Why this leader measures happiness before production

When Dinesh Mohan Tanikella started building a new Middle East-based agency, he knew that breaking through the competition meant measuring more than tracking activity and production. And while his team would go on to post impressive growth numbers — accounting for 40% of all MDRT members operating in his market - Tanikella finds at least one data point more important than raw production. He turns his attention to a client-centered metric, the Net Promoter Score (NPS).

"Life insurance practice is all about consistency, how consistent you are in terms of creating value at a client level," said Tanikella, who heads a network of 150 advisors. "We place a lot of emphasis on client engagement."

What is the NPS?

NPS is a marketing survey technique that’s meant to assess how likely clients are to refer your service to their friends and family. Clients happy with how they are being served may already be considering referrals. But to actually move them to a place where they feel comfortable promoting a business can show the difference between acceptable and outstanding service.

In the world of NPS, only the highest numbers are considered successful. Tanikella's team tracks the NPS on a 100-point scale, and each advisor receives an individual NPS. Ideally, every advisor’s score will be 90 or above. And while that isn’t the case, it’s close. Averaged across the agency, advisors on Tanikella’s team have an NPS of 89 for new business.

That number isn’t static. It reflects a dramatic increase following years of relentless focus on client satisfaction. When Tanikella began to monitor scores shortly after launching the agency, initial numbers hovered in the 40s and 50s. In less than five years, Tanikella has essentially taught his advisors how to make their clients twice as likely to refer others.

"While we all talk about need-based selling, the ultimate moment of truth is how the client perceives an organization or advisor, whether we really delivered what the client is looking at," Tanikella said. "Hence for us, the most important thing is the transaction. At a time when I'm selling to the client, there's a transaction. How does the client perceive our services? That's something we track at the client, advisor and policy level."

The journey to excellence

Tanikella gives much of the credit for the dramatic improvement to distinct sales approaches. Advisors are taught to make the following three promises to prospective clients during their initial encounter:

Nothing is going to be sold during the first meeting.

The advisor will not follow up with prospects unless they receive confirmation from prospects that they would like to proceed.

Any sale represents a lifelong commitment to ensuring that all needs are met and obligations fulfilled.

This patient, pressure-free approach stands in stark contrast to a common perception of financial services. Combined with what Tanikella describes as "a very robust needs analysis process," advisors make recommendations based solely on the client's aspirations and goals. The results of the approach are reflected in how clients respond to the NPS question.

"The clients genuinely love the process of every advisor," he noted. "There is no product intervention, there is no push."

Importance beyond happy clients

For Tanikella, NPS serves as more than just a satisfaction metric. It's a fundamental development tool for advisors. The progression is clear: Strong NPS scores lead to consideration of sales quality and a "first-time-right approach" to policy writing. From there, advisors who demonstrate excellence in client service can multiply their impact by participating in the agency's master classes and "Happiness Clubs," eventually positioning themselves for leadership roles. When evaluating potential leaders, client engagement as measured by the NPS is a top consideration.

"We track the NPS by the day," Tanikella said.

This constant visibility keeps client satisfaction at the forefront of every interaction, creating a culture where advisors understand that their success is measured in relationships built and trust earned.

As the NPS scores improved, so too did the agency’s retention rate and the number of MDRT qualifiers. Tanikelli’s agency had 36 MDRT members in 2024. More importantly, they're working toward his broader vision of changing how clients buy financial services and how advisors deliver.

"Are the clients happy introducing us to their families and friends?" Tanikella said. "That becomes the fundamental development question."

The article was first published in MDRT - Center for Field Leadership