A member-owned Mutual society, Foresters Friendly is a financial services company that has a history dating back to the 1830s.
With no shareholders to report to and real people available to talk to, the company has the freedom to invest funds for its 75,000 members in products that align with individual goals and needs.
They provide tax-free savings products for all ages as well as insurance policies, with all customers becoming instant members to the society.
Annual memberships come with multiple benefits such as access to financial and emotional support as well as discretionary grants that could help with debt, healthcare and education costs.
What they Needed
Foresters Friendly Society were excellent at generating leads and prospective member enquiries, but the customer service team wanted to improve on their communication methods.
Being regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, the team at Foresters have to ensure they are compliant in any work they carry out, meaning they need to support people with their enquiries without giving financial advice.
Priding themselves on the human touch, the businesses needed to develop better methods for extracting the right information from a potential customer so they could give the right level of detail for the products available.
What We Did
After the discovery meeting to uncover the core objectives of the business and help us understand their challenges, we suggested some group customer service training.
Bite-sized online customer service training sessions were held with the entire team over a two-month period with the aim of improving the end-to-end experience for the customer and ensuring Foresters stood out from their competitors for the personal approach they were renowned for.
We developed the teams questioning and listening techniques, demonstrated how to build better rapport, and how to qualify the customers requirements that would help the team have more natural conversations with people they were trying to help.
The sessions were delivered in a fun, friendly and interactive way. At the end of each session, the team were tasked with putting the new skills they’d learned into practice so that this could be evaluated in the next session.
Together, we trialled different approaches for delivering the information that would help the customer make an informed decision.
The Result
Feedback from the initial training was described as high quality and exceptionally useful, giving the team a huge confidence boost and improving their overall job satisfaction too.
In terms of the impact to the bottom line, the call-to-product purchase conversion rate increased, generating an uplift in sales revenue which was 75% above target.
Foresters were so happy with the training and outcomes, that we’ve now been engaged to carry out 1-2-1 coaching on an ongoing basis so that we can support team members with individual challenges and areas they’d like to improve.
What They Say
Grant Streader
Head of Insurance Operations, Foresters Friendly Society
“The training and ongoing support delivered by Zest has been instrumental in helping us develop a team that made 2021 a record year for single premium sales. We believe a combination of this training and changing attitudes towards savings helped us to generate more than £11million in revenue against a target of £6.8million.
“Our staff are now confident, equipped and upskilled in customer communications and have enjoyed learning and progressing together. We have had nothing but positive feedback from all staff involved, including managers up the chain too, some of whom have also been supported with professional development. I would 100% recommend Kristy and her team.”
Sally Waterfield
Head of Marketing, Foresters Friendly Society
“Zest is a lovely company a lovely company to work with and provides successful outcomes. Kristy is always very obliging to help overcome obstacles/challenges and the support she has provided our team has been very well received and put to good use! The comprehensive training programme has boosted team confidence meaning they can provide a better, more considered, service to members. It has also enhanced their conversion skills.”
