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.
Cyber security has been a concern across industries
for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated risk. With more businesses
moving to online operations, more data became vulnerable. This is especially
true in insurance, where the use of insurance tech skyrocketed in 2020, along
with incidents of cyberattacks.
These stats should be more than enough to get you
asking the question, “What’s our agency cyber security plan?” Whether
you’re starting from scratch or updating an outdated strategy, the following
elements are must-haves for your agency’s cyber protection.
Add These Basic Security Measures
There are a handful of actions you need to set up baseline cyber protection. Those include:
Use modern hardware: Outdated desktops and laptops are more vulnerable to modern cyber-attacks. Make sure you’re using tech that’s less than five years old to ensure it has the most recent safeguards.
Add or update anti-virus software: Similarly, you need the most up-to-date virus protection software to act as the first layer of protection. Don’t ignore that “your software has expired” pop-up!
Implement multi-factor authentication: Add a layer of protection to your data storage systems with multi-factor authentication. The more complex passwords and additional layers of entry you have, the more you protect your data.
Work with a security expert: You can only do so much in-house – your team knows insurance, not cyber security! It’s worth the investment to hire a trusted partner to get you the best software, training, and cyber security management.
Train Your Team
Even the best cyber security software can’t spot
all potential threats. As cybercriminals have evolved, they’ve begun
implementing tactics that hit people’s vulnerabilities rather than machines.
One type of attack is called “social
engineering,” in which a cybercriminal gains information on the names,
titles, and small personal details about a person or persons at a company and
uses that to impersonate them. Cybercriminals will then convince a team member
to transfer funds, give up passwords, or reveal other valuable information they
can use to attack the company.
With such people-centric attacks evolving, you
need to keep your team at the ready by training them on:
How to determine if correspondence is legitimate, such as calling, texting, or sending a separate email contacting the person a message is supposed to be from to confirm their identity before taking action.
Who to contact if they suspect a threat, whether through a reporting system or contacting a specific team member.
How to set up a secure work from home station, including using a VPN, enabling a password on their computer, and never sharing their work devices with anyone.
Training on these elements and others should be
continual, and you should frequently test your team with fake attacks. The more
practice they get, the better they’ll be at responding to a real threat.
Our team uses all the above cyber prevention tactics and employs elements like a redundant, cloud-based backup system for secure data storage. We also carefully vet all our Partner Ally integrations, ensuring they meet our high cyber security standards.
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]
This year continued a trend of technology’s growing influence in the insurance market and all industries at large. We saw a shift where more clients embraced agency software and integrated it into their regular systems and processes. This growing interest and influence prompted our Partner Platform and SIS teams to ramp up our tech focus, including several blog posts on this highly relevant topic.
Data
Leveraging technology to gain and analyze data was
one of the hottest topics of the last few years. As competition in the
insurance market increases, agencies need ways to set themselves apart. Our
industry partners and clients alike told us that data is the key to
differentiation. It improves lead targeting to increase close rates,
streamlines claims processes, and is essential to service personalization, a
must-have for all industries today.
With more data sent and stored, your agency is open to more risk. Malware attacks increased by 358% in 2020 alone. Agencies need to pay attention to how they’re handling and storing data, ensuring they have the best measures in place to protect it. Our experts spent time on this critical topic in posts like:
Customer service expectations took a massive leap
in 2020 and 2021. Customers now expect more personalization, quicker
transactions, and more ways to get answers and implement changes independently.
We looked at the many ways expectations changed through our posts this past
year. A few of the top ones include:
What Insurance Tech do Agency Customers Want? – There was a lot of talk around insurtech this year, much of which can be overwhelming, especially to small to mid-sized agencies. This post looks at the essential tools you need to meet customer expectations and keep your agency evolving.
Sales and Marketing
Sales and marketing are always a challenge for
growing agencies, but new customer expectations and the explosion of digital
service in the past few years have added a new level. Depending on the agency,
these changes could increase or decrease the sales and marketing challenge. We
hope to make these customer expectations and tech advances an asset to your
outreach with these posts:
The Key to Stepping into Insurance Sales Software – Adding new technology to your agency can be intimidating. With this post, we look at how to assess which sales tech you need and the steps to implement it smoothly in your agency.
The CRM for Insurance Agents: A Step-by-Step Guide – CRMs have been a staple in numerous industries for years, and insurance is embracing the power of this sales technology. This post offers a clear guide specifically for insurance agencies to leverage this powerful technology to improve their sales prospecting.
These are just a few of the many agency resources available for free on our website. You can see all our educational posts on our blog. And, dive into our online guides and other resources covering topics like how to hire great producers and leaders and how to get effective digital marketing on a budget.
We look forward to sharing more in 2022 and beyond!
Prospecting in any industry takes a combination of
the right “stuff” (technology, data, people) and the right execution (systems
and processes). Though it may be tempting, purchasing the best insurance
prospecting software isn’t a solution on its own; you and your team need to
understand how to leverage it.
We’ve worked with countless agencies to help them get their insurance prospecting software to work with and for them. Here are some common pitfalls we see in agencies struggling to put their software to work.
1. They’re not gathering the right data
What you put into your prospecting software matters. Quality data brings quality results, and outdated or incomplete data brings poor outcomes. Information like your customer’s age ranges, marketing preferences, and what they value most in their coverage is essential to understanding who you should target in your prospecting. The days of blindly calling or emailing hundreds of contacts are over – you need the right data to narrow down lists to the best fits for your agency.
2. They’re not putting data into action
Gathering the correct information is just the beginning – it’s what you do with it that affects your growth. Your agency needs to interpret data and determine how to use it. When you understand your customer’s contact preferences and pain points, the next step is to schedule marketing automation to send targeted content addressing their needs via the methods they prefer at the times that work best. You can also see opportunities for cross-selling and referrals in your data, capitalizing on your established relationships to grow your book of business.
3. They don’t have the right people in the right roles
Mismatching people and their roles in the agency is
a common misstep. Especially in independent insurance agencies, staff take on
multiple roles and do a lot of learning on the job. While these are valuable
skills, it often means people are stuck learning or doing something that doesn’t
fit their strengths.
Communicating with prospects is a delicate dance, and each group or individual is different. A common mistake salespeople in all industries make is using the same tactics on every prospect or lead. Personalization, especially around outreach, is highly valued in today’s sales landscape. Again, data comes into play, informing your team of how often to reach out to their contacts to keep them engaged enough without overwhelming their inboxes.
5. They’re staying stagnant
What worked last year, or even last quarter, won’t
necessarily work today. It can be tempting to set up a workflow for contacting
a specific group of prospects and letting it run for perpetuity, but you’ll
soon find your results will wane. Habits and preferences quickly change in our
digitized world, and your agency needs to stay vigilant. Update your database
regularly, reevaluate processes, and continually adjust to improve results.
Make Prospecting Work for You with Partner Platform
Our Partner Platform team stays updated on prospecting in insurance, adding a host of essential technology over the years. Each enhancement comes with testing and training to find the best tools that integrate seamlessly into agency life.
With in-person, custom training, always accessible online tutorials and FAQs, and a responsive customer service team, we are confident our Partner Platform agencies have the best tech and training to make effective prospecting a part of their daily lives.
Cyber security has been a concern across industries for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated risk. With more businesses moving to online operations, more data became vulnerable. This is especially true in insurance, where the use of insurance tech skyrocketed in 2020, along with incidents of cyberattacks.
Insurance is second only to legal firms as cyber criminals’ preferred industry to attack. The average agency is targeted over 100 times per year, with more than 30% of attacks succeeding. And according to PwC’s Digital Trust Insights Pulse Survey, cybercrime is expected to cost companies $10.5 trillion annually over the next four years.
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.
Another year is here, and we can already see what’s on the horizon for digital insurance—the last few years demonstrated the need for more data gathering and analysis, tech integration, and a focus on personalizing and streamlining customer service. The 2021 Independent Insurance Agent Survey found that, before the COVID-19 pandemic, about a third of agencies said they “lacked the financial or other support” to invest in digitization. However, by the end of 2020, 77% were investing in digitization, showing digital insurance is growing rapidly.
As we ring in the new year, let’s take a look at what’s on the digital insurance horizon for 2022.
