Customer case study
Globe Life reports close rates rising from 33% to 60%+
Jess Chang paired daily AI practice with more targeted hiring and manager oversight. Close rates on new sales agents nearly doubled in 6 months, and her leaders got hours back every day. The numbers are Globe Life's own tracking.
Request a walkthrough of Kendo- About a decade in life insurance
- Runs a large sales team
- One of Kendo's earliest customers
- About 6 months in at the interview
The headline numbers
About 33% to 60%+
Close rate on new sales agents
Jess reports this from Globe Life's own tracking over about 6 months.
Hours per day, per leader
Leader time recovered
Jess reports that leaders stopped running ad-hoc roleplays with individual reps.
Daily full-script practice, graded
Rehearsal cadence for every rep
Jess describes it as intro call through referral collection, all of it graded in Kendo.
Before, loop, result
What changed
Same team, same leads. What changed is the rehearsal in front of the first live call.
Leaders were the practice partner
Hours every day of one-on-one roleplays run by leaders.
Practice time came out of leaders' selling hours.
About 30% to 33% close rate for brand new sales agents.
Rehearse the full script, then sell
Graded practice reps run on their own, with scores they work to raise.
The full script in Kendo: booking, intro call, cementing, rebuttals, referrals.
Live-call oversight on Zoom continues alongside the practice.
What the team sees now
- 60%+ close rates on new sales agents, Jess reports, up from about 33%.
- Show ratios and activity up alongside the close rate.
- Hours back each day for leaders to sell.
The evidence
AI roleplay in Kendo nearly doubled close rates for new sales agents
Both bars measure the same thing: the close rate of brand new sales agents. The left bar is where Globe Life's new sales agents used to start. The right is what Jess reports about 6 months into daily Kendo practice.
Jess reports this from Globe Life's own tracking
"With my new agents, usually they start out at about like a 30, 33% close rate. Now we're seeing over 60% close rates on new agents."
Jess Chang, Partner, Globe Life (1:34-2:17)
The operating model
How the team used Kendo
One practice ladder, used differently by three groups. Kendo runs alongside live-call oversight on Zoom and the team's own training platform, not instead of them. The screens below are the Kendo surfaces each part of that loop runs on.
The full script, rehearsed daily
Globe Life gives every new sales agent a front-to-finish script and has them rehearse each stage of it in Kendo before it is used on a real lead.
- Five stages practiced in order: booking, full script, cementing, rebuttals, referral collection.
- Daily repetition, so the first live lead is not the first run through the script.
- Reps reach their leads already prepared, which is where Jess puts the close-rate movement.
"They role play every single piece of that in Kendo. They role play booking appointments, they role play the full script, they role play cementing, they role play rebuttals, they role play referral collection."
Jess Chang, Partner, Globe Life (2:17-3:35)
Scores point at the weak stage
Practice is graded, so a rep whose numbers drop is reassigned to the one stage the scores flag rather than to a general refresher.
- Every run is scored, and the scores are gamified so reps work to raise them.
- One stage at a time: a seasoned rep goes back into the specific area, not the whole ladder.
- The diagnosis comes from what practice and live calls show, not from a guess.
Oversight without running the roleplay
Leaders still watch live calls on Zoom. What they stopped doing is being the practice partner, and that is where the daily hours came back.
- Hours every day of ad-hoc roleplays came off the leaders' calendars.
- They read the written summary and the scores instead of sitting through the session.
- No total was given. Jess describes the recovery as hours per day, per leader, and this page does not convert that into a figure.
"Kendo buys back time for my leaders so that they can actually go focus on their sales instead of having to spend time roleplaying with individual reps."
Jess Chang, Partner, Globe Life (0:54-1:34)
Summary
The bottom line
| Measure | Before | After | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close rate, new sales agents | About 30% to 33% | 60%+ | Globe Life's tracking over about 6 months |
| Leader roleplay time | Hours daily | Recovered for selling | From Jess's interview |
| Practice cadence | Ad-hoc | Daily, full script, graded | From Jess's interview |
Scale of the account: a large sales team of new and seasoned sales agents. Figures come from the recorded interview with Jess Chang, Partner at Globe Life.
"Mostly the data is how many minutes logged per agent. I'm noticing the agents that are having more minutes logged are going to come out with better closing rates, better show rates, better numbers."
Jess Chang, Partner, Globe Life (6:47-7:20)
Minutes logged per rep is the number Jess watches most in the analytics, and she reads more practice minutes as a leading indicator of performance across her team.
"If you're not using AI, you're going to get left behind because the people that use AI are buying back more time, getting better results."
Jess Chang, Partner, Globe Life (4:52-6:28)
See the loop Jess's leaders run
Practice, scores, and coaching time back. Walk through the same loop on your own script, your own rebuttals, and your own success criteria.
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