Though technology dominates the customer experience in many consumer sectors, independent agency clients still like that personal touch. This means technology for agencies needs to be particularly adapted to efficiencies more than self-service, according to members of ACT's Customer Experience Work Group. Ben Schultheis and Casey Hearring of Schultheis Insurance, Dina Buxton of Crane Agency, and Lisa Parry Becker of Parry & Son Insurance highlight some of the challenges in improving the customer experience via technology.
ACT News: Why are agency gatekeepers slow to approve certain CX solutions?
Lisa Parry Becker, VP, Parry & Son Insurance: I would say it takes time to research the options. There could be multiple solutions that meet various needs. What's the depth of the research needed? It might exceed the resources of the agency. It's efficient for us when Applied comes out with a solution to take a look at it, test it, and see how it goes.
Ben Schultheis, VP and Director, Schultheis Insurance: If we don't have something that already exists and is integrated well, if we have to go outside what we have set up, it's daunting. It's currently easy to print, email and fax. Integrating a way to Facebook message or text or go outside the traditional offerings isn't very attractive because of how hard it is to control, audit and document. If it's not built into the workflow, it's almost too large to undertake while ensuring the safety of the agency.
Casey Hearring, Systems Administrator, Schultheis Insurance: Anything stored outside our agency is a problem. We don't want duplicate copies floating around, because there's a risk that things won't get stored or documented properly.
Dina Buxton, Director of Communications & Development, Crane Agency: At Crane Agency, each producer owns their own book, so that gives a little bit of a different perspective. We, like other agencies, have faced the same challenges of bringing in younger employees, and we confront the issue of having multiple ways of using technology in the agency. Some people are tech-savvy, even tech-aggressive. Others aren't. For me, it's not that we oppose offering technology that improves communication with clients. Often, it's the issue of handling all those resources and managing all those channels of communication.
Sometimes gatekeepers are slow to approve technology because there are kinks in the integration to the agency management system. Texting is a good example. We don't have a way other than taking a screen shot of that communication to bring it into our agency management system. We can do it from a desktop but not from mobile. That begs the question: what's the improvement on our end over using email? It's not very efficient. It creates another channel that has to be checked and monitored. If we could capture texts from a phone and could seamlessly import them into the agency management system, that would be a great addition.
That said, if there were something we discovered that we thought would be really good, we would immediately research it. We stay abreast of our agency management system so we know the latest developments. We take a lot of time and energy and resources to vet things. Sometimes, we [management] like something but don't get internal adoption.
Lisa: We're an eight-person, family-run independent agency. As a family-owned operation, we make decisions based on what's right for our operations. We don't need to justify all of our technology decisions based on a return on investment. We want technology tools that enable us to remain independent and meet carrier volume requirements and client needs. For much larger agencies, though, you could get stuck in that place justifying the ROI, or you could be trying to develop the technology in-house, which could cause delays.
Dina: Crane is not opposed to investing in technology that is needed. We research those and are happy to implement those that are vetted and seen as a right fit. On the other hand, there are so many things being marketed and promoted, and our clients are not demanding as many new ways to interact with us. The question we are asking is, is the technology really creating efficiencies, really improving the interaction?
ACT News: What types of resources would really make a positive difference to an agency to make the ROI case for specific CX solutions?
Casey: Smaller agencies don't have much time to vet these solutions. That's where ACT can step in to tell us what companies are doing which things and how they apply to us—a summary of the tech offering, the benefits, and why people are using it. You really need to show the benefit versus all the time and training you're going put in.
Ben: It's hard to justify the time and investment to go through the different vendors, then to get it implemented, as well as the time it takes to combine a new technology into the daily workflow and procedures. It is a daunting task when trying to implement a new feature that isn't supported by the agency management system. It's just another system you have to manage.
ACT News: Would real-world success stories make a—or the—difference?
Casey: They would in a way. We try to ask vendors for examples in our specific region because what is good elsewhere might not work for us.
Ben: If ACT were to put out some of these stories, it would help. What's out there is ever-changing, and ACT can help us understand that. Agencies run pretty lean. If ACT can provide a road map, not even product-specific—here's how to roll out e-signature, choose a vendor, implement a product—that would be helpful. I would like something online that I could follow with hyperlinks. Not a step-by-step tutorial but agency storytelling: their selection, why they chose that product, how they implemented it, what the benefits were, etc.
Casey: Those stories that come from an actual agent are better than a canned pitch from a vendor.
ACT News: Are there specific kinds of customer experience solutions clients clamor for?
Lisa: We do see this, especially in the texting arena. While we as owners do that after hours, I don't expect my staff to handle that. We don't want to put that burden on our employees. We're still on TAM, which does not have texting integration. When I document client files, we take screenshots and transfer them into the system. It's rather clunky. We're moving to Epic the beginning of next year, which will have the texting integration. I'm really looking forward to that feature.
Using CSR/24 as our customer portal has been good. We unexpectedly fell into that. We were using it for certificate processing, and in the course of working with a colleague in our local user group, we found it could do so much more than certificates. We found our online portal capability by surprise and are very glad we did.
CSR/24 is how we got started with our CX. We've seen a lot of usage from our contracting clients, and we can see them issuing their certificates from pre-established templates—some at 6:00 in the morning, some at 10:00 at night. The clients who are using it love it. We see this as a retention tool, especially since not many agencies are offering this capability.
One of my clients has five LLCs, and we enabled her the ability to see all her accounts in one place with one log-on. The portal is not fancy, but it gives her all she needs in a dashboard view.
Ben: Texting is one with really struggle with—especially how to integrate it into the agency management system. Some offer that, but it is a big hurdle for us to figure out the best way to protect the agency from an E&O standpoint. And though a lot of our customers do want to text us, a lot of our producers don't want to give out personal cell phone information. And we don't like the personal phone idea either.
Casey: Tracking work hours, especially work done after hours, and information security are big concerns we have about implementing texting.
ACT News: What is your agency's overall CX strategy, and how do you see it evolving as you cull through ACT resources on the subject?
Lisa: We rolled CX out first in commercial lines. During our staff meetings, we are reviewing reports and seeing how people are interacting with us. We are looking at touchpoints. You figure people are most likely getting other financial statements online, so this interaction is not foreign to them.
When my brother delivers proposals, he does this through CSR/24. He puts the proposal on the prospect account that is accessed through a unique user ID and password. That introduces our method from the get-go. That's a big win for him. He can say let's deliver your policies that way, etc. Prospects are already used to communicating with us through the portal.
We continue to leverage ACT working groups and white papers to see what we should focus on next.
ACT News: How does the overall CX extend back to the resources your carrier partners should provide?
Lisa: I know the industry is spending a lot of time on CX, which is good. As an independent agency, we want to provide the primary contact and interface for our clients. Carriers have a significant amount of CX interaction at claim time. Carriers are starting to pay more attention to how they communicate with customers throughout the process from first report through the investigation progress to the final claim payment. Clients want to be taken care of and treated well for their hard-earned premium dollars, especially at claim time.
Dina: From a personal lines claims perspective, there are technologies in place from the carriers, but really, when the carriers are involved, it's just another thing to monitor. Other than that, I can't really think of anything on the carrier side that would make it easier for us that doesn't create additional work for the agency.
Casey: One of the problems is all the carriers are offering their own [proprietary] solutions.
ACT News: Any last observations?
Dina: From where I'm standing right now, the customer experience isn't that tech-heavy. It's more about delivering on our promises. The majority of commercial and high-end personal lines clients want the personal, professional touch. So, automating for them isn't a priority. But we would really look at it if something came along to improve our efficiency so we can better serve them.
Ben: At the end of the day, people who value independent agents like the reassurance of having the professional do the work and give the advice.
Casey: As far as we see, no one's really asking for self-serve anyway: We don't hear “You know, I really wish I could do this work for myself."
Lisa: We want to remain relevant by interacting and communicating in the way our clients prefer.