In the insurance sector, strong client relationships are built on trust, listening and consultative selling. Advisors must master not only product knowledge but also the nuances of conversation and relationship-building. To sharpen these skills across its network of advisors in Greece, Interamerican launched an innovative training initiative: the Role-Play Championship, a gamified learning experience that combines practice, peer feedback and healthy competition.
Interamerican is a leading insurance company in Greece, active for over 50 years. Its network includes approximately 800 tied insurance advisors operating across the country. While not employees, these tied agents serve as the company’s primary distribution channel and are central to its long-term success.
Traditionally, the company’s centrally organized sales workshops — whether delivered physically or digitally — included extensive role-play sessions. These consistently stood out in participant feedback as both highly enjoyable and impactful. At the branch level, however, training often remains focused on product knowledge, with little to no structured role-play practice. As a result, advisors missed valuable opportunities to rehearse the conversational and consultative skills that are critical to their success. The Role-Play Championship was created to address this gap by gamifying role-play and embedding it as a sustainable practice across all branches.
The Role-Play Championship
The Role-Play Championship was designed as a three-month program that mirrored the natural flow of a client interaction. Each month focused on a different stage of the consultative sales process:
- Stage 1 – Calling a prospect: Advisors practiced how to capture attention, spark interest and secure an appointment with a potential client.
- Stage 2 – Introducing oneself and the company: This stage emphasized building trust quickly, articulating the company’s value and setting the tone for a client relationship.
- Stage 3 – Conducting a needs analysis: The heart of the advisor’s role, this stage required active listening, questioning techniques and uncovering client priorities.
By working through these steps, advisors strengthened their own consultative selling skills while sharing best practices across the network.
Advisors from 21 branches across Greece participated. Within each branch, managers were asked to organize mini-tournaments, pairing experienced advisors with newcomers. Each branch submitted one role-play video entry into the company-wide competition.
These videos were then uploaded to the Interamerican’s digital learning academy — a platform that hosts the company’s eLearnings, workshops, webinars, certifications and training materials — where all agents could view, evaluate and learn from one another’s approaches.
Evaluation followed a dual scoring system:
- 50% peer voting through the digital learning academy.
- 50% expert rankings from the central learning and development (L&D) team, using structured checkpoints and additional criteria such as creativity, realism and professionalism.
Submissions were then ranked from best to worst, assigning points from 30 (first place) down. The maximum possible points per round was 60, awarded to videos that achieved both first place in peer voting and top ranking from the experts. This transparent system balanced popularity with professional evaluation, ensuring fairness while motivating branches to aim for both quality and engagement.
Training Outcomes
The championship generated significant activity and enthusiasm across all branches:
- 50 new videos were created, resulting in over four hours of original training material
- 5,443 total views
- 2,517 peer votes submitted by agents
These results confirmed that the initiative was more than an internal contest; it became a large-scale learning ecosystem.
According to Interamerican’s satisfaction survey:
- 100% of advisors reported gaining new ideas they could apply in their client work
- 100% of managers planned to reuse the videos in training new advisors
- 87% of advisors and 100% of managers expressed interest in participating again
Advisors valued seeing a variety of approaches and learning from colleagues in different branches. Many said the activity directly improved their daily work by highlighting both best practices and common mistakes. Managers emphasized how the initiative revitalized their teams and created excitement around practicing the basics of consultative selling.
Lessons Learned
The Role-Play Championship demonstrated the power of social learning in a sales-driven industry. By enabling advisors to practice in realistic scenarios, exchange feedback and learn from peers, Interamerican achieved multiple goals:
- Collaboration: Internal tournaments promoted teamwork and mentoring between junior and senior advisors.
- Confidence building: Recording and presenting role-plays increased self-assurance in handling client conversations.
- Scalable knowledge-sharing: With 21 branches across the country contributing, the company built a video library of authentic, reusable case studies.
For insurance advisors, consultative selling is best learned through practice. The Role-Play Championship transformed training into a dynamic, peer-driven experience that was engaging, scalable and impactful. By combining gamification, social learning and scenario-based practice, the initiative sharpened critical skills while strengthening the organization’s culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.
