While your insurance agency may have preliminary training for all new employees, after some time employees can get comfortable in their roles and forget some of the basics or lack innovation if training isn’t’ continued. Because customer service and positively representing the agency are essential, ALL agencies should consider allocating resources to continued training throughout employees’ tenure.

In order to sell an insurance product, your employees need training on ways to present themselves to customers to get a sale going. Since the culture of the insurance business is centered on sales and presenting a positive imagine, here are some training methods to include in order to get your agents on the same page:

• Sales talk tracks: All effective salespeople have a go-to script or “talk track” when talking with potential customers. In rare cases, an experienced salesperson will be able to talk on the fly at any given moment, but for a beginner or even an experienced sales team, a best practice is to have each agent work on his or her sales pitch. This sales pitch will be the go-to when convincing customers to sign up with your agency. It should be practiced until it’s memorized.

• Objection killers: The ability to deal smartly with a “sales objection” draws the line between a good and mediocre salesperson. Essentially, a sales objection is when a customer “objects” or disagrees with whatever the agent is telling them. In some cases, the salesperson may be inclined to respond with negativity, making the customer feel insecure and uncomfortable. However, the opposite is what should be happening. Sales objections should be dealt with positive energy and a good agent will ask the customer questions about the objection to understand it better. As part of your training, create some scenarios in which one agent plays a customer with the objection, and another plays the agent trying to get around the problem.

• CSRs aren’t off the hook: Your customer service representatives (CSRs) should also be getting the proper training required to deal with any inquiries that come their way. It’s important because they are often the first point of contact for customers and prospects. Many local agencies hire family friends or relatives as their CSRs, but in some cases this may not be a good idea. A wise agency will invest the extra money on a more capable and experienced CSR to handle customers correctly.

Now more than ever is the time to begin seriously implementing a continuous training program in your agency. Insurance sales training should not be done once and then forgotten about. Training should be occurring every day so your agents and CSRs are always on their toes and learning something new about your agency, your products, your sales demographic and themselves.