In our last post, we covered some “need to ask” questions for independent insurance agency owners looking to switch agency management system providers. These questions help lead agency owners to providers who will ensure that the most important process of system transition—data conversion—goes smoothly.
However, preliminary vetting questions do not provide all the information an agency owner needs. Once it’s clear a provider is a good choice, it’s time to really get to know their system. To get a good read, focus on Conversion Capabilities, Conversion Process, Post Conversion Data Clean up and Data Retrieval and Backup. Each of these areas will provide a good predictor for conversion performance. Below are some sample questions for each arena.
Conversion Capabilities
- How many conversions have you completed from my current management system?
- How many different agency management systems do you convert data from?
- Is your team in-house or is this outsourced?
Conversion Process
- How much data is actually converted?
- Will you work directly with my data or do I have to provide csv. files and spreadsheets?
- Will you run a test conversion?
Post Conversion Data Clean up
- Who is responsible for data clean up?
- How do we communicate issues with the data?
- What should our expectations be for response time?
Data Retrieval and Backup
- Will you provide a backup on request?
- How and where is backup data stored?
These questions are a good start to finding out if a potential provider’s system can and will handle conversion successfully. Agency management system providers should be willing to engage in these questions and provide thoughtful, complete answers.
We at SIS address some of these concerns related to our Partner XE on our FAQ page and have our dedicated sales team ready to talk through any questions or concerns related to system conversion. Get in conversation today! Contact us at [email protected] or 800.747.7005.
