Zaobao Interview: Business Center

You set up business centres to allow consumers to seek free financial and insurance advice and having salaried agents to man the counters.

Some Income agents felt they have been undercut. Has Income indeed gotten such feedback from agents on this? If so, what's the nature of the feedback?

What about on the part of "walk-in" consumers, are they worried about the follow-up of their cases. What's the feedback of consumers on this thus far? Will appreciate that you give an overall picture on number of people who have visited the business centres and bought some policieis. How many such centres are there now?

Reply:

This year, we introduced serveral sales promotions and marketing campaigns. They provide a lot of sale opportunities for our 700 full time insurance agents. We are able to generate 25,000 new sales leads each month. Most of our active agents are so busy following up on these sales leads that they have no time to worry about the business centers.

A small number of less active agents still complain about the business center, but this is diminishing. A small handful who were strongly against this concept have left us. The remaining agents are adjusting well and are benefitting from the new sales opportunities.

We set up the business centers to cater to a new market. There are customers who prefer to visit or telephone our business center to talk to a salaried consultant. As the consultant are not paid any commission, the customer feel that they are not being pushed to buy the product. The feedback from the customers who visit the business center is positive. The business centers see a steady increase of business.

We operate two business centers now, with 80 salaried consultants. We aim to open a total of four business centers with 200 salaried consultants by end of 2007.

Tan Kin Lian