Cross selling voluntary benefits

What are the elements of a cross-selling strategy and how can you find success in applying these elements?

Let's say, as an example, you sold a new customer a voluntary dental plan. This likely took place in concert with the renewal date of a core medical plan. Dental insurance will almost always be placed through a Section 125 FSA plan, so it needs to be part of a group's open enrollment.

However, other voluntary benefits can be made effective anytime.

Open enrollment is a hectic time for employers and employees alike. So after your case is installed and the rush fades, it is an excellent time to plan a post-implementation review meeting between your organization and the client. This session should always include a discussion of additional benefit opportunities. During a post-implementation session, make it your focus to suggest such voluntary products as universal or whole life insurance, critical illness or individual worksite disability, which are all normally enrolled off-cycle. Using this opportunity when there is more time to focus on the specialized value of voluntary plans can lead to cross-selling success.

For example, it's been my experience that employers who signed up for a voluntary universal life plan are also more likely to be interested in picking up voluntary critical illness coverage and voluntary disability.

Nearly every broker's Web page will list "voluntary benefit products." You want to make sure that someone who's interested in voluntary short term disability can get better information from your Web site than from your competitors' on reasons to buy, choice of plan designs, carriers, underwriting methods, group and individual options, etc.

Web pages that offer the name and contact data of the broker's staff specialist for a given product are a step better, because this adds a personal touch, especially if there's a photo included. Perhaps a quote from a staff specialist might appear.

Throughout the year, your clients should be reminded of cross-benefit opportunities -- through your newsletters, during client service checkpoint meetings, by means of your telephone system (when calls are on hold), and even places like messages on your fax cover page.

Building a culture of cross selling within your organization includes an aggressive outgoing strategy that starts with the initial sale and follows up with letters, meetings, Web-based tools, newsletters and phone calls.

Constant cross-selling, besides making more revenue for your organization and curtailing opportunities for your competitors, builds the relationship between you and your client, making it ever-dynamic rather than static.

A client that views your organization as a constant source of ideas and added services is much more likely to continue to give you business, and rely on you as a key source of the latest benefits information.