Intuitive. Service. Affordability. Learn About the Software For former nationwide agencies that may be considering a ‘better fit’ for their AMS, Partner Platform is a comprehensive agency management system that gives you the tools needed for retention and...
The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 left a lasting impact on the world, including how we do business. Quarantine and frequent lockdowns forced us to stay home, and the changes in customer expectations, work environments, and operations remain today.
Insurance agencies that weathered these changes have a few things in common. For one, they had the right insurance software to make the quick transition to remote work and service. Secondly, they have an enduring attitude of being open to change and a readiness to adapt. While we cannot predict what will disrupt the market next, we can use these markers to prepare with the right mindset, tools, and systems for the next unexpected interruption.
1. Adapting Your Systems
It’s impossible to overemphasize the need for an agency-wide digital insurance experience. That includes leveraging digital marketing through areas like social media, email marketing, and your website. In addition, include digital access options for both your customers and your staff. Offer eSignatures for document signing, employ digital form fills, digital document storing, and digital payments. These systems are essential for the modern agency to stay relevant to clients, increase ease of doing business, and continue growth.
Another system to embrace is remote work. Remote
work was essential during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and it remains valuable
today. Many employees expect remote working options, and experience shows
remote work can be just as, or more, effective as in-office work.
2. Leveraging the Right Tools
Many new insurance software tools became standard during the 2020 lockdowns. One type was virtual communication tools like online meeting platforms, chats, and online customer service portals. Customers expect to be able to get in touch with you via one or all of these methods. Alongside these digital communication tools, pay attention to your internet connections. Ensure you have reliable, high-speed service to keep connected at all times.
Besides communication tools, your agency also needs marketing automation and a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to better track and engage with customers and prospects. Marketing automation directly feeds new customer expectations with frequent and personalized messaging. A CRM gives you a better picture of who your customers are and how you can grow your book of business. Both these tools are now standard in the insurance software space.
3. Getting in a Growth Mindset
One of the biggest hurdles is shaping a new agency mindset. Adapting to change isn’t easy, but if you can set up a “change happens and creates opportunities” attitude, you can make it that much easier to move to something new. Work with your team to keep them open to change, including getting them involved in decisions around adding new tech and systems to your agency. The more your staff feels a part of the “something new,” the more likely they will participate in it.
Another great way to keep your team ready for change is to provide learning opportunities throughout the year. Expose them to changes in the industry and educate them, so they feel more comfortable with new technology or operation styles.
4. Working with Partners that Support Your Growth
As you expand your insurance software and systems, pay attention to who you’re partnering with in your systems and tech. Select providers and partners who embody the same growth-focused attitude and offer enhancements or updates with their technology.
Our team at SIS has always focused on how we can improve and adapt to serve our independent agency clients better. When the lockdowns took hold in 2020, we sprang into action to keep our Partner Platform agencies well equipped. Elements like cloud-based systems, modern platform updates, and adaptable communication tools made the unexpected transition smoother.
Find out more about how we challenge the status quo, adapting with and for our Partner Platform agencies to ready them for whatever comes next. Get in touch at [email protected] or 800.747.7005, Option 6, to view a demo and talk with one of our team today.
One element to remember with announcements, review
solicitation, and discount texts is to manage how often you send messages.
While all of these notifications are helpful to your customers, you shouldn’t
be texting daily and never more than once a day. Just as people don’t like spam
email or phone calls, they also don’t like spam texts.
Other Important Texting Tips
Along with managing how often you send texts, there
are a few other important areas to consider as part of your texting strategies.
Have users opt-in to receive texts.
You’re legally required to either ask customers to sign up or give their
permission to be on your texting list. In our experience, it’s best to provide
customers with the option and let them sign up on their own. Make it easy for
them to do so, offering sign-up at the end of emails, in your customer portal,
and at the top of policy statements, among other areas.
Include opt-out options and your agency’s name in every message. Again, providing opt-out in each message is a legal requirement in many states. Signing your texts is helpful as many customers won’t have your number saved and could be confused by the message without the context of who sent it.
Use the same number for all your
texts. Whether you decide to use your agency’s local phone number or a five- or
six-digit SMS-only number, stay with the same one, so your messages stay
together in your customer’s phones. If your agency serves outside one locality,
it’s best to use an SMS-only number to avoid additional charges for texting
outside of your area code.
Send
a confirmation for any text you receive from a customer. These messages can
come directly from a live agent or be templated messages. Examples include, “If
you need help, contact us at…” or “Thank you for your message! We will respond
within 24 hours. Need immediate help? Call us at…”
Make
all your texts relevant and error-free. No one wants to receive a typo in a
text from a business. Pre-determined templates can help reduce errors. Your
customers also only want texts that bring value. Texting just “Happy National
Coffee Day!” can just be annoying. However, if you add that there is a 50%
discount at a local coffee shop for all your customers, the text becomes
meaningful and relevant. Save the cute pet photos and holiday wishes for your
social media posts.
Know
when to take it off text. Texting is very convenient and efficient, but
only to a point. If you sense a customer is frustrated, or their question is
complex, it’s best to move to a phone call or in-person meeting. Don’t stay on
text longer than you need.
Get Started with Texting Today
If you’re looking to add texting to your agency communications offerings, look for a system that integrates with your current tools. The last thing you need is one more new tool to learn and synch with your systems. That’s why we integrated texting right into our Partner Platform agency management system, syncing it with built-in CRM and marketing automation tools as well.
Independent insurance agencies are starting to feel
the heat. Though independent agencies provide a level of personalized service
and care big names never can, insurtech’s sophisticated insurance software is beginning
to bridge the gap.
According to experts
at PropertyCasualty360, “With increased competition from insurtechs and
rising labor costs, in order to stay competitive, companies need to…provide a
seamless omnichannel experience.” That means broadening how you’re serving your
customers, keeping up with evolving
customer demands.
Do you have the right insurance software to meet these growing customer needs?
Customers Want Options
No one piece of insurance software will meet all
your customer’s needs. That’s because one of the most prominent customer trends
is an increase in demand for options. A Smart
Communications’ report found that over 80% of customers wanted multiple
digital outreach options. Respondents cited email, app-driven notifications,
and in-app messaging as just a few of their preferred communication methods.
Each of your customers is unique, and you need to
find ways to serve their needs. That means diversifying how they can get in
touch with you and how you communicate with them, too. Offer a variety of ways,
including email, texting, and app messaging, among others.
Another important factor in offering variety is
understanding each customers’ preferences. Utilize
marketing automation to allow customers to set their contact preferences,
including how they want to be contacted and the best times to get in touch.
Customers Want 24/7 Availability
While it may seem overwhelming, giving your
customers 24/7 access to your services without losing any sleep is possible. Your
customers don’t necessarily want to be in contact with you at all times, but
they do expect to be able to access services or send a message at any hour.
Online portals and apps are ideal for granting this 24/7 access, allowing
customers to see what’s happening in their accounts and get answers to FAQs at
any time. That’s one of the reasons we offer agency-branded options for Partner
Platform agencies to build
their own app and portal.
Another element to consider is if a customer sends
a message, they want acknowledgment that the message was received. Again, that
doesn’t mean you need to be up all night to reply. Marketing automation is
great for automatically responding to any message you receive and tailoring it
depending on why the person reached out.
Customers Want Quick Turnaround
Expectations on response time have shortened
significantly over the past few years. Most customers expect a response in
hours and aren’t happy with anything that takes more than a day. That doesn’t
mean you need to resolve an issue in that short amount of time, but you do need
to keep the customer updated frequently.
Chatbots or other
self-service interactive features can speed up responses and resolutions
by routing customers to solve their issues independently or get connected with
the right person, fast. You can improve your resolution and response time by
gathering data on call volumes. Use that data to determine if there are
certain times of day, days of the week, or times of the year when you need more
or fewer agents available to resolve issues.
Customers Want Hands-On, Personalized Service
Insurance software can serve many of your
customer’s needs, but customers still want personal
service from real people when it comes to a complex or emotionally-charged
issue. Customers choose independent agencies for that personal service and
enhanced expertise.
Some issues demand personal attention, and you
need to give it when needed. All the above tools can help your team be more
available for these intensive needs. When you’re able to process routine claims
and policy updates instantly with automation, you free up your agents to
address issues that require time and attention.
Customers Want What Partner Platform Offers
Our Partner Platform agency management suite brings
the efficiency, options, and personalized care your customers demand.
We offer multiple
communication options like integrated texting and email, self-service
portals, and branded apps, among others. Plus, our connections with our growing
Partner Allies mean more opportunities for you to understand your customers
and provide personalized service.
Since our founding, the Partner Platform Community has grown exponentially. What started as a group of agencies and dedicated staff has exploded to contain much more. One of those additions is our group of Partner Allies. This team of insurance agency software providers started as a collection of exciting integration possibilities and grew into an ever-expanding coalition of cutting-edge insurance tech.
Each of our Partner Allies grew from individual relationships. Whether it was a Partner Platform agency owner or SIS team member making the connection, each formed from a common connection: a drive to serve our agency customers. Initially called “tech integrations,” the term seemed too thin for what these partnerships brought to the table, so we soon changed to “Partner Allies” to better capture the relationships.
What Makes Partner Allies Unique
Beyond their associates and clients, one of the
hallmarks of great companies is the providers they collaborate with to create
meaningful client experiences. Some of those relationships are designed to be
solid, easy-to-use integrations that “do the job.” And we have many of those. But
Partner Allies are the relationships built to go beyond “doing the job.” Our
Partner Allies offer unique and valuable experiences that make the lives of our
clients easier, more productive, and, in the best of situations, more
profitable.
Some of our recent Partner Ally additions include:
Semsee (Commercial Lines Rating)
Semsee recently joined our Partner Allies team with a critical tool for rating small commercial. With commercial lines rating in its infancy, Semsee has created a strong product with an increasingly strong carrier lineup. Along with being easy to do business with, the Semsee team created a nicely designed product that offers the solid capabilities our Partner Platform agencies need to stay competitive.
BlueJay Reviews is built for agencies that want to quickly and easily understand and manage their online reputation. Reviews are out there whether an agency sees them or not, and BlueJay helps those reviews become visible. The automated process asks for reviews following client interactions. If the review is good, the agency can post it automatically in various online forums. If the review isn’t positive, the agency is notified, providing a chance to turn around a situation with an unhappy client.
DataCrest (Digital Forms & Supplemental
Apps)
DataCrest created a digital forms product called AppEase, giving agencies the ability to manage supplemental applications easily. The intuitive, affordable product continues to expand in available applications. Our Partner Platform agencies find this versatile tool is a game-changer and, if they can’t find an application they need, DataCrest will add it to the system. That dynamic nature is critical in our ever-expanding digital landscape.
…With Room to Grow
These are three of what is an outstanding lineup of
providers that include eSignature, VoIP, digital payments, encrypted email, and
more. And it’s just the start of our growing partnerships.
Many of our Partner Ally connections grew from our best advocates, one of our Partner Platform agencies. If you have a tech integration you’d like to see in the Partner Platform system or any other comments or questions, get in touch with us at 800.747.7005, Option 6 or [email protected]
The coronavirus pandemic accelerated trends in several areas, including digital insurance customer service. A recent survey showed that almost 90% of American consumers think customer service is more important now than before the pandemic took hold of the world.
Consumers not only expect more from service providers, they also have more options, meaning they’ll choose an agency that offers quicker and smoother interactions over one that’s, say, unable to process esignatures. As your team transitions back to the office, now is the time to reevaluate your customer service tools and processes to keep up with expectations.
Everyone loves to get two for the price of one. It’s the beauty of doubling your money and getting more done in half the time: a win-win for all. The digitization of insurance has made that “two for one” thrill possible with insurance marketing tools that double as customer service tools, too. And it all begins with data.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digitation across industries, and insurance was no exception. Part of the acceleration included a rise in direct-to-consumer (DTC) purchases. More people started buying goods and services online, cutting out in-person or phone interactions. That rise in DTC increased access to customer data.
“We saw a company that reminded us of our agency.”
This is a sentiment we often hear from our Partner Platform agencies – that they saw themselves in our team and us. That’s what makes us more than a provider but a real partner with each agency we serve.
The community we created echoes that partnership: it’s fueled by innovative collaborators in our agency, technology, and industry partners. With their help, we’re able to stay ahead of the curve and equip our Partner Platform agency management system and insurance CRM to harness future opportunities while providing the service and care our agency customers appreciate today.
