Agency Information
- Based in Round Rock, TX.
- 20% commercial and 80% personal
- 6 Employees
Traci Reynolds
“With the help of the tutorials and excellent customer service team, it took me only two days to learn how to use the software.”
Although Traci Reynolds started at Webre-Sherrill Insurance Providers in the summer of 2012 as an Agency Manager, she has been in the insurance business for over 20 years. Over that time, she has used every major agency management system on the market as well as smaller systems and has experience working on both the agent and administrator sides of the programs. In this interview, Reynolds shares her experience working with SIS and the Partner XE agency management system.
How long have you been using Partner XE?
I’ve only been using it for about four months, but I feel like I know every nook and cranny of the software. I may not be using everything on it, but I do know that if I can’t figure something out, I can get an answer from the service department. With the help of the tutorials and excellent customer service team, it took me only two days to learn how to use the software.
How did you learn how to use Partner XE?
The first thing I did when I started with it was to watch all of the tutorials. After I watched the tutorials, I jumped in, and I began working my way through the program. By the next afternoon, I was comfortable enough with the system that I could show people around the program.
Shelly and Candice from the SIS service department were a huge help. For the first month I was constantly sending them emails all the time. One of them would respond right away, and within a couple minutes I’d have it sorted out. The service we have gotten has been phenomenal.
The service team never made me feel bad about always asking questions. They were friendly and helped me fix my problems. Because of all their help at the beginning I almost never need to call them anymore. I know the system so well now that we’re at a point where we’re just flowing through it.
How does the usability of Partner XE compare to the other agency management systems?
With the others, you often couldn’t follow the workflow trees on everything like you can with SIS. If someone doesn’t know the “tricks” of how to use the other systems, he might sit there all day long not knowing why the system won’t work like he expects. With Partner XE, you really just kind of follow through the tree. There’s not any kind of hidden secret. It just flows.
How would you describe SIS?
SIS has been great about asking us what features we would like to see in future versions of Partner XE. It’s nice to say, “Other systems can do this, if you could make this one do it, it’d be great.” Being able to give that feedback is big. It makes it more user-friendly because we’re the ones on it every day.
What other kind of features would you say make Partner XE stand out?
One of my favorite parts of it is the ability to pull up the last client I accessed. That’s something that some of the other systems I’ve used previously would not do. Someone in my position can get 50 calls and get pulled in 50 different directions a day. If I don’t complete something, and I don’t remember that client’s name, I wouldn’t be able to find the record without Partner XE.
My favorite function, though, is the ability to search our records. You can look at all kinds of stuff, like notes. For me, it’s a good training tool. I can tell when people are making notes, when they’re not making notes, who is working instances, who is following through with what they’re supposed to do. If you’ve used other systems, this one is going to be a walk in the park.
Not only that, that visibility into the business helps me to get to the point of what I need to work on with each employee. Is their lack of results due to the fact that they aren’t doing anything or is it that they don’t know what to do? I can see where I need more training and address things as needed.
What has changed at your agency since beginning to use Partner XE?
Everything. We’re going paperless. We weren’t paperless before, and we’re using the system to the fullest capacity other than the accounting side.
Any other kind of differences now that you have people entering and using data properly?
We have seen big business and productivity improvements. It’s a great training tool for new staff as well as existing staff. The report and search functions are really versatile. You can create mailing lists, do production reports or check workflow on your instances.
Anything else you’d add to that?
Again, the service has been phenomenal. You have a problem, you call and they get right on it. They walk you through it. Shelly and Candice have been great. Any time we’ve had any kind of problem I shoot them an email, and they are either emailing me back with step by step instructions or they are picking up the phone and they are calling me. The service has been phenomenal.
