As Director of Client Services, I work with and for our independent insurance agency clients to provide the top agency management system tools and training. Our team has worked with agencies across the country, collaborating with teams of all sizes and experience levels to help them achieve their desired outcomes of productivity, effectiveness and profitability.

Across these encounters, we’ve seen some commonalities that lead to successful conversion and implementation. Each showed us it’s not just the agency management system quality that matters; it’s how the team uses it.

1. Train your whole team

Extend training to your entire staff, not just those who use the system on a daily basis. Including your whole team means everyone has a base understanding of what the system can do and a common language around how to use it. The independent insurance agencies we work with tend to be close-knit teams, regardless of their size, so learning together is expected.

For our Partner Platform team, whole-staff training allows us to build trust with the entire agency and get to know them better. Group training often leads to better questions and more insights on how we can improve the system.

Check out some of our on-going training with events like our Work-from-Home Securely webinar

2. Add targeted, role-based training

While everyone should be in on the overall training, not everyone needs to know each detail of how the system works. After large group sessions, we break into smaller, targeted groups giving each practice area – accounting, management, sales, service – the detailed “how-to” they need. These small group sessions allow each individual to go in-depth with this learning, asking scenario-specific questions and getting hands-on walkthroughs of common processes.

3. Spend time on quality conversion and implementation

Accurate data conversion and correct implementation are critical to ensure a safe transition. It’s essential to start your management system experience with a solid base. Agencies collect large amounts of data and need to integrate it correctly into a new system for it to be functional.

Though data conversion and implementation are challenging, the Partner Platform team works hard to make the process as smooth and transparent as possible, minimizing risk. It’s not about getting it done fast; it’s about getting it done right. Our experienced team is committed to creating trust and getting the job done well the first time. That being said, with our expertise we can typically convert an agency’s data in a matter of days compared to oft quoted weeks or months.

Get more info on our training and support services on our website

4. Establish point people

Though you should always have your provider to rely on for complex issues, it’s important to establish an internal point person for immediate agency management system support. Identify a person or small team in your office to be that person for your agency. Although your internal resource won’t be able to answer every question, they will be able to provide immediate troubleshooting for smaller issues and know how to quickly get in touch with your provider to address larger needs. 

5. Keep the learning going

One-time training simply isn’t enough. Your team will gain valuable insights during their initial training, but some of it won’t be implemented until months later. In these cases, you want to have easily accessible refreshers for team members. These can be online guides, how-to videos, or simple FAQs to help them through more complex but less frequently used operations.

And, you should have regular whole-team refresher sessions to keep everyone up to date on any new features or to clarify trouble spots. The more practice you provide, the better your processes run.

See why community and team collaboration is important to us as an agency partner

6. Find a dedicated partner

You want an agency management provider who will work with you from the time you decide to move through conversion day until the day you retire. Look for a team that provides targeted, personalized initial training, and offers always-accessible online guides and how-to videos to keep your team informed. You’ll also want dedicated service, knowing you’ll get a real person to walk you to a solution when you have an issue.

This is the kind of attention, commitment, and service we provide at Partner Platform. We’re proud to have a quality agency management system and suite of tools and a world-class team dedicated to providing the best experience to each of our Partner Platform agencies. Each of our conversion and training experiences is targeted to the agency, and we stay committed to following up to ensure the whole agency is fluent in the system.

You can hear directly from our Partner Platform agencies on their system conversion, training, and implementation experiences on our Client Stories page. And, view a demo of the Partner Platform system in action – get in touch here to find out more about our quality system and experience.