‖ which is a part of online lead generation. Advertising

involves campaigns run in TV, print, etc. They target both existing and new customers.

However, their cost is high and the quality of leads generated is not good. Push direct

marketing includes campaigns directly addressing consumers through medium such as mails

by post or emails. They also target both existing and new customers. Their costs are high but

generate good leads. However, it is difficult to acquire new customers through them since the

company would need to acquire customer data from a 3rd

party database.

Online lead generation include online campaigns which aim at bringing consumers to AXA

website or to a third party website from where AXA collect leads. They also target both

existing and new customers. They are less costly and if banner ads/message is done correctly

could get good quality leads. Another way of generating online leads is through experience

based lead generation. These campaigns mostly target existing clients through inbound

contact by private websites and generate excellent quality leads15

.

6.1.4. Managing marketing campaigns - Execution

For effectively executing the marketing campaigns first it is necessary to select a good source

for getting target files (people you would like to target). For existing customers an entity

could use CRM database and buy list from third-party for prospects and former customers.

After getting the target files they must be checked and additional data must be added. For

prospects it is important to check duplication. Then the entity must choose the marketing

media. Direct marketing media to use for each targeted prospect could be defined based on

previous campaigns response history

15 See section 6.1.6 for further details

28

Also, it is important to handle relationship with agents since AXA does not always own

agents. It is important to keep them in the loop since they are the end-contact to prospects.

Their role in the marketing campaign must be clearly defined. Also, agents must be allowed to

define the scope of campaigns and must have the option to add or exclude customers from

targets. E.g. AXA France informs agents of all marketing campaigns via a single tool (KIWI)

and allows agents to manage and control their participation to marketing campaigns via a

unique interface (NETAGENTS)

6.1.5. Measure and improve marketing campaign performance

After preparing and executing marketing campaigns, next important step is measuring their

performance. Key metrics must be defined to measure lead generation performance. Some of

these metrics per campaign could be lead generation rate (number of generated leads / number

of targeted consumers), cost per generated lead (marketing campaign budget / number of

generated leads). The results must also be split by tracking sources of incoming leads, per

products, per segments, customers and prospects, etc.16

.

6.1.6. Best practice for lead generation from existing customers: an example of ING

After doing the initial steps and establishing a web-based lead generation system, the next

advanced step for insurance companies could be using inbound marketing to generate

personalised offers to clients. These offers could be presented/pushed through customer

private websites to generate highly qualified ―cross-sell leads‖ at minimal marketing cost.

This has been done by ING Direct (Hesse A., 2009).

In late 2000s ING switched from traditional outbound campaign management to inbound

campaign management (see figure 12). In outbound campaign, first an offer is build and then

ING used to market this offer to best group of people. This led to similar offers being

marketed to every selected client. In inbound campaign, first data of a customer is analyzed

and then matched with various offers available. This enabled ING to provide customized

solutions to customers. Through providing these customized solutions ING expected to

increase the response rate by as much as 60% and an additional earning of Euro 20 million per

year. Also, ING expected to cut its direct marketing costs by 35% per year.


29

For selecting the type of product suited for a particular customer, first at least one product

most suited for the customer is selected from different product groups e.g. one product from

savings, one from payments and two from mortgages. Now the net present value of all these

products is calculated and the products most profitable to bank are proposed to the customer.

These customized solutions are presented to client through a private website (see figure 13).

In ING Direct, customers can see best offers for them on their private websites. When

customers login to their page, they could see customized as well as general offers and

promotions of ING Direct. To provide these customized solutions, ING Direct gathers

additional information about customers through online forms. Insurance companies could

launch similar private websites generating high-quality leads at minimal costs.

Figure 12: Outbound and inbound marketing campaign management

Source: Hesse A. 2009

30

Figure 13: Private client website of ING

Source: AXA, ING

Thus to generate leads effectively AXA Group recommends that its scope and the sources to

be used to collect the leads. Then it is important to meticulously plan and execute the

marketing campaign. After the leads are collected, they must be run through an initial quality

check. In the end, the marketing campaigns‘ performance should be measured and

continuously improved. Now, the next step of lead management is prioritize and allocate

through which the leads generated will be allocated to sales agents.

6.2. Prioritize and allocate leads

After generating leads, the next challenge is to allocate them to sales force. This is important

since not all the leads are sales ready and different sales force requires different kind of leads.

Thus, insurance companies must insure that their sales force get right kind of leads improving

their efficiency.

6.2.1. Prioritize leads

This is the first step in the process of allocation of leads. Leads must be segregated in

different categories as per their level of interest and value to sales force.

Before prioritizing leads first they must be qualified. After collecting leads from different

sources it is important to qualify them. The data collected must be run through software and

31

there must be regular checks put in place to remove leads putting wrong or incomplete data.

E.g. giving name as abc, incorrect pin code, etc.

AXA does not give detailed recommendation on how entities could do lead scoring to

prioritize these qualified leads. Currently, AXA recommends leads to be qualified on the basis

of whether they have asked to be contacted by AXA or not and their stage in online sale. If

they have completed online quote and asked to be contacted by AXA, they are qualified as hot

leads. If they have started the online quotation or finished it and do not ask to be contacted by

AXA, they are classified as cold leads. These cold leads are further prioritized on the basis of

their value. Cold leads with high value (ask to be contacted by AXA or searching for high

premium insurance) must be send to telesales for nurturing and cold leads with low value

must be nurtured through other mediums17

.

6.2.2. Allocate leads

After prioritizing the next step is allocating these leads. If the leads are hot they should be

send to agents directly. If the leads are cold and of high value they must be send to telesales

for nurturing and if the leads are cold and of low value they must be nurtured through other

medium18

.

If there is not an advanced lead management system comprising telesales and lead nurturing

then AXA Group proposes that leads could be allocated in a way that hot leads are pushed

(leads are send to agents) while cold leads have to be pulled (all the cold leads are put in a

portal and are available to all the agents. Agents are required to search actively for leads and

choose their targets). This system is recommended by AXA since all hot leads are allocated

quickly and agents are aware of new hot leads only making them to act upon them. Cold leads

would also be processed better since agents themselves will pick them which ensures their

motivation



32

6.2.2.1. Allocate leads with information

An important need in lead allocation is the ability of all sales channels to follow lead cycle till

they have reached them, and thus have the necessary information about the lead. This is

important since the final sales-point (agents, telesales, etc.) would be able to pitch right offers

and increase their efficiency if they know the needs and other information about clients. The

best in class method is to develop a fully integrated CRM platform where all stakeholders

(E.g. company, agents, call centre operators…) can follow and update contacts from the lead

generation until long after the first sale.

One such best in class example is AXA Equitable (US) which has a lead management solution

fully integrated with CRM providing information of all customers and prospects in one

system (see figure 14). In their CRM portal, stakeholders could see list of all the leads. Also,

agents can see information on these leads such as name, campaign through which they have

been attracted, area of interest, best time to call, potential investment, and age range. Contact

details are also included with phone number and address. Also, it includes information

regarding whether customer wishes to be contacted by email or not.

Another example is of insuranceleads.com. The website provides leads to insurance

agents/companies and also it provides information of these leads. An example of a motor lead

given on the company‘s website has information regarding lead‘s contact information, driving

license information, vehicle information, past record of traffic violations, and insurance

coverage amounts (see figure 15).

Figure 14: Lead management portal of AXA Equitable fully integrated with CRM

Source: AXA

33

Figure 15: Lead file sent by insuranceleads.com to sales

Source: website of insuranceleads

34

6.2.2.2. Allocate leads within specified timeframe

To improve conversion rates the leads must be allocated and acted upon quickly. This is

extremely important for converting leads as per AXA. There are high chances of contacting

and converting leads if they are contacted in a short timeframe of generating online quote and

asking to be contacted by AXA. Chance of contacting a lead is 100 times less if contacted

after 30 minutes as compared to 5 minutes.

6.2.2.3. Allocate leads to small agents/agents looking for new customers

This is another important aspect in insurance. The leads must be allocated to small agents

whose remuneration depends upon new leads they convert. Large agents having multi-million

sales through an extensive network of existing clients will not be motivated to use the new

leads.

To summarize, AXA Group‘s recommendations regarding prioritizing leads are simple based

on whether they ask to be contacted by AXA or not and also whether they finish the online

quote or not. To allocate leads prioritized as hot are to be sent directly to agents and cold leads

must be nurtured either through telesales (if they are of high value) or other medium (if they

are of low value). Also, other important recommendations regarding lead allocation are to

allocate leads with their information and allocate them in short timeframe. Now in the next

section AXA Group‘s recommendation on how to ensure these leads are nurtured and

converted will be discussed.

6.3. Nurture and convert leads

After scoring leads, many leads would not be sales ready and thus should not be allocated19

.

However, they still have potential to get converted and thus nurturing is an important step in

lead management.

19 As per a survey done by RainToday, of the total leads generated 25% are disqualified, 25% are sales ready and

the rest of 50% needs to be handled appropriately to convert them. Also, a test did by Marketo indicate that 25%

of the leads which were nurtured became sales ready after 1 month, as compared to, 8% of leads becoming sales

ready without nurturing.

35

6.3.1. Conversion and nurturing of web-based leads

High number of people visit website of insurance companies, however, a very low number of

these visitors make actual purchase. To ensure that these leads are not lost, there need to be a

special process in place to treat leads at different levels of making online purchase.

As indicated in the figure 16 below, these people could be segregated in five major categories:

People who visit the website but do not enter their name and contact information, people who

enter their name and contact information to demand newsletter and other content but do not

start an online quotation, people who start an online quotation but do not finish it, people who

are excluded by online filters due to factors such as high risk, possibility of fraud, etc., then

the final category include the people who completed the online quotation but do not proceed

to buying online. This can be further categorized in people who ask to be contacted by AXA

and people who do not ask to be contacted by AXA.

Now, all these categories must be treated differently to ensure they are efficiently nurtured

and converted. As per AXA, people in category 1 are not leads. People in category 2 are also

not leads as per AXA since they do not start online quote, however, they must be provided

with the information they ask for. People in category 3 are cold leads. However, they must be

treated on the basis of their value. If they are of high value (looking for high value products or

ask to be contacted by AXA) they must be nurtured through telesales and if otherwise (low

value) they must be nurtured through other media such as emails. People in category 4 must

be given personalized treatment and an insurance risk profile must be run on them. Also,

dedicated telesales specialised in high-risk profile insurance must contact them. People in

category 5 could be hot or cold depending on whether they ask to be contacted by AXA. If

they ask to be contacted by AXA, they must be send directly to agents. If they do not ask to

be contacted by AXA, they must be nurtured. Nurturing could be done through telesales (if

they are of high value) or through other media. During nurturing through other media, AXA

recommends that these leads must be provided with an agent‘s name/number to contact. At

the same time, the information about this lead must be provided to that agent through an

integrated tool, in case the lead calls that agent.

36

Figure 16: Different categories of web-based leads

Source: AXA

6.3.1.1. Nurturing cold leads with low value

In the above example of nurturing web-based leads, low-value leads in category 3 and in

category 5 who did not ask to be contacted by AXA must be nurtured through online media.

To nurture these leads AXA recommends that first an entity should discover what a lead

would like to know more according to its segment, interest (type of product) and past

characteristics and behaviours. Then it must decide the information to be send to leads as per

what they are looking for. The channel for nurturing must be decided not only on the basis of

its effectiveness but also on its ROI. Thus, different products with different margins must be

treated differently. Also it is important to decide on the deadline to convert them in hot leads.

After planning, the entity must focus on executing the nurturing plan. The nurturing

information must be provided in specified duration. Timeframe must be decided to ensure that

prospect has the chance to read nurturing material and keep in mind his need to contact the

company. E.g. timings of different e-mails could be first email to be sent within a few minutes

of collecting lead, second email to be sent one or two days after the first and third to sixth

emails to be sent in interval of three to four days. Also the entity must modify the content of

different emails as per the timeframe. First email could to be a thank you email and give

overview of the emails to follow. The content of second email must be specific to the client

37

needs. E.g. if the client wants to save for retirement, this email might contain a retirement

expense calculator. The third email must give exact information about how much he would

need for retirement. Fourth email could further explain him what are his options. Here

description or links of several products must be provided. Fifth email must help him in

deciding the best product – a decision tree. The sixth email must explain the process through

which he could generate a quote online and buy/contact AXA agents.

The data collected during the nurturing process must be saved as it could help in the final sale.

Also, in the end the leads which are hot must be sent to sales.

6.3.1.2. Conversion of leads through telesales: Best practice for nurturing cold

leads of high value (an external benchmark)

In the above example of nurturing web-based leads, high-value leads in category 320

and in

category 521

must be nurtured through telesales. There are no specific recommendations given

by AXA for this, however, they provide a best practice example on how an insurance

company is nurturing leads generated through telesales. This example is specific to leads

generated through telesales; however, it could also be applied to leads generated through web

(which is the case as per the scope of this paper and AXA‘s recommendations). In case of

cold leads with high value generated through web, telesales team could also call them and

repeat the same process.

The whole lead nurturing process for telesales (see figure 17) could be that firstly the

consumer calls telesales team after seeing advertising campaign (this step will be modified for

internet generated leads – telesales could also call consumers if they have left their data

online). Now the telesales team could assess the consumer and qualify him as hot/cold lead or

to be disqualified. In case of hot lead, the telesales team could fill lead‘s information and

generate a quote. This quote will be notified to the consumer. Also, agents will be notified

regarding the consumer. In case of cold lead, telesales will send nurturing information to

consumer by email with an attached document. Then, the next steps depend upon whether the

20 leads who do not finish online quote but of high value since they are looking for a high-premium product or

ask to be contacted by AXA

21 leads who finish online quote and do not ask to be contacted by AXA, but having high value since they are

looking for a high-premium product

38

consumer downloads the document or not. If the consumer downloads the document, it is to

be seen whether or not he generates a quote on the web. If he generates a quote on web,

telesales call him and finalises the quote. Then the quote is send to consumer and his

information is send to agent. If he does not generate a quote online, telesales still call him to

see whether he is still a cold or hot lead. If he is hot, he is send to agents, if he is still cold,

another email is sent to him with nurturing information and link to website. However, if he

does not download the document, telesales will again send him a nurturing document. Thus,

through this whole process it is ensured that agents only receive hot leads, cold leads are

nurtured and leads not useful are disqualified.

Figure 17: Flowchart of lead nurturing through telesales

Source: AXA

6.3.2. Increasing lead conversion through KPIs

Lead management process must be measured by KPIs across different agencies/agents. This

will give important insights to management on how the whole process could be improved and

which agents/agencies need special attention/training thus increasing overall conversion rate.

The KPIs must be for the whole lead management process and also as per different steps of

lead management process. Also, it will increase the accountability of agents making them to

process more leads and try to get higher conversion rates.

Lead generation and lead allocation KPIs would be specific to these processes. Some of the

KPIs for lead generation could be number of consumers that are targeted, number of leads

generated, total marketing budget and cost per generated lead. KPIs for prioritize and allocate

could be number of leads abandoned, number of leads that are transferred to the conversion

39

step, time taken to allocate, total budget to allocate and engage leads, average time taken to

act on a lead per product and number of leads acted upon within pre-decided timeline.

KPIs for lead conversion are more transversal and could be used to assess the overall

performance of lead management. Some of the KPIs could be number of converted leads, lead

conversion rate, total cost of converting leads (all costs in the lead management process), cost

per converted lead, total premium generated through leads and ROI. However, some KPIs

could be specific to conversion such as time taken to contact a lead after allocation. Leads

must be contacted within short timeframe22

.

Also, it is important to split these KPIs by marketing campaigns, customers, products, sales

channels, etc. to get a clearer picture of which campaigns are more effective.

6.3.2.1. Performance monitoring – Basic examples

Example of Allianz

Allianz published its list of digital KPIs and targets for France. They included KPIs which are

transversal in nature and measure the performance of their entire online sales. Some of the

KPIs could also be useful for lead management process such as ‗share of digitalized

documents‘ and ‗share of mobile numbers known‘ (see figure 18).

22 Elkington D. and Oldroyd J. (2007), See section 6.2.2

40

Figure 18: Allianz‘s digital KPIs and targets for France

Source: Allianz 2012

Example of AXA Ireland

AXA Ireland measures some basic KPIs weekly for lead management (see figure 19). They

measure how many people uploaded their records by filling online form, how many records

were excluded from data checks, how many of them were contacted through contact rate and

how many of these leads were finally converted.

Figure 19: AXA Ireland‘s KPIs for lead management

Source: AXA

Week DateRecords

uploaded

Records

excluded

% records

excluded

Unique

Quotes

Weekly

Sales

Conv

rate

Conv

rate on

contact

Contact

rate

Saved

Contact

rate

Unsaved

Contact

rate

Week 13 26.mars 5'914 640 11% 5'990 143 2.42% 6.72% 36%

Week 14 02.avr 6'151 1181 19% 6'494 124 2.02% 5.04% 40%

Week 15 09.avr 5'960 858 14% 6'298 103 1.73% 4.02% 43%

Week 16 16.avr 7'286 841 12% 7'417 179 2.46% 6.30% 39%

Week 17 23.avr 7'331 786 11% 6'820 153 2.09% 5.64% 37%

Week 18 30.avr 8'178 940 11% 7'193 192 2.35% 6.18% 38%

41

Thus it is clear from the above two examples that by using KPIs companies could set long-

term targets for digital and also assess weekly performance which helps managers to evaluate

performance of campaigns and take necessary actions.

6.3.2.2. Performance monitoring – advanced example

This is an example of a US based insurance company adopting advanced performance

monitoring (see figure 20). In this, the company segregates its customers in five markets:

Affluent market, Middle Market, Retired Market, Youth Market and Business & Institutions.

Then, the company compares total customers, total marketing investment and total profit in

each of these categories. This helped the company to focus its attention and finances to the

segment that is the biggest contributor to profits. Similar techniques could be used to measure

lead management process by companies.

This above example could be modified for online lead management and thus measuring

effectiveness of various campaigns being run on the internet for generating leads and

converting them (see figure 21). Looking at this chart in figure 21, it is easy to spot that

Banner 1 with a message highlighting the quality and value of the company is costing only

1%; however, it is generating 10% of leads with 13% of profits. Thus, company can

understand where to invest more in future. Another insight from this chart could be that

search engine marketing leads‘ share in total leads converted is 25%; however, their share in

total profit is only 12%. Thus, a company could understand which sources are producing high

value leads.

Figure 20: Performance monitoring by a US based insurance company

Source: AXA

1% 2%13%6% 3%

9%26% 21%

12%

46%

30%

60%

21%44%

6%

Total customers Total Marketing

Investment

Total profit

Affluent

Market

Middle

Market

Retired

Market

Youth

Market

Business &

Institutions

42

Figure 21: Online lead management performance monitoring – illustrative numbers

Source: AXA, interview with Julien Fursat, my analysis

6.3.3. Increasing lead conversion through engaging agents

Another effective way of ensuring good conversion is engaging agents since they are closest

to customers. Agents must be involved in the entire process. They must be kept in loop while

designing different steps of the lead management process. Agents must be informed about the

upcoming campaigns and plans, results of lead management must be shared23

, agents‘

feedback must be taken24

, and training must be given to agents on how to utilize various tools

and resources. Some other ways to engage agents include facilitating trust by appointing

advanced agents as ambassadors of campaigns and lead billing25

.




1% 2%10% 13%

6% 3%

5%9%

26%21%

25% 12%

46%

30%

45% 60%

21%

44%

15%6%

Total Leads Generated

Total Marketing Investment

Share in Total Leads Converted

Total profit

Advertisement on website 2

Advertisement on website 1

Search engine marketing (paying to be on top of Google)Banner 2 (message on price)

Banner 1 (message on quality)

43

6.3.3.1. Feedback loops and management involvement to increase conversion

It is important to set feedback loops with sales agents. This helps in improving the entire lead

management process and thus ensuring that overall conversion is improved. This can be done

by ensuring that sales agents report on sales actions. An easy portal must be provided to

agents to fill-in extra information about customers when they contact them. This will help the

company to get more information on leads. If these leads are converted it will be easier to

cross/upsell to them with this information and if these leads are not converted, the feedback

will help the company to decide how to nurture them and convert. Also, it is important to get

regular feedback of agents and all other distribution channels on the lead management process.

There should be monthly/quarterly meetings involving all stakeholders where major issues

could be discussed

Another important aspect is to involve management. The sales executives must be able to see

how various agents are performing as per the leads given to them. This transparency will help

executives to know how effective is the lead generation/nurturing process and thus modify it

accordingly in due amount of time. Also reports must be prepared and shared with all the

agencies and departments on how various agencies/agents are performing as per conversion of

leads. This will facilitate competition among agencies/agents ensuring better conversion.

6.3.3.2. Best practice example: AXA Germany

Through sharing reports AXA Germany was able to improve conversion rates. In 2010, AXA

Germany sent weekly list of leads to regional sales managers also instead of sending it only to

agents. This increased accountability of agents towards leads and the conversion rate in health

products increased from 6.52% in 2008 to 10.33% in 2010 – a 58% increases (see figure 22).

As per 2011, agents giving feedback to AXA Germany at least once, have conversion rate of

13.65% as compared to the conversion rate of 10.91% - thus 25% higher.

6.3.3.3. Example of AXA Equitable (US)

AXA Equitable extensively involves agents in managing the lead management process. In the

preparation of campaigns phase, agents are interviewed to identify their requirements. Then,

after the campaign has been formalised (documents, target segments, timeframe, etc.) agents

review it. Training is given to agents on how to use various tools associated. Also, specific

44

training is given to second year agents regarding lead management. Further, each campaign is

first tested on a small area before rolling it out to the entire country. This helps AXA

Equitable to make further improvements.

Figure 22: Conversion rate of health products‘ leads in AXA Germany

Source: AXA

6.3.4. Increasing conversion through good governance of lead management process

Another important aspect to increase lead conversion and thus the overall performance of lead

management is to set-up a good governance structure. AXA Group highlights importance of

setting-up an end-to-end lead management process. To set up this governance model entity

must first identify various stakeholders in the process to facilitate planning and defining roles.

Some of the possible stakeholders in a lead management process include top management at

Headquarters, marketing at Headquarters, campaign management team, customer relationship

management department, distribution department, telesales and servicing centre, IT and direct

sales channels (selling online).

After identifying key stakeholders one stakeholder must be made responsible (leader) for the

entire lead management process. Otherwise, a new lead management department could also

be established. The roles of the department leading the process and stakeholders must be

clearly defined. Regular meetings must be organized involving process leader and key

stakeholders. These meetings would help in clearly defining the objectives and goals of lead

management process, sharing and prioritizing the next actions to be taken for lead

management, sharing the past actions on lead management and how they could be improved

and improving the entire process and identifying bottlenecks.

45

6.3.4.1. Example of AXA Germany

AXA Germany follows an end-to-end lead management process. The leader of the process is

Marketing department at headquarters. Managers of different segments make campaigns for

their respective segments. There is a multichannel board which decides which campaign to

run. To make this decision, all the key stakeholders in the lead management process are

gathered. Then the campaigns are prioritized and selected on the basis of available resources

and needs of a specific segment. The campaigns are run by campaign management

departments. Distribution department is responsible for sales on each campaign. Marketing

department at headquarters analyses the campaign results and modifies/cancels campaigns

accordingly to improve the lead management process.

To summarize, as per AXA Group‘s recommendations for lead nurturing it is important to

categorize leads and send them the nurturing content (on specific timeframe) customized to

that segment. AXA further explains how this categorization could be done for web-based

leads and thus different nurturing steps to be followed. Also, a best practice example has

helped in understanding how nurturing could be done through telesales. For lead conversion,

it is important to measure the entire lead management process through KPIs which will

increase accountability of agents and also help management to improve the process. Also, it is

important to engage agents keeping them in the loop and setting up a good governance

structure for lead management.

With this, various processes associated with lead management and AXA Group‘s

recommendations for them have been explained. Also, best practices and examples have been

provided giving insight on how these processes actually work in companies. Now in the next

section AXA Group‘s recommendations will be compared with literature to find gaps in AXA

Group‘s recommendations or refute some of the literature as not applicable to AXA. Also,

through this comparison the next section will try to highlight gaps in existing literature which

could be topics for future research.

46

7. Lead Management Gap Analysis: AXA Group’s Recommendations

and Existing Literature/Sources

7.1. Gaps in lead generation

After analyzing AXA Group‘s recommendations and existing literature on lead generation,

some gaps have been found and summarized in figure 23. The processes/steps recommended

by both include using different sources for lead generation and tracking leads coming from

different sources in order to measure the effectiveness of various sources and marketing

campaigns. However, literature do not include recommendations by AXA such as first define

the scope and product to sell and involve agents in marketing campaigns preparation and

execution. These two recommendations are more specific for insurance industry and I believe

very important for AXA‘s lead generation process. But still involving sales force in marketing

campaigns preparation is something very important and applicable to many industries, thus

there is scope of research on this. The three processes/steps not included in AXA but included

in literature are to include social media, use referrals and marketing automation. I believe all

the three are applicable to AXA and thus AXA should include them in its recommendation to

improve the lead generation process.


generation

Firstly, define the scope and type of

insurance product to sell

Involve agents in the marketing

campaigns‘ preparation and execution

Include leads from different sources

Measure and improve marketing

campaigns by tracking leads from

different sources and campaigns run

on those sources

Generate leads from social media

Referrals from existing customers

Use marketing automation

AXA Group‘s Recommendations

Yes

No

Existing

Literature

Yes

No

47

7.1.1. Scope of improvements in AXA Group’s recommendations

Increase number of leads generated through social media

AXA‘s recommendations for lead generation include a section on choosing sources to

generate leads. However, social media is not included in the possible sources. This is an

important source of lead generation AXA is not focusing on. With the rise of social media,

this channel has tremendous potential to generate leads (Marketo) (Shea P. 2012). AXA

Group must also provide the ways entities could go social as done by Marketo.

Improve quality (thus conversion rate) and number of leads generated by using referrals

from existing clients

A great way to generate high quality leads (leads with more chances of getting converted) is

using referrals from existing clients (SmartLead) and currently AXA Group is not proposing

this in its recommendations. Referrals from existing clients can help a lot in generating high-

quality leads since people trust their friends/relatives. The reward program for this referral

scheme could be structured the way proposed by SmartLead.

Increase ROI of lead generation through marketing automation

Marketing automation is a key to generate personalized messages and send other material to

leads at low costs increasing marketing ROI (Aquino J. 2012). Thus, AXA must include this

in its recommendations.

7.1.2. Scope of future research in lead generation

Involving sales force in marketing campaigns‘ preparation and execution for lead generation

is something which is applicable to many industries and not much research has been done.

Thus, there is scope of further research on this.

7.2. Prioritize and allocate leads

7.2.1. Gaps in lead prioritization

After analyzing AXA Group‘s recommendations and existing literature on lead prioritization,

some gaps have been found and summarized in figure 24. AXA Group and literature both

suggests qualifying leads through verifying data first. However, there is a significant

48

difference in the way they recommend to prioritize these nurtured leads. AXA Group

recommends to prioritize leads in hot and cold on the basis of their online behaviour (filled

online quote, just visited website, etc) and value (high value to leads looking for insurance

with high premium. E.g. luxury car insurance). Literature recommends scoring leads on

different indicators and then prioritizing them as hot or warm or cold. I believe the scoring

method is more advanced and AXA Group must recommend that to its entities.


prioritization

Rank/categorize leads as hot or cold

Categorize only on the basis of their

online behavior and value (literature

suggests to include other factors too)

Qualify leads through verifying data

Rank/categorize leads as hot/warm/cold

Categorize leads on the basis of their

score as per various implicit and

explicit indicators

7.2.1.1. Scope of improvements in AXA Group’s recommendations

Use scoring to improve quality of leads sent to agents and telesales thus increasing

chances of conversion

Instead of categorizing leads only on the basis of their online behaviour and value, other

indicators must also be incorporated while prioritizing leads. This will ensure the quality of

leads sent to agents. The factors to include could be selected from the list given by Marketo26

.

This will help entities to increase quality of leads sent to agents.

26 See appendix 3

Existing

Literature

Yes

No


Yes

No

49

Further, AXA recommends prioritizing leads as hot27

and cold. Cold leads are further

categorized as leads with low and high value28

. However, categorizing these leads as

hot/warm/cold on the basis of their score is better since it is simple, more exhaustive and easy

to allocate as per category.

7.2.2. Gaps in lead allocation

Now we will focus on gaps in lead allocation. Both AXA Group and literature recommends

allocating only hot leads to agents. Also, there are similarities in recommendations to allocate

other leads (only names of lead categories are different). As per AXA, cold leads with high

value must be send to telesales for nurturing and cold leads with low value must be nurtured

through other media. As per literature, warm leads (equivalent to cold leads with high value)

must be nurtured by telesales and cold leads must be nurtured by marketing. Other

recommendations such as allocating leads within specific timeframe and allocating leads with

information are also quite similar. One recommendation specific to AXA is that leads must

only be allocated to small agents since large agents might ignore them. Thus, there are not

many gaps in lead allocation.

27 Leads who complete the online quotation and ask to be contacted by AXA

28 High value leads are leads who do not finish online quote but are looking for a high-premium product or ask to

be contacted by AXA or leads who finish online quote and do not ask to be contacted by AXA, but having high

value since they are looking for a high-premium product. Otherwise, cold leads are of low value.

50


allocation

Allocate leads to only small agents or

agents looking for new business

Allocate leads with information

Allocate leads within specific timeframe

Allocate only hot leads to agents

For nurturing allocate cold leads with

high value (warm leads) to telesales

Nurture cold leads with low value (cold

leads) through marketing

7.2.3. Nurture and convert

The final processes of leads management are nurture and convert and this section will focus

on gaps in them.

7.2.3.1. Gaps in lead nurturing

First we will analyse lead nurturing. On the basis of the analysis done on recommendations by

AXA Group and existing literature there have been some gaps found (see figure 26). Several

factors are similar such as adopting different nurturing process as per score/stage of leads and

sending different nurturing material through different medium on the basis of lead‘s position

in buying stage. However, the differences include that AXA does not recommend asking

customer regarding when they would like to be contacted, through which medium and type of

content they would prefer. Also, AXA does not include social as one of the mediums through

which leads could be nurtured. Another important distinction is that AXA does not

recommend lead recycling i.e. once a lead is sent to agent and it is not converted, AXA does

not recommend getting back to that lead as opposed to the literature.

Existing

Literature

Yes

No


Yes

No

51


nurturing

Different nurturing medium as per

category of lead.

Send different information through

different media as per different stages

of lead.

Nurturing information to be sent on a

pre-defined frequency.

Use social to nurture leads

Ask customer regarding how they

would like to get nurtured, which is

their preferred medium and the content

they would like to receive.

Lead recycling

Scope of improvement in AXA Group’s recommendations

AXA‘s recommendation for lead nurturing are quite advanced. Still some of the key points

which can make these recommendations complete could be:

Use social to nurture leads effectively at low price: Social media is a big trend these days and

as highlighted by the literature it is an excellent channel to nurture leads (Tangwall D., Cecil

J., Soucie W. 2011). AXA must include it in its recommendation.

Involve leads in lead nurturing increasing chances of more leads being nurtured and sent to

sales: AXA is currently not asking leads regarding the medium they would like to be nurtured

through, what is the preferred frequency and timing, kind of material they would like to have,

etc. Asking leads is an important step in lead nurturing (Brownell A. 2010). Such questions

could be added in online forms which would increase the effectiveness of lead nurturing.

Existing

Literature

Yes

No


Yes

No

52

Literature not applicable to AXA

Lead recycling (Marketo) is not relevant in case of AXA since in case a lead is recycled there

will be time lapse due to which value of a lead becomes quite low as lead must be allocated

and contacted in a short time duration. Thus, if an agent could not contact/convert a lead,

there is not much value in reassigning lead to another agent. Also, ROI to implement this

process will not be enough to justify its implementation.

7.2.3.2. Gaps in lead conversion and scope of future research

Now we will focus on lead conversion. Apart from lead nurturing to increase conversion,

AXA Group recommends to increase lead conversion through engaging and motivating agents

through mediums such as tracking and sharing of KPIs of lead conversion, involving the

management, etc. Also, AXA Group highlights importance of setting up good governance

model for lead management increasing conversion. Not much research has been done on this

topic presenting scope for further research.

To sum it up, AXA‘s recommendations regarding lead management are not perfect and there

is some scope of improvement. Also there are gaps in existing literature presenting scope of

future research29

. Now in the next section, we will try to analyze these recommendations from

a practical point-of-view by doing analysis of monthly income statement of lead management

process of one of AXA entities.

8. Value proposition of lead management and practical implications of

recommendations

Typical financial costs of an insurance company involves loss ratio (amount of claims paid to

revenue/premium received) and distribution costs (commission and marketing). Subtracting

these by total revenue gives profits. However, with the rise of internet, new costs have

evolved which includes online media, IT and telemarketing/telesales (see figure 27). A part of

these costs is lead management process and in this section its value proposition will be

analyzed through a practical example and building different scenarios with illustrative and

expected numbers.

29 See conclusion in section 9 to see summary of gaps in AXA‘s recommendations and existing literature

53

Figure 27: Key costs associated with revenue of 100 Euro in Insurance

Source: Interview with Yann Bry

Value is generated through lead management from the policies sold to leads, ability of insurer

to give less commission to agents on these policies and charging for leads (lead billing). Lead

billing is an innovative approach in which instead of giving leads for free to agents, an

insurance company charges them for that lead. Various advantages/disadvantages of this and

how this could be done are further discussed in next section.

8.1. Basic financial approaches of sending leads to sales

The leads could either be sent for free to agents or agents could be charged for leads. The

advantages of sending them for free are that agents are easy to convince regarding the value

proposition of leads since each lead converted is a win-win situation for agents and the

company and no advanced system for billing and processing required. However, the issue

with sending leads for free is that it is hard to engage agents since they are getting it for free.

It is possible that they will not contact a lead they got for free. Thus, there is a need to have

performance monitoring systems30

. Also, there is no additional profit.

30 See sections 6.3.2 and 6.3.3

54

Another method is billing leads. This will ensure motivation of agents and serve as a good

supplement to performance monitoring systems and other measures to engage agents. For

billing leads, the leads must be of high value and the expected gain from them must be high.

Also, systems for billing and negotiating prices must be established.

8.1.1. Billing leads

To bill leads the first thing to decide is the price. Price of leads is decided by product,

geography, lead qualification and competition. Also, there could be a fixed price to be paid to

receive leads. There is no best practice and prices vary as per market and product. A hot lead

confirmed through telesales could have diverse prices for different countries and products. For

such leads AXA Spain charges 3 Euro for a motor lead, AXA France charges 6 Euro for a

motor lead and Comparis (internet price comparison/aggregator) charges 30-65 Euro for a

health lead which is not exclusive. Cold/warm leads are usually given for free. But in some

cases they are also being charged. E.g. AXA France charges 6 Euro for cold leads.

8.1.2. Price charged by lead generating and distributing companies

Here examples of prices being charged for leads from various lead generating and distributing

companies are provided. This is to give an idea that companies are already charging for these

leads and insurers could also use them as benchmarks to charge leads.

Table 3: Companeo's price list

Lead Price

Public Liability Insurance 14-22€

Goods and transport 26€

Motor (1 vehicle) 11€

Motor (2-4 vehicles) 22€

Motor (5 or more vehicles) 32€

55

Health 16 €

Health (business) 32 €

Retirement 32 €

Source: website of Companeo

Table 4: Insuranceleads.com price list for leads of different insurance products

Lead Type Lead Profile Package Start

Auto $7.25

Health $4.48

Life $8.50

Final Expense Life $11.20

Homeowner $11.60

Long-Term Care $14.50

Annuity $39.14

Renters $5.54


http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/auto-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/health-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/life-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/final-expense-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/home-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/long-term-care-insurance-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/annuity-leads

http://www.insuranceleads.com/insurance-leads/renters-insurance-leads

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Table 5: Insuranceleads.com price list of auto insurance leads

Auto Lead Pricing

Juvenile Auto $3.00

Standard Auto $7.25

Standard Plus Auto $8.60

Specialty Auto $11.10

Preferred Auto $13.10

Premium Auto $14.55

Premium Plus Auto $14.95

Custom Auto $8.55


8.2. Business case of lead management

In this section, business case of lead management of one of the AXA entities is analyzed

through different scenarios. This includes only the costs the company associates with lead

management and the revenue it generates from the policies sold through it in one month or by

charging for leads. The name of the entity is not provided due to confidentiality reasons.

Current position (2013) is that it is the first year of lead management by AXA Entity in

Country A. Country A is a developing country with a population of 30-40 million. The

company currently is calling and verifying all the leads before sending them to agents. There

is no automatic classification as hot/cold. Telemarketing team call leads to decide whether a

lead is hot/cold and send hot lead to agents. There is no lead nurturing. Also, leads are all the

people who started the online quotation and AXA entity has sufficient information on them

(name and phone number). Currently, the company is making a loss of Euro 14 484 per month

57

in their lead management process and their income statement for lead management process

could be seen in table 6.

Table 6: Monthly income statement of lead management

Key Metric Unit Value

Cost of lead generation (from landing page) Euro/lead 12

Average leads generated per month 3560

Average number of hot leads send to agents (after verification) per month 1650

Servicing costs Euro/lead 3.18

Salary (6 telemarketers + 2 coordinator) + tel. bills Euro/month 10000

Office (rent for telemarketing team) Euro/month 1320

Billing rate (Agents paying for hot lead) Euro/lead 2.5

Total cost per lead Euro/lead 12.68

Total cost Euro 45140

Average sales on leads Policies/month 160

Conversion rate from leads

Leads

converted/

leads sent

9.70%

Average APE of one policy Euro 479

Total APE31

from New Policies Euro 76640

APE margin for new sales % 40%

NBV32

Euro 30656

Loss Euro -14484

Source: AXA

31 Annual premium equivalent: “Annual premium equivalent is the total amount of regular premiums from new

business + 10% of the total amount of single premiums on business written during the year.” –

moneyterms.co,uk

32 New business value

58

Now this lead management model will be modified as per AXA‘s recommendations and

different scenarios will be created. The purpose of creating different scenarios is to see what

could be the best possible solution for the AXA Entity to generate monthly profits from the

lead management program and whether the recommendations by AXA are applicable in a

practical scenario. The effects and number estimations of these scenarios have been discussed

with lead management experts at AXA, however, they are still estimated numbers.

Scenario 1 (2013): Give leads for free

In this scenario, it will be analysed that what will happen if the company starts giving leads

for free instead of charging for them. Thus, in the company‘s income statement billing rate

will become zero. There will be decrease in conversion rate, because if agents do not pay for

leads, their motivation to process these leads decreased a lot. The conversion rate is expected

to decrease from 9.7% to 5%. Also, there will be increase in margins for the AXA Entity that

will decrease agents‘ margin on each sale. AXA is expected to increase its margins from 40%

to 43%. The effect of this could be seen in table 7. Thus, in this scenario, AXA entity will

make a loss of Euro 37047 per month and main reason for that is expected drop in conversion

rates. I can conclude that giving leads for free is not a good idea for AXA entity A and it is

good to charge for leads (even a small amount) which will increase conversion rates.

Table 7: Monthly income statement of lead management if leads are sent for free33


Cost of lead generation (from landing page) Euro/lead 12


Average number of hot leads send to agents (after

verification) per month 1650




33 Change in numbers from original income statement is based on expectations and are illustrative

59

Billing rate (Agents paying for hot lead) Euro/lead 0





Leads

converted/

leads sent

5.00%


Total APE from New Policies Euro 39518


NBV Euro 16993

Loss Euro -37047


Scenario 2 (2013): Start prioritizing leads

Here we will try to evaluate what will happen if the entity will start to prioritize leads, which

is one of the recommendations by AXA Group. Effects of prioritizing leads would be that

they would require less telemarketers. Now telemarketers will not be calling all the leads and

it is expected that after AXA Entity starts prioritizing only 60% of the leads would be called

by telemarketers since they would only call cold leads with high value. 30% will be cold leads

with low value and 10% will be hot leads which can be directly sent to agents. Thus we can

reduce 3 telemarketers and one coordinator reducing monthly salary bill by 50%.

There will be a slight reduction in hot leads sent to agents, since now all the leads are not

processed by telesales, there is a possibility that hot leads sent to agents will reduce by 5%.

Also, cost per lead will increase as new IT software and training to people will be required to

implement lead prioritization. This is expected to increase cost per lead by 10%. The effect of

this could be seen in table 8. Thus, in this case also there will be almost same amount of loss

as current status of AXA Entity. However, for future scenarios, we will take this as base since

this looks more logical as we have increased our efficiency with same results.

60

Table 8: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead prioritization34


Cost of lead generation (from landing page) Euro/lead 13.2












Leads

converted/

leads sent

9.70%




NBV Euro 29142

Loss Euro -15270


Scenario 3.1 (2013): Increase number of leads generated by 2 times and prioritize leads

In this scenario, we would build on the scenario 2 and generate double the leads by increasing

marketing. Due to this, there will be decrease in cost per lead as fixed costs will remain the


61

same. Cost per lead is expected to come down by 15%. However, there will be increase in

telemarketer costs as to cater to double the volume of leads and the entity would need to hire

3 telemarketers and one coordinator.

The effect of this could be seen in table 9. There is a loss of almost the same amount as

scenario 2. However, this is better than scenario 2, since now we have more leads to process

with same loss and any improvements in efficiency would make it easier to generate profits.

Thus in the future scenarios we will use this scenario as base.

Table 9: Monthly income statement of lead management after lead prioritization and

increasing the number of leads generated by twice35














Leads

converted/

leads sent

9.70%




62


NBV Euro 58283

Loss Euro -15123


Scenario 3.2 (2013): Increase number of leads generated by 4 times and prioritize leads

In this scenario, we would build on the scenario 2 and increase the number of leads generated

by 4 times through increasing marketing. Due to this, there will be decrease in cost per lead as

fixed costs will remain the same. Cost per lead is expected to come down by 25%. The costs

will not come down at the same proportion as in scenario 3.1 because now the additional

sources of lead generation would probably be expensive as all the easy and cheap sources

with good quality would have been exploited in scenario 3.1. However, there will be increase

in telemarketer costs as to cater to four times of leads and we would need to hire 9

telemarketers and 3 coordinators more. Also, percentage of hot leads send to agents to total

leads generated will fall. This is because now the company will be generating leads from

medium not relevant to insurance and thus the quality of leads would go down. The

percentage is expected to drop by 5% decreasing from 44% to 39%.

The effect of this could be seen in table 10. The loss has increased from nearly 15 000 euro to

23 500 euro. Thus, it is clear that too much lead generation is also not good, especially if

telemarketers cost is more. There is a need to find right balance which could be found by

testing different marketing strategies and obtaining a correct number.

Table 10: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead prioritization and

increasing the number of leads generated by four times36





63











Leads

converted/

leads sent

9.70%




NBV Euro 103215

Loss Euro -23481


Scenario 4 (2015): Gain experience of two years in the lead management process, double

the number of leads generated and start prioritization

In this scenario, we will see what will happen if all the other conditions remain same as in

scenario 3.1 except that entity has gained more experience in lead management. Due to this

there will be increase in conversion rate as with telemarketers gaining experience they will

start sending better qualified leads to agents and also agents will have experience in how to

deal with the leads. Due to this, overall conversion rate should increase from 9.7% to 15%.

Also, there will be reduction in costs since entity will have more experience and learn which

online campaigns are generating leads with good quality and thus invest in only those

campaigns. Due to this cost per lead should reduce 10% from 11.22 to 10.1.

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The effect of this could be seen in table 11. Now, the lead management process is expected to

generate nearly 25 000 euro profits. Thus, mainly due to increase in conversion rate, entity‘s

profit will increase with gain in experience.

Table 11: Monthly income statement of lead management after gaining 2 years of experience,

starting lead prioritization and increasing the number of leads generated by two times37














Leads

converted/

leads sent

15.00%




NBV Euro 90129

Profit Euro 24697



65

Scenario 5 (2015): Start lead nurturing, gain experience of two years in the lead

management process, double the number of leads generated and start prioritization

In this scenario, we build on scenario 4. Now, if the AXA Entity will start lead nurturing also

as recommended by AXA there will be some implications. As of scenario 4, only 3 136 out of

a total of 7 120 leads are sent to agents and thus 3 948 leads are lost per month. Thus, to

capture these lost leads it is possible to start lead nurturing. When, telemarketers call leads

they could decide to put them in the nurturing process if they are not sales ready and are not

disqualified. Also, the cold leads not called by telemarketers (30% of leads are cold leads with

low value thus not called) could be entered in the nurturing program as recommended by

AXA.

The effects of this would be that there will be increase in number of hot leads send to agents.

The number is expected to increase by 5% in country A. However, there will be costs

associated with the nurturing process including buying software for sending automated emails,

generating digital content as per different stages of nurturing, modifying the content as per

products, etc. Thus, cost per lead is expected to increase 10%. The effects of this could be

seen in the months‘ income statement in table 12. Thus, actually the profit decreased from

nearly 25 000 per month to nearly 22 000 per month. Thus, for this entity it is not a good idea

to do lead nurturing.

Table 12: Monthly income statement of lead management after starting lead nurturing,

gaining 2 years of experience, starting lead prioritization and increasing the number of leads

generated by two times38








66








Leads

converted/

leads sent

15.00%




NBV Euro 94612

Profit Euro 21989


Additional ways to increase profits of lead management

AXA entity could also improve profits through charging more fees per lead. However, this

would need to be negotiated with agents and the entity would really need to prove the value of

leads to agents. This is more applicable after 5-6 years in the lead management process after

the agents have fully accepted the value of leads send to them. Also, an advanced step of

billing could be to do real time billing of leads as done by airline companies in selling tickets.

Some other ways to explore include outsourcing telemarketing and also using other options of

billing such as agents pre-pay for lead packages per day such as 5-leads per day.

8.2.1. Key learning from the 5 different scenarios

The results of above five scenarios could be summarized in table 13. It is clear from the

numbers that for this AXA entity in country A, it is critical to have high conversion rate to get

profits every month from the lead management process. Some other insights from these

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numbers are discussed in section below. It is to be noted that large number of similar

scenarios could be created for this entity applying different recommendation; however, we

have analyzed scenarios with key recommendations and possibilities.

Table 13: Monthly key results of lead management process of ‗AXA entity in country A‘ as

per different scenarios39

Year

Additional measure as

compared to

current situation

No. of

leads

generate

d

Cost

per

lead

(Euro)

Conv-

ersion

rate

Revenue

per lead

generate

d

(Euro)

Total

Profit

(Euro)

Current

situation 2013 3560 12.68 9.7% 8.6

-

14484

Scenario 1 2013 - Lead sent for free 3560 15.18 5.0% 4.8 -

37047

Scenario 2 2013 - Start lead

prioritization 3560 12.48 9.7% 8.2

-

15270

Scenario

3.1 2013

- Increase number of

leads generated by 2

times

- Prioritize leads

7120 10.31 9.7% 8.2 -

15123

Scenario

3.2 2013



times

- Prioritize leads

14240 8.90 9.7% 7.2 -

23481

Scenario 4 2015

- Gain experience of

two years in the lead

management process



times

- Prioritize leads

7120 9.19 15.0% 12.7 24697

39 Numbers in scenarios are based on expectations and are illustrative

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Scenario 5 2015

- Start lead nurturing

- Gain experience of

two years in the lead

management process



times

- Prioritize leads

7120 10.20 15.0% 13.3 21989


8.2.1.1. Test and learn is key: Confirming AXA’s point-of-view on how to

implement lead management

In the above scenarios, it can be clearly seen that experience matters a lot in lead management

process. Also, costs per lead, billing rate, average price per policy, etc. will be different in

different countries and every company need to find a right combination through applying test

and learn. In scenario 5, after applying lead nurturing for the AXA Entity it was expected that

lead management profit will reduce. However, the situation might be different in some other

entity.

Thus, to implement lead management, an entity must start the process even with some basic

infrastructure in place as done by entity in country A. During the process, the entity must try

new things as recommended for a lead management process by AXA. Through, trying these

things, the entity will discover new things and adapt them as per their needs. Thus, their

profits will increase (see figure 28) as they will learn new things.

Every new process in lead management has its own costs and benefits. It is through test and

learn that an entity could realise true potential of the recommendations given by AXA for

implementing lead management since all recommendations do not apply to all entities the

same.

Test and learn is also recommended by AXA Group to its entities and thus the above

scenarios confirm the view of AXA on how lead management should be done in an entity.

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Figure 28: Per year profit from a typical lead management process

Source: My analysis, interview with Julien Fursat

8.2.1.2. Appropriate number of leads should be generated

It is evident from scenarios 3.1 and 3.2 that generating leads is good but too much lead

generation is not good. Thus, it is important to find a right number of leads an entity should

generate. Revenue generated by leads would increase initially as more and more leads are

generated; however after a stage increase in revenue will not be same as increase in number of

leads. Also, after a stage, the costs to generate leads will start increasing at a much faster pace,

as it will cost more to generate leads from new sources (it is assumed that all the cheap

sources producing good leads would have already been exhausted). Thus, it is important to

find an appropriate number of leads to generate (see figure 29).

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7

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Figure 29: Importance of optimum number of lead generation in lead management

Source: My analysis, interview with Julien Fursat

8.3. Lead management’s profit calculation: Upsell/cross-sell/retain

In the above business case, we have seen profits from lead management process in just one

month. However, the major portion of profits from lead management comes from the

continued revenue an insurance company would earn from their converted leads. Many of the

new customers acquired from lead management will continue to buy policies in coming years

(even if we assume high attrition rates). Another major source of revenue is the opportunity to

cross-sell/upsell to these newly acquired customers. Once company‘s brand is established

with these individuals and also the company has sufficient information about them, it is

possible to sell them new insurance.

Thus from this section 8 it is clear that all the recommendations given by AXA regarding lead

management would not be applicable to all the countries and entities. Every entity must start

small and then try to test and learn to find the recommendations best suited for their business

environment. As they gain experience, their profits would rise. Also, it is important to find

optimum number of leads to generate which could be also found through test and learn.

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9. Conclusion

Rise of internet and multimedia has changed customer expectations in insurance industry. To

cater to this change in expectations, insurance companies such as AXA are trying to transform

their business model. Lead management is an integral part of this digital transformation.

Through lead management companies could bridge the gap between their traditional and

direct (online) distribution channels and instead of competing with each other, different

distribution channels could actually complement each other through lead management.

This paper has allowed understanding how lead management could actually be done in

insurance through a case study of AXA and reviewing existing literature regarding lead

management in different industries. Also, these recommendations have been tested on an

existing lead management model to see their practical implementation. It has been found that

key recommendations by AXA regarding lead management have some gaps and also the

existing literature is not exhaustive and there is scope to do future research in lead

management. Also, not all the recommendations could be applied to all the entities.

Gaps in AXA‘s recommendations have been found in all the three main steps of lead

management: ‗lead generation‘, ‗lead prioritization and allocation‘ and ‗lead nurturing and

conversion‘. For lead generation, AXA must include social media and referrals to increase

number of good quality leads and also include marketing automation for improving lead

generation‘s ROI. The recommendations of AXA for lead prioritization must be modified to

include lead scoring by explicit and implicit indicators40

and categorize leads as per

hot/warm/cold on the basis of their scores. For lead nurturing, AXA must include social as

one of the possible channels to do nurturing effectively at low cost and also take in account

customer‘s preferences to increase efficiency and conversion. However, all the gaps as per the

literature review are not applicable to AXA. Recycling of leads not contacted/converted by

agents would not be applicable to AXA because there will be time lapse reducing chances of

conversion of lead, and thus not giving sufficient ROI to implement lead recycling process.

Furthermore, after testing the recommendations of AXA in one of the AXA entities‘ lead

management model, it has been found that entities need to find an appropriate number of

40 See appendix 3

72

leads to be generated. Also, all the recommendations would not be applicable to all the

entities. Entities need to find right set of processes applicable to them among AXA‘s

recommendations on how to do lead management. To do this, they must start small and keep

testing and learning as they introduce new processes41

. With time, entities will learn what

works best for them and overall efficiency and profits from lead management process will

improve.

9.1. Recommendations for future research

Through the gap analysis done in this paper, gaps have been found in existing literature and it

is also not exhaustive. The literature is more general and not relating to insurance industry.

Another major gap exists in lead conversion. There has not been much research done on how

to increase conversion of leads through engaging sales force by measuring their performance

through KPIs and involving the management. Also, not much research has been done on how

to set up a good governance model to increase conversion of leads. Another research topic for

future research comes from lead generation where AXA proposes involving sales force in

marketing campaigns‘ preparation and execution, and there is no literature regarding that

within lead management. Also, it will be interesting to see lead management in an advanced

stage in an insurance company, and test various scenarios created in section 8 in this paper.

41 Test and learn is also recommended by AXA as highlighted by AXA documents and Yann Bry

73

Appendices

Appendix 1: Major distribution channels in Life and Non-life (P&C) insurance

France

Source: CEA

Germany

Source: CEA

Italy

Source: CEA

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Belgium

Source: CEA

Japan

Source : OECD

Appendix 2: Position of AXA in the insurance industry

75

Appendix 3: Big list of lead scoring rules by Marketo

76

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Affidavit

I the undersigned, Avikar Singh Dhankhar, certify on the honor that I have not plagiarized the

paper enclosed, which means that I am the only author of all the sentences this text is

composed of. Any sentence from a different author than me was written in quotation marks,

with explicit indication of its source. I am aware that by contravening to the present rule, I

break the recognised academic principles and I expose myself to the sanctions the disciplinary

committee will decide on.

I also confirm this work has never been submitted during studies prior to ESCP Europe.

If this work has been written during studies conducted in parallel, I must precise it.

The remarks written in those pages only commit me.

Avikar Singh Dhankhar

Paris, 11 May 2013

Insurance Lead Management

Marketing

Transcript of Insurance Lead Management