Solutions to enhance commucation skills of financial consultabts with customers at hanwha life insurance, brach office in buon ma thuot city (hanwha life buon ma thuot HLB) dalak province vietnam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Tran Thi Lan

SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF
FINANCIAL CONSULTANTS WITH CUSTOMERS AT HANWHA LIFE
INSURANCE, BRANCH OFFICE IN BUON MA THUOT CITY (HANWHA LIFE
BUON MA THUOT – HLB), DAKLAK PROVINCE, VIETNAM.

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2016


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Tran Thi Lan
SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF FINANCIAL
CONSULTANTS WITH CUSTOMERS AT HANWHA LIFE INSURANCE,
BRANCH OFFICE IN BUON MA THUOT CITY (HANWHA LIFE BUON MA
THUOT – HLB), DAKLAK PROVINCE, VIETNAM.

ID: 22 13 00 34

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: DR LE NHAT HANH

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2016


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I got a lot of helps when I studied MBUS-MBA program and when I did the project,
so, I would like to thank the following people.
Firstly, I want to express my deep gratitude to all the professors at ISB – UEH, who
taught me in MBUS-MBA program.
Secondly, I would like to deeply thank my supervisor Dr Le Nhat Hanh for her
support, patience and help through the pass months
Thirdly, I would like to thank all the professors of the thesis proposal defending
council and the draft thesis suggestion council, who gave the helpful comment for me to
complete the project in the right direction
I also want to thank Mss Binh and Miss My Anh in my group research shared the
documents and encouraged me in the study period and doing thesis process
In addition, I want to say thanks to all the staffs, consultants and customers of
Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot, who provided documents, answered the questionnaires and
gave the feedback for finishing this project.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my class mates in MBUS 4.2, my colleagues
at Tay Nguyen University and my family members support me to complete this project.
Students

Tran Thi Lan


LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND TRANSCRIPTS
Table 1.2: New exploiting premium and the quantity of new contract ............................... 5
Table 2.1. Strategies evaluation ......................................................................................... 24
Table 2.2. Cost and benefit of three alternative solutions ................................................. 26
Table 3.1. Detailed implementation plan .......................................................................... 30

Figure 1.1: The share of premium turnover and new exploiting premium of Vietnamese
insurance market .................................................................................................................. 4
Figure 1.2: Development of coffee price over the world .................................................... 8
Figure 1.3: Cause - and - effect map ................................................................................. 16
Transcript 1.1. The number of life insurance policy that were sold by each financial
consultants in 2014 .............................................................................................................. 6
Transcript 4.1: Customers’ assessing about communication skill of PruB’s financial
consultants ......................................................................................................................... 40
Transcript 4.2. Customers’ assessing about communication skill of HLB’s financial
consultants ......................................................................................................................... 42
Transcript 4.3a: Interview financial consultants to identify the most important causes of
the problem ........................................................................................................................ 43
Transcript 4.3b: Interview financial consultants to identify the most important causes of
the problem ........................................................................................................................ 43
Transcript 4.3c: Interview financial consultants to identify the most important causes of
the problem ........................................................................................................................ 44
Transcript 4.4a: Interview customers to identify the most important causes of the problem ...... 45
Transcript 4.4b: Interview customers to identify the most important causes of the problem......... 46


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
HLB .................................................................................. Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot
PruB ...................................................................................... Prudential Buon Ma Thuot
VCCI ....................................................... Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry
BOD ....................................................................................................Board of Directors


TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................
Chapter 1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION........................................................................ 1

1.1. Company background ................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Background of problem ................................................................................................ 3
1.2.1. Symptoms .................................................................................................................. 3
1.2.2. Possible problems ...................................................................................................... 7
1.3. Problem justification................................................................................................... 10
1.3.1. Problem definition ................................................................................................... 10
1.3.2. Justify the existence of the central problem ............................................................ 12
1.3.3. Justify the importance of the problem ..................................................................... 13
1.4. Potential causes of the problem .................................................................................. 14
1.5. Causes validation ........................................................................................................ 17
CHAPTER 2: ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION ANALYSIS .............................................. 21
2.1. Alternative Solutions .................................................................................................. 21
2.1.1. Training ................................................................................................................... 21
2.1.2. Teamwork ................................................................................................................ 23
2.1.3. Dismissal and recruitment ....................................................................................... 23
2.2. Solution comparison ................................................................................................... 23
2.3. Select the best solution ............................................................................................... 27
CHAPTER 3: ACTION PLAN ......................................................................................... 29
3.1. Business goals............................................................................................................. 29
3.2. Objectives ................................................................................................................... 29
3.3. Cost and benefit of three alternative solutions ........................................................... 29
3.4. Detailed implementation plan ..................................................................................... 29
Chapter 4. SUPPORTING INFORMATION .................................................................... 31
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 48


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot (HLB) offers the protection that is against the loss of
income when the insured people pass away, get older or have a serious risk. The
company provides life insurance for customers in Buon Ma Thuot city and Dak Lak

Provice.
Because life insurance is a special product, so in almost cases, an insurance policy is
sold by a financial consultant. Like other life insurance companies, HLB introduces and
sales their product directly to customers by the financial consultant force. However, after
six year launching their business in Buon Ma Thuot from 2009, almost all of the years,
HBL got lost a lot of money. In addition, share of new exploiting premium and the share
of premium turnover are much less than other life insurance companies in the area.
Moreover, the information about purposes of life insurance product are not transferred
sufficiently and HLB’s financial consultants sold less amount of life insurance policies
and less premium than other financial consultants at other life insurance companies.
Our group research conducted a project to find out the roof of problem that make
HLB have those bad symptoms. After research the real situation at HLB, we found that
HLB has a problem about communication skill of their financial consultants. The
financial consultants cannot explain thoroughly to make customers believe and choose
their product.
We discussed with the board manager to give three alternative solutions for solving
the problem, which are Training, Teamwork and dismissal & recruitment. After
comparing the solutions we found that training bring more benefit and less time and cost


than other two strategies, so we selected training as a best solution for the problem. It
takes four and a haft month for this solution. Lectures from short-term department
training of Tay Nguyen University will help HLB two weeks to coach all financial
consultants for training listening skill, understanding customers & sympathy. The Board
of managers will undertake to train knowledge of product in four months. Training
programs will apply on all financial consultants in 2016 to help HLB do their business
more effectively than the previous time.


1

Chapter 1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1.1. Company background

Hanwha Group (Hanwha Life insurance, n.d) was founded in 1952, one of the top 10
conglomerates in Korea and top 500 in the world with 3 divisions:
• Manufacturing & Construction.
•Finance.
•Service & Leisure.
Hanwha Group has diversified its business portfolio with 142 affiliates (52 affiliates
in Korea and 90 affiliates overseas) such as Hanwha Corp., Hanwha SolarOne, Hanwha
Q.Cell), Hanwha Chemical, Hanwha Engineering & Construction, Hanwha Life
Insurance, and Hanwha Hotel & Resorts across other 19 countries, including Canada,
China, Czech, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italia, Japan, Philippines,
Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States
and Vietnam.
Hanwha Life Insurance (the former name called Korea Life Insurance) was
established in 1946, which is the oldest life insurance company in Korea. The company
has grown to be the country’s leading life insurer with total assets of 80 billion US Dollar
and an AAA solvency rating from prominent rating agencies.
Hanwha Life Vietnam (formerly Korea Life Vietnam) was granted the establishment
and operation license No. 51GP/KDBH on June 12th, 2008 with the name of Korea Life
Vietnam. In January 2013 Korea Life Vietnam was changed the name to Hanwha Life


2

Vietnam to create brand identity for the group. Hanwha Life Vietnam has the charter
capital of 1,891,140,000,000 VND and becomes one of leading life insurers which having

highest capital in Vietnam.
Since 1 Apr 2009, Hanwha Life Vietnam has introduced insurance products to
Vietnamese customers. Up to now, after 6 years of operation, Hanwha Life Vietnam has
been honor granted Golden Dragon Award in 4 consecutive years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
for “Best financial services”. This is prestige award granted by Vietnam Economic
Times,

VCCI

and

Ministry

of

Planning

and

Investment.

Hanwha Life Vietnam is having nearly 250 staffs and nearly 18,000 Financial
Consultants working in 45 offices on nationwide. Currently, Hanwha Life Vietnam is
being trusted by nearly 69,000 (until May 2015) customers and their families. The
company’s vision is through life insurance, to help Vietnamese plan the future and make
their dreams come true.
In 2009, Hanwha life also opened branch offices at Ho Chi Minh City, Buon Ma
Thuot and Ha Noi. The address of Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot is 3rd, The Central
Office Building, 1-3 No Trang Long Street, Buon Ma Thuot City, Dak Lak province,
Vietnam with two general agency offices at Eaka District and Buon Ho District.

The office in Buon Ma Thuot is providing six kinds of life insurance product for Dak
Lak insurance market, namely as Revamped universal life with guaranteed insurability
option (AN KHANG TÀI LỘC), Triple care critical illnesses endowment (AN KHANG
PHÚC LỘC), Family package (GÓI SẢN PHẨM AN KHANG TOÀN GIA), Education
Plan 2015 Endowment (HANWHA LIFE- AN TÂM HỌC VẤN), Endowment With


3

Annuity Income Benefits (AN KHANG BÁCH NIÊN TOÀN DIỆN) and Short Term
Endowment (AN SINH TÍCH LŨY NGẮN HẠN).
Although Hanwa life insurance is the first life insurance company belonging to the
top group in Korea, after six years launching their business in Buon Ma Thuot (BMT)
with the office named HLB, they face some symptoms that bad affecting to their
business.
1.2. Background of problem
1.2.1. Symptoms
The purpose of doing business is getting profit. However, HBL had lost in
consecutive four years recently from 2011 to 2014 with the large amount of money.

Table 1.1: Net loss/profit of HLB and PruB from 2011 to 2014
Unit: billion VND
HLB

HLB/PruB

Prudential Buon
Ma Thuot (PruB)

2011

(6,735)

2,950

2012

(5,931)

3,000

2013

(5,787)

4,400

2014

(5,736)

4,700

+-

%

-9,685

-228.3

-5,931

-97.7

-10,187

-131.5

-13,436

-185.9

(Source: Annual report of HLB and Prudential Buon Ma Thuot)


4

6,000
4,700

4,400

4,000
3,000

2,950
2,000

HLB

0
2011

2012

2013

2014

-2,000

Prudential Buon Ma
Thuot (PruB)

-4,000
-6,000
-8,000

-5,931

-5,787

-5,736

-6,735
Net loss/profit of HLB and PruB from 2011 to 2014

The number in table 2.1 shows that over six billion VND lost in 2011 and more than
five billion lost in each three years later were the loss that HLB have to face with in their

business.
In addition, low share of premium turnover and share of new exploiting premium are
existing not only in HLB but also in Hanwha Life Vietnam.
Figure 1.1: The share of premium turnover and new exploiting premium of Vietnamese
insurance market

The share of premium turnover

New exploiting premium

We can see the share of premium turnover and share of new exploiting premium of
Source: Hong Hai, April 2015

As regard to Vietnamese’s life insurance market in February 2015 in figure 2.1, only
2.1% premium turnover were received by two life insurance companies namely as


5

Generali Life and Hanwha Life. New exploiting premium of Hanwha Life was also very
low, which was in 9.24% with others life insurance companies. According baochinhphu
(September 2014), there were 17 life insurance companies have been operated in
Vietnam, so 9.24% new exploiting premium was for 10 companies in which have
Hanwha Life. The situation is similar in HLB, according to annual report four years
recently of HLB and Prudential Buon Ma Thuot (PruB),

Table 1.2: New exploiting premium and the quantity of new contract
HLB

HLB/PruB

Prudential Buon
Ma Thuot (PruB)

+-

%

1. New exploiting premium (billion VND)

2011

2.5

58.5

56

4.2

2012

4

62.3

-58.3

6.42

2013

3.2

70

-66.8

4.57

2014

4.6

75.8

-71.2

6.07

-24,624

3.7

-22,000

6.2

-23,610

6.7

-32,469

6.5

2. The number of new life insurance contracts (contract)

2011

950

25,574

2012

1,452

23,452

2013

1,705

25,315

2014

2,267

34,736

(Source: Annual report of HLB and Prudential Buon Ma Thuot)

As we see in the table 2.2, all HLB’s norms were much less than PruB. Specifically,
HLB’s new exploiting premium and the number of new life insurance contracts from
2011 to 2014 were under 7% that compared to PruB.


6

Moreover, the information about purposes of life insurance product are not transferred
sufficiently. Mrs Hoa, who is a customer, said that her daughter’s friend (an HBL’s
financial consultant) always introduce her to buy life insurance policy by convincing that
the interest of HBL products are much higher than deposit in a bank. She knows clearly
that participate life insurance not for interest, the real purpose is for risk. She got angry
about to the wrong explanation of HBL’s financial consultants. She said Prudential’s
consultants explain more clearly and persuasively than HBL’s consultants, so she chose
Prudential and at the moment, she has a three - year - life insurance policy with
Prudential Buon Ma Thuot. When we interview seven customers, up to six people did not
chose Hanwha Life, in which, three people chose prudential, two of them selected Bao
Viet, one people choose to deposit in a bank. There was only one person selected
Hanwha Life.
Last but not least, all HLB’s financial consultants sold less amount of life insurance
policies and less premium than other financial consultants at other life insurance
companies. We can see this situation in the following transcript 2.1:
Transcript 1.1. The number of life insurance policy that were sold by each financial
consultants in 2014
Questions
Customers

Mr Nghia (HLB’s financial consultants)
(30 years old, photocopy shop keeper)
Miss Huyen (HLB’s financial
consultants) (36 years old, housewife)
Miss Huong (HLB’s financial consultant)

The quantity of
life insurance
policy that each
people sold

Average
premium for
each policy
(million VND)

Total
premium
that each
people got
(millionVND)

5

4

20

3

6

18

6

4.5

27


7

(38 years old, house holder)
Mr Dung (PruB financial consultant) (62
years old, retired)
Mr Giang (Bao Viet Life Buon Ma
Thuot)
(35 Years Old, Construction advise and
designer)
Mr Hue (Prudential consultant) (32 years
old house holder)

22

7.5

165

18

9

162

19

6.5

123.5

(Source: Interview life insurance’s financial consultants in Buon Ma Thuot)
As we see in the above transcript 2.1, while financial consultant from other life
insurance companies earned more than one hundred million VND for their companies in
2014, HLB’s financial consultants earned only less than 30 million VND for HLB.
In conclusion, HLB is facing some symptoms including making loss in their business,
having low share of premium turnover and share of new exploiting premium, transferring
information about product insufficiently, less customers chose to buy life insurance
policy from HLB and each HLB’s financial consultant sold less life insurance policies &
got less premium than the financial consultants from others companies. To remedy those
symptoms, it is crucial to find out a key problem that is the reason of those bad states.
1.2.2. Possible problems
The brief interview with Board of managers, the marketing lecturer from Tay Nguyen
University, HLB’s financial consultants and customers revealed that there might be some
possible issues, which lead to the aforementioned symptoms. First of all, Dak Lak
province is a capital city of coffee production, so the economy depends on the price of
coffee. However, the coffee price reduced from 2011 to 2015 (figure 1.1) that make the
economic growth of the province difficulty. Ms Huong who is a financial consultant at

8

HLB told us that customers often refused to buy life insurance policy because the
reducing of coffee price make their income lost a lot, they may not save money to buy
life insurance product.
Figure 1.2: development of coffee price over the world

Source: TradingCharts.com)

(

The second problem that makes HBL lose in their business is high competition
environment. There are 17 life insurance companies are operating in Dak Lak Province
(Baochinhphu, 2014), in which, some strong and big companies, such as Bao Viet life,
Prudential, Diichi life or Manulife always gain the trust of customers.
The problem that makes HLB has those bad symptoms may be customers’ knowledge
about life insurance. One of my friends, Ms Binh from Phu Nhuan District HCM city said
that she hate life insurance. She has a default felling that Vietnamese life insurance is
mainly fraud, participating life insurance lose a lot of money without much protection, so
she does not mind life insurance.
The problem may also come from marketing strategy. Ms Hiep, a marketing lecture
from Tay Nguyen University said that a company has a good marketing strategy help


9

increase profit because customers will believe and chose to buy product from the
company.
The final issue of those symptoms may be about low communication skill of financial

consultants. According to Mr Thieu Quang Manh, the manager of sales department, good
communication skill of financial consultants help customers understand clearly about life
insurance and help them chose the appropriate life insurance policy for their life, so the
company will increase their revenue. The theories shows that there are the two types of
insurance companies, that are Life insurance companies which sell life insurance,
annuities and pensions products and the Non-life or general insurance companies which
sell other types of insurance (Vaughan and Vaughan, 2008). According to Babbel (1985)
life insurance may be “characterized as a “sold good” not a “bought good”. Choudhuri
(2013) showed that financial consultants, internet, family members, colleagues and
friends play the important roles to the customers in selecting life insurance product.
However, (Crosby and Cowles, 1986; Clow and Vorhies,1993; Richard and Allaway,
1993) indicated that 80% of the cases, an insurance policy is almost always sold by a
financial consultant, who is the customer’s only contact, so communication skills of
financial consultants is very important for customers to believe and choose a life
insurance product.
Base on the possible issues at HLB, we discussed with the board of managers and
know that the price of coffee decrease make the economy difficulty and high competition
environment are existing that have bad affect on HLB business. However, customers’
knowledge do not exist because six over seven customers we interview understand


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clearly about life insurance, they know the effect of life insurance with people life, they
need insurance. They also know about Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot through advertising
program on TV or youtube website. Ms Hoa told us that life insurance is very important
for her family life because when she and her husband get older or get risk, she will not
depend on her children. Now she has two life insurance policies from Prudential Buon
Ma Thuot. When we asked why she did not choose Hanwha Life, she explain that HLB’s
financial consultants do not understand her and give her the wrong explanation about life

insurance. She said she needs the protection from life insurance but HLB’s financial
consultants convince her to buy life insurance because of interest rate. Through the
interview with Ms Hoa and othes customers we can see that problem with
communication skills are existing in Hanwha Life Buon Ma Thuot. As regard to the
marketing strategy, Mr Thieu Quang Manh said that when launched their business in
Buon Ma Thuot from 2009 up to now, HLB always research the target customers, add the
extra benefits associated with the main product to reach the customer need. The company
also cost a lot of money for advertising on TV and other medias and the fact that
customers know clearly about Hanwha Life.
In conclusion, three possible problems are existing at HLB are decreasing of coffee
price, high competition environment and financial consultants’ communication skill.
However, the first two issues are outside factors that HLB cannot give solution. Our
group research decides to concentrate on the third one.
1.3. Problem justification
1.3.1. Problem definition


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As we mentioned above, communication skills are very important to financial
consultants. According to Skillyourneed (nd), communication is the way to transfer
information from one place to another, and how well the information can be conveyed
and received is a measure of how good communication skills are.
Hamid, Sara and Rabia (nd) showed that effective communication depends on one’s
competency in communication. Communication involves purpose and efforts from both
the sender of the message and the receiver. It's a process that can be filled with error such
as with messages mess (i.e., mixed up by the sender, or misinterpreted by the recipient).
Miscommunication is avoidable. However, if this isn't detected, it can cause tremendous
confusion, waste efforts and miss opportunities.
According to Lawrence, Jeanne and Melinda (2015), effective communication

combines a set of skills including nonverbal communication, engaged listening,
managing stress in the moment, the ability to communicate assertively, and the capacity
to recognize and understand one’s own emotions and those of the person that he is
communicating with.
Maria (nd) indicated that one of the skills of financial planner is communication. The
financial consultant must communicate clearly with clients verbally and in writing. They
also have to convey complex topics into easy-to-understand summaries for clients who
may not have a lot of knowledge in the areas in which they are seeking advice. When a
financial consultant devises a financial plan, they will be taking into account confidential
and personal details, so tact, sensitivity to clients' needs and trustworthiness are personal
characteristics they must be able to communicate to their clients. In addition, they are


12

also trying to sell the clients a product - financial plan - so marketing and selling skills
are useful.
1.3.2. Justify the existence of the central problem
To investigate whether low communication skill of financial consultants existing or not,
we used the questionnaires of (Roemary and Ravipreet, 1997; Megumi, Katsutoshi and
Hitoshi, 2006; Pierrette, 1999). The questionnaire include 11 multiple choice questions
with seven point scale ranging from 1 (not agree) to 7 (totally agree) for comparing
communication skill between HLB’s financial consultants and PruB’s consultants, and
the detailed questionnaires and questions of the interviews were attached in the support
information questionnaire 4.3.
We sent out 50 questionnaires to conduct the result of multiple questions and found
that the average result of HLB’s financial consultants were 2.4 to 3.7, meanwhile, PruB
financial consultants got the results of 5.5 to 5.9, which indicate that HLB’s financial
consultants really have low communication skill. Some customers were not satisfied
when they talked about HLB’s financial consultants because they were bothered so

regularly and transferred the wrong information about purpose of life insurance product.
Mr Canh (a customer) said that his wife’s friend (an HLB’s financial consultant)
convinced him regularly to buy life insurance policy, but did not understand his and his
family need, just convinced about high interest of product. He do not need high interest
as HLB’s financial consultants said, he need protection, he chose to buy life insurance
from Bao Viet because he said the financial consultant there provide him the right
product to protect his family from loss income if he gets risk. He said that if HLB’s


13

products have higher interest than bank why HLB does not change to a bank. Besides
interviewing customers, we asked HBL’s financial consultants and got the similar result
to the answers of customers. Miss Huong, who is an HBL’s financial consultants said that
all their customers are their dear people such as neighbors, relatives and coworkers, so
she can tell the dear people to support them with buying life insurance policies, she think
what her company provide, which fit with the need of customers. The outcome of the
interview illustrates the existing problem of the company recently: financial consultants
have low communication skill with customers.
1.3.3. Justify the importance of the problem
According to MSG (nd), “marketing communications is essentially a part of the
marketing mix. The marketing mix defines the 4Ps of marketing and Promotion is what
marketing communications is all about”. As we mentioned before, life insurance is a
special product, so marketing communication strategy of life insurance companies are
mainly by financial consultants. Mr Cuong, an HLB’s board of manager member said
that they use financial consultants to convey their product to customers because life
insurance has a lot of difficult specialty terms and only salespeople can explain clearly
that life insurance terms in life insurance policy to customers. Owen (1997) believed that
communication skills of salespeople affect on buying decision of customers, so if a
salesperson has good communication skills, they will improve their return and increase

profit for their company. Once salespeople elevate communication skills to a pro level,
they can improve sales and relate better to prospects (John, 2014).


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In conclusion, communication skills of financial consultants are very crucial to a life
insurance company to enhance buying decision of customers, improve sales volume of
each sale people, increase profit for the company and relate better to prospects.
1.4. Potential causes of the problem
Based on the review of literature, and the discussion with financial consultants &
customers there are numerous factors that would cause the problem, the factors can be
generally categorized as two groups: external and internal factors.
External factors: The Hanwha group decided to change the name from Korea Life
insurance to Hanwha Life in 2013 makes financial consultants difficult to read the name
and explain it to the customers. In addition, customer’s emotion is one of the external
factors because some customers do not like life insurance and they have bad image with
life insurance, they will not willing to talk to salesperson anymore. When we interview
seven customers, one of them chose deposit in bank because she did not want to buy life
insurance.
Internal factors: Inefficient of financial consultants’ communication of HLB comes
from the many factors. According to Wendy (nd), “nearly all sales experts agree that
knowing at least the basics about your product is critical to selling it effectively.
However, understanding your product is even more helpful”. Knowing well with the
product is true with life insurance because signing a life insurance policy is not similar to
depositing in a bank. Besides interest that HLB’s financial consultants often show to the
customers, they should understand more about other financial benefit of life insurance to
explain clearly to customers, for example, the benefit when policyholder getting risk,

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saving target or investment goal. Training program of the company to help the
salespeople understand the clauses in life insurance policy and the benefits that life
insurance bringing to the customers is a cause that affect on communication skill of
salespeople. John Asher (2014) and Brian Tracy (nd) showed that listening skill to find
out the customers’ need to give suitable life insurance product is also a cause that affect
on communication skill. Focus on solutions (John Asher., 2014), because life insurance is
a special service product, it provide tool for the risk of lost financial resources in the
future of the clients. Understanding what the customers worried about future financial
reducing, for example, retire for age, cost of raise children in the future or give inherit for
their after generation, etc, the financial consultant will be successful in their career, more
contract will be sole. An examination of the differences between male and female
salespersons by industrial buyers (Swanet al., 1984) considered such attributes as an
understanding of other people, friendliness, vigor and drive, knowing how to listen,
inquisitiveness,

confidence,

self-reliance,

preparation

for

sales

presentations,

understanding buyers' problems, and a personalized presentation for each buyer. Mayer

and Greenberg's(1964) classic elucidation of the traits of the successful salesperson
identified only two attributes: empathy (the ability to feel as the customer does) and ego
drive (a strong personal need to make the sale). An extensive study of the determinants of
salesperson performance (a meta-analysis of 116 papers) by Churchill et al. (1985)
concluded that the determinants of salesperson performance were ordered as follows:
personal factors such as, abnormal psychology and experience; skill; role variables;
aptitude; motivation; and organizational/environmental factors.


16

Base on the interviews with members of HLB & the customers and seeking out the
factors that effecting on communication skill of financial consultants of HLB, the
following cause - and -effect map has been developed.
Internal factors
- Knowledge of the product
(Wendy, nd)
- Ego drive (a strong personal
need to make the sale) (Mayer
and Greenberg's, 1964)
- Personal factors such as,
abnormal psychology and
experience (Churchill et al.,
1985)
- Knowing how to listen (John,
2014; Brian Tracy, nd; Swan et
al., 1984).
- Understanding customers’
needs (Swan et al., 1984).

Figure 1.3: Cause - and - effect map

Making lost in business

Transferring information about
product insufficiently

Communication
skills of HLB’s
financial
consultants

- Low amount of customers and
premium that HLB gain three year
recently

- Less people choose to buy
insurance contract from HLB
External factors
- Changing the name from
Korea Life insurance to
Hanwha Life in 2013 makes
financial consultants difficult
to read the name and explain
it to the customer
(Interview HLB’s financial
consultant)
- Customers’ emotion
(Interview customers)

Each HLB’s financial consultants
sold less life insurance policies &
got less premium than the
financial consultants from others
companies


17

HLB cannot control the external causes, so we will study more about internal factors
to give solution for solving problem.
1.5. Causes validation
Base on the probably causes that were listed on the Cause - and - effect map and the
research questionnaires of (Pierrette, 1999; Optimal thinking, nd; Knowing your
products, nd), we created two questionnaires (Questionnaire 4.4&4.5) to find out the
main causes of inefficiency’s communication skill of HLB’s financial consultants. The
notice that only internal factors will be focus on, because the company cannot control
outside factors, and we also reject ego driver and abnormal psychology of financial
consultants when assessing communication skills.
Our group used questionnaire 4.4 to make in – depth interview with five financial
consultants and found that no causes with experience because all HBL’s financial
consultants who were interviewed have two years or more worked for HBL. Although
experience is not the causes of inefficient communication skills of HLB’s financial
consultants, other reasons include listening skill, understanding customers and knowing
about life insurance and HLB’s product are really the main reasons of the problem. The
review indicates that HLB’s financial consultants introduce life insurance product to
customers, but they do not use listening skill well and not base on the customers need. All
their customers are their dear people such as neighbors, relatives and coworkers. HLB’s
financial consultants tell the dear people to support them with buying life insurance
contract.