Case Study
How Brokers Work Research
MetLife identifies broker pain points and how they can help
Client Background
MetLife is one of the world’s leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individuals and institutional customers. Founded in 1868, MetLife has operations in more than 40 markets globally and holds leading positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Problem
MetLife’s Group Insurance Business wanted to gain a better understanding of group employee benefits brokers and consultants. Brokers and consultants play an integral role in recommending and ultimately selling MetLife’s group insurance products, such as dental insurance, disability insurance, etc. MetLife sought to understand how brokers spend their time on an average day and what day-to-day challenges they face, in order to develop better broker relationships and to offer programs and services to better serve brokers.
Details
MetLife partnered with PeopleMetrics to help them with this initiative. PeopleMetrics designed a research study that engaged a small number of brokers over a four-week time period, tracked their daily activities, and gathered pain points and frustrations across aspects of all their daily activities. In total, 106 in-depth one-on-one telephone interviews were conducted. The approach replicated ethnographic principles where possible in a B2B setting, for example, contacting brokers immediately after daily activities such as key sales meetings. Benefits of this approach included several of those that are typical to ethnography: immediacy, thoroughness, and serendipity. PeopleMetrics recorded, transcribed, categorized, and analyzed ideas and data points collected over the four-week period.
Outcomes
Through analysis and content coding, over 150 unique frustrations/challenges that brokers face were identified, and those were further categorized into 25 common areas of frustration. MetLife used these insights to expand broker relationships, improve turnaround times, and streamline service and communications with brokers.