Identifying job skills in commercial advisors in a health insurance company

The aim of this research was to identify the critical

competence of success of the commercial adviser

in a company providing insurance and health services.

For this research a sample of 34 commercial

advisers. The sample was divided into four groups

(two per product and two per criterion of success).

Systematic

fi eld observations, interviews of critical

incidents, application of response tests and sales

workshops were used to evaluate the differential

competences that the successful advisers were

showing in relation to the advisers de

fi ned as average.

The success criteria were based on the generated

commission performance over the 10 months. All

in all, signi

fi cant differences were found between

the “successful” and “average” groups. Furthermore,

competences that correlate positively with a

top sales performance were observed and competences

that have major level of discrimination between

the “successful” and “average” groups were

established. Orientation to achievement, planning

and management, information search, commercial

aggressiveness and strategic vision are the competences

that were considered to be key in the top

performance of a sales agent or commercial adviser.

Additionally, the results in the response tests

were analyzed in the four study groups, without

observing signi

fi cant differences between them,

which supports the theoretical framework of the

present study.