Windows, one of the most popular operating systems, has announced it will be phasing out support on its XP system, with no support offered after April 8th, 2014. This means no new security updates, “hotfixes” (used for user-specific issues), or any type of technical support offered for Windows XP, along with its Office 2003. According to Windows, its support policy grants 10 years of support to its products, and XP’s 10 years are up.
You may think: “So what? I can still keep my XP, right?” Yes, you can keep XP if you’re using it, but it won’t last you for long. Windows won’t be confiscating your XP system, but sooner or later you will encounter an issue with your operating system, and you won’t be able to find support to fix it. This means a huge headache for you and your agency as you scramble to find someone, anyone, who still works with XP. And chances are you won’t find anyone, and you’ll be forced to move to another operating system anyway.
Save yourself that headache! By switching your agency from XP, you’ll save yourself from security risks that could mean disaster, especially if they apply to client info. Although it may take a small adjustment period, switching to the newest Windows 8.1 guarantees you will be compatible with old and new versions of you comparative rater programs, document management system, accounting software and other programs you use for your agency . This also means you’ll have a system compatible with your clients’, eliminating frustrating incompatibility issues.
Windows suggests leaving 18 to 32 months for businesses to switch to a new operating system, so it’s better to jump on the change sooner rather than later. You need time to allow employees to slowly adapt to the slight changes in your system and to ensure compatibility with any programs your agency uses internally. Moving to a new system without ensuring program compatibility could lead to a rabbit hole of upgrades and an empty pocket. To prevent this, utilize the resources on Window’s website or contact Windows to get personal service related to your switch.
Most importantly, don’t panic. Switching to a new operating system is normal as new systems are introduced as technology improves. You aren’t the first agency to make this switch and you won’t be the last. And Windows knows its users want improvements in each system, but don’t want a total overhaul that forces them to re-learn everything. Windows 8.1 makes improvements on XP, but doesn’t stray too far on the general look and feel. Although it may take a little work on the front end, switching over from XP now will all pay off by making your agency run smoother.
Having the latest Windows also means you can take advantage of all the ways Partner XE works with Windows. With Word document storage and synching with Outlook, Partner XE eliminates the need to open multiple programs when you’re operating in Windows. Find out more about Partner XE’s benefits by contacting us at 800.747.9273 or [email protected].
The world of marketing can be a scary, uncertain place, especially with new online marketing capabilities introduced almost daily. To make matters worse, most local insurance agencies don’t have a dedicated marketing team. Although it’s best to have at least one employee focused on marketing, more often than not marketing is one part of a single employee’s many hats. You know marketing is an important part of growing your agency, but you need to grow your agency before you can increase your marketing resources – what are you to do in this catch 22?
The best way to jump-start your marketing is to simplify. Through our experience here at SIS, we’ve found three tools are important in marketing success: your agency’s website, an e-newsletter and your social media presence. If you can get the ball rolling in these three areas, you can make use of the latest cloud-based tools to keep things moving till you’re able to get someone on marketing full-time.
Having a good website is the first piece to any marketing campaign: you need to have a place for potential clients to go for information. If resources allow, the best move is to outsource your website creation to an expert. We at SIS refer our agency partners to Agency Marketing Partners as creating and maintaining a website is full-time work. However, for those who don’t yet have the resources to outsource, Squarespace is a good way to start your website before moving it over to a professional.
Squarespace has a “drag and drop” site creation method, making it easy to learn and use, and has high quality, catchy designs that give your agency that polished, put-together look. With the explosion of mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is a must, and Squarespace automatically adjusts your site for mobile users. You can reach the 24/7 support team by e-mail and online chat, and since Squarespace is all run online, you can make website edits anywhere at any time, while Squarespace takes care of site hosting and back-ups.
Once you’ve got a place to send people, it’s time to get them there. At one time, e-newsletters were the go-to marketing technique, but these days they’re a supplement to other marketing tactics. Yet, e-news still holds value in being an easy to digest way to keep your clients and potentials clients informed and connected. If your agency’s budget allows, our preferred website-creation company also provides great e-mail marketing management. However, if you’re not in a place to outsource, Constant Contactand Vertical Response are great cloud-based e-newsletters providers. Each provides easy-to-use e-news templates, campaign management and reporting and has ways to link social media to your e-newsletters.
The final piece to getting started in marketing is to ensure your presence on social media. In itself, social media can be a bit daunting, but time has shown its staying power and influence. The greatest benefit for social media is you can connect directly with current and potentials clients and promote agency transparency, creating a sense of trust between you and your clients.
There are a lot of social sites out there, butFacebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn remain the most widely used and the three to hit, with Google+ on the rise. You should put some work in to creating your agency profiles and gaining followers, and after on regularly updating with relevant info. As a good rule of thumb, Facebook is great for photo sharing, Twitter for link sharing, and LinkedIn and Google+ for agency news. A great cloud app for keeping things updated is Hootsuite, a tool that allows you to update multiple social media platforms at one time. The interface is easy to use and understand, and you can even schedule updates to be posted days, weeks, and months in advance.
Once you’ve got things rolling for marketing, maintaining is made so much easier with these cloud-based tools. They can help your agency grow so you can invest in a full-time marketing person or team. You should use your marketing tools along with your agency’s management system, utilizing its abilities to cross sell, renew and retain clients and win back lost accounts. Check out a previous post on how Partner XE helps boost your marketing tactics, and contact us at 800.747.9273 or [email protected] to talk about the ways Partner XE can work for your agency.
Today Agency Marketing Partners (AMP), strategic partner that provides digital marketing solutions for independent insurance agencies, announced the findings of their study of digital marketing strategies used by independent insurance agencies. Results show that although 88% of agencies have a website, many are not properly investing in it for maximum impact. Less than half of the websites are mobile ready and only one in three has a blog.
The major take-away from the survey is that many agencies are leaving a lot of opportunities on the table when it comes to the features and functionality that they are providing on their websites. Too many agencies still see their website as a cost rather than as a necessary investment in their future, given changing consumer shopping and servicing behavior.
This trend of neglecting websites is also seen in the percentage of agencies that say they have someone or a team that takes ownership for the site. Although 88% of the respondents to the survey said their agency has a website, 38% said they did not have a person or team taking ownership for their site.
The following were the key findings of the survey.
88% of the agencies who participated have a website.
Most agencies had their websites made by an online vendor.
On average agencies spend 1-5 % of their yearly budget on marketing.
62% have a person or team that takes ownership of the website.
Less than 50% of the websites are mobile ready.
Over 50% of agencies link to social media sites.
Only 33% of websites have a blog on their website.
Less than half of the websites provide in-depth insurance content.
In our last post, we looked at some all-in-one cloud apps combining e-mail, document sharing/storage, and calendar sharing to save time (and money!) for your agency’s daily operations. These all-in-one tools bring the benefit of synching operations, yet some agencies are hesitant to go right for the multi-operation overhaul. If your agency is looking for a slower start in to cloud applications we at SIS suggest beginning with document storage and sharing as a jumping off before moving your agency to using more cloud apps. Although your agency has great client and policy related document storage ability in Partner XE’s DocBox, documents related to other parts of your agency and “work-in-progress” docs also need a place to be shared and stored.
In conjunction with Partner XE’s DocBox, we suggest a great document sharing and storage tool called DropBox. DropBox is an easy to use application offering up to 16GB of free storage. If needed, your agency can opt for a paid plan ranging from $9.99/mo ($99/yr) to $49.99/mo ($499/yr) depending on your size need (ranges from 100 to 500GB). Larger agencies may find 500GB too restricting, so DropBox offers business plans at $795/year for 5 users with $125/additional user/year. The size of your plan depends on whether you want to store all your documents on DropBox or if you’re using it just to share docs between individuals and departments.
Once installed, you simply move your files to the DropBox folder created on your computer. As you add files, they will stay updated and backed up on your computer and on DropBox’s server. You can grant access to different folders, allowing multiple people to open and edit documents, and DropBox will let you know when and by whom documents were edited. Of course, DropBox uses great security: it’s the same 256-bit AES encryption, which you remember from a previous post, is used by online banking and shopping sites.
DropBox is easy to use, and quick to install. Also, it keeps a 30 day revision history of all your files, so if you decide you didn’t like the changes made on a document, you can go back and start from a previous version. And, since it is all cloud-based, if your computer is lost or damaged, your data is not.
Using DropBox in conjunction with Partner XE’s DocBox ensures all your agency’s documents are up-to-date and backed-up safely. The Partner XE DocBox gives you the added benefit of attaching docs right to client profiles, and is completely E & O compliant. To find out more about Partner XE’s DocBox and its other features, call us at call us at 800-747-9273 or email [email protected].
It’s amazing how much time can be spent during the day with small tasks like checking e-mails, reviewing documents or scheduling meetings. Throughout the days and weeks, the extra minutes spent on these daily tasks can add up to hours wasted. Moving these tasks to cloud applications and integrating them with your agency management system can save your agency time and money. Not only will it make sharing information easier, it will also give you access to the most up-to-date versions of documents and meetings at all times. Besides these benefits, using cloud applications for your e-mail, document sharing and calendars means this precious intel is backed-up regularly and securely.
Let’s take a look at two options for mixing time saving cloud apps with your agency management system.
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365 is essentially the Microsoft Office suite brought to the cloud. Many had complaints about the previous Office 365, and the current version is a more than worthy response. Office 365 combines e-mail, calendar and doc sharing in an all-in-one. Those used to using Outlook will love Office 365 as it has a familiar look and ease of use. The benefit here comes from its cloud capabilities as you can access your e-mail from anywhere, which, in the current fast-paced market, is nearly essential. Also, Office has site mailboxes where you can store e-mails pertaining to a certain project or client and can share with all those involved.
If your agency uses Partner XE as your agency management system, you can easily integrate Office 365. Partner XE is designed to work with Office 365, allowing you to easily import and export contacts, calendars and e-mail communications with clients. Such integration between your e-mail and agency management system ensures E & O compliance and allows everyone at your agency to access the most up-to-date client communication. This means being able to meets clients’ needs faster and more effectively, and it greatly enhances internal collaboration.
When it comes to document sharing, Office 365 definitely has the edge. Since it’s a Microsoft product, you can do all the same things you can with the Office suite on your desktop, but you can access it at any computer with an internet connection. Since it essentially offers the full Office suite as cloud-accessible, Office 365 does come with a price tag. Depending on your agency’s size, you can pay anywhere from $5-$15/user/month and add up to 300 users.
Google Apps
Although Google made its name as a search engine, it’s making its legacy with its cloud applications. One of the first cloud apps Google introduced was its Google Calendar, which is easy to use, and gives you the benefit of sharing your calendar with others. Google’s document sharing app, Google Drive, is great for real-time editing with multiple users simultaneously, but lacks in having all that is offered in the Microsoft Office suite on your desktop. Its Word and Excel get the job done, but you don’t have a lot of font choices or formula options.
Gmail, Google’s e-mail app, does a great job of keeping e-mails grouped in “conversations” and allows you to put emails under multiple categories, which serve as folders. Gmail uses rich text format and is able to sync with Google’s document and calendar apps well so you can be updated via email when changes are made.
Although Google’s systems work great for many small businesses, relying on Google’s apps can pose a problem for many agencies as Google does not play well with others. For businesses that use all Google products, these apps are a dream, but for insurance agencies using any type of agency management system (which is most), it is difficult to get Google to integrate. However, there are ways around Google’s lone-wolf persona: for example, SIS can work with agencies to get Partner XE to integrate with Gmail by linking it to Outlook.
Your agency can use all the Google apps for free, or purchase Google Apps for Business at $5.99/month or $50/year to obtain a custom e-mail domain, among other benefits. Due to its noncompliance issues, we suggest using the free Google apps, notably the doc sharing for real-time editing, as a supplement to your management system and not rely wholly on it.
No matter what type of cloud applications you use for your e-mail, calendar and document sharing, it’s better to go the cloud way than not. The benefits of using cloud apps are so great that they are quickly becoming the norm, especially in small businesses. SIS sees the writing on the wall with using the cloud, as evidenced through its innovative cloud-based agency management system, Partner XE. To find out more about Partner XE and other great ways to improve your agency’s performance, call us at call us at 800-747-9273 or email [email protected].
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The world of marketing can be a scary, uncertain place, especially with new online marketing capabilities introduced almost daily. To make matters worse, most local insurance agencies don’t have a dedicated marketing team. Although it’s best to have at least one employee focused on marketing, more often than not marketing is one part of a single employee’s many hats. You know marketing is an important part of growing your agency, but you need to grow your agency before you can increase your marketing resources – what are you to do in this catch 22?
In our 
It’s amazing how much time can be spent during the day with small tasks like checking e-mails, reviewing documents or scheduling meetings. Throughout the days and weeks, the extra minutes spent on these daily tasks can add up to hours wasted. Moving these tasks to cloud applications and integrating them with your agency management system can save your agency time and money. Not only will it make sharing information easier, it will also give you access to the most up-to-date versions of documents and meetings at all times. Besides these benefits, using cloud applications for your e-mail, document sharing and calendars means this precious intel is backed-up regularly and securely.
Windows, one of the most popular operating systems, has announced it will be phasing out support on its XP system, with no support offered after April 8th, 2014. This means no new security updates, “hotfixes” (used for user-specific issues), or any type of technical support offered for Windows XP, along with its Office 2003. According to Windows, its support policy grants 10 years of support to its products, and XP’s 10 years are up.