A 35% increase in the number of individuals covered on last year has led Cover My Bubble to take on two new recruits within its customer services team.
Owner Emma Astley (pictured) explained the protection advice firm had reached the point where it could no longer put off adding to its team.
The move was off the back of an increase in bubbles covered – increasing from 529 adults, 539 children and 121 baby bumps covered in 2022 to 714 adults, 708 children covered and 180 baby bumps covered so far this year.
And it is this growth that has led to Astley hitting the recruitment trail.
“We could have done it in January but you just put off growing and taking on team members,” Astley told Health & Protection.
“I’ve done this for a long time and I’ve always said I’d never want to take on an adviser because most of the time they come with bad habits and there’s risk there for the business and I never wanted that.
“But we got to a point where we have grown too much. We’re training the team internally so client manager Gemma Pollitt now does the advising with me while Joanne Houghton does a lot of the pre-underwriting and quotes and everything else day-to-day.”
Doubled recruitment after interviews
Astley, initially she planned on taking on just one recruit in customer service.
“We decided to take one other member to come on in the customer service side because we’re known for our customer service and we always want to make sure that the clients are looked after first, because that’s the main priority,” she continued.
“But then when we were interviewing, we had over 100 applicants that came through, so we tried to interview as many as we could.
“We found two ladies that we really liked, so we ended up offering out two roles on the customer side to Frankie McDermott and Laura Gilbey because we need that help to then free up time so Joanne can do more quoting and other things.”
However Astley added she will also spend the next six months training one of her team to become an adviser joining Pollitt and herself.
“That’s what’s needed for the business,” Astley said.
“For me, it’s the right way of doing it – training somebody up with no experience and training them our way and keeping all of our ethics and the customer in mind and that way there’s less risk to the business moving forward really.”