Agency AutomationTEAM http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog Consultant Designed Agency Automation Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:10:08 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Agency Productivity: An Agencies Cross-Road http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-productivity_agencys-cross-road.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-productivity_agencys-cross-road.html#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:32:27 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=348 Agency Productivity Concept All Agencies Need To Know… Cross-Roads!
For years I’ve coined the term, “cross-roads” of an agency. All agencies have cross-roads which is a time when a decision needs to be made.  It’s very important to know when you’ll hit yours next. 
 
Confused?
 
Let me define what the cross-roads of an agency is … 
 
This is where an agency has grown to the point where the existing staff isn’t able to keep up with the daily work. For most agencies, this is when they’d put an ad in the paper to hire another CSR. I refer to it as a cross-road because as an agency you have choices of how you want to resolve this problem.  It doesn’t always require another CSR, as you’ll learn …
 
The question is, at what point of growth do you want your agency to hit this cross-road? 
 
This point is based upon how many clients and policies your staff are able to handle each.  Another way to look at this could be, how many policies or how much premium per CSR do you want your staff to be able to handle before needing to hire another CSR?  We’re also going to get into profitability issues so stick with me here.
 
Let’s break this down further so it makes more sense.
 
To explain this concept we need to establish some numbers we can use. For illustrational purposes let’s say you’re 50/50 personal lines and commercial lines (in real life I separate PL & CL) and that your average policy pays 14% commission and the average premium is $4000 per year. This equals an average commission of $560 per average policy. Let’s also say you have 10 CSR’s who spend 100% of their time servicing your customers equaling 400 customer service hours per week.
 
Remember, this is just an example to illustrate this point. You can plug your own numbers into the formula for your agency.
 
The scenario is that your 10 CSR’s are no longer able to handle all of the work for the day causing work to pile up with each day causing the staff to get further and further behind. 
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to predict when your agency is coming up to a cross-road so you can be pro-active versus re-active?
 
I’m going to show you how so make sure you read this whole article …
 
As an agency let’s say your total book of business is $5,357,143. That would mean each of the 10 CSR’s would be managing $535,714 each. At a 14% average commission this shows each CSR is managing $75,000 of commissions each. 
 
As a side note, this is your baseline for the amount of policies, premium and commission each CSR as an average can manage (I’d want this broke down by CSR so I knew the baseline per CSR).  It’s these numbers you want to work on and improve upon. You always want to know what each CSR’s baseline is to establish each CSR’s effectiveness and to show you who needs more training.  As these numbers improve so does your profits.  At the end I tighten this down further to help you more effectively analyze your agency, your CSR’s and establish your productivity.
 
With each CSR just managing $75,000 of commissions that means you need a CSR for roughly every $75,000 of commissions coming into the agency, which, at a 14% average commission, is only $535,714 of volume each.  (When consulting, we also analyze by employee.)
 
However, at $30,000 total cost per CSR with their salary, taxes, benefits and everything else, that means the agency is only profiting $45,000 for every $75,000 based upon CSR labor hours only. 
 
Remember, this analysis is based upon CSR’s only and doesn’t factor in other staff you may have. Also, I just recently talked to an agency in Florida and they stated they couldn’t hardly hire anyone for under $50,000 per year … that can certainly affect the numbers and profits!
 
Let’s say you purchase a new management system and this new management system will allow your CSR’s to now manage up to $100,000 of commissions each. 
 
(You need to understand that every management system has a cap at how many policies a CSR can handle with this example being just an example … I am not referring to any specific one here.  I will say, however, that if an agency management system only allows the CSR to manage $100,000 of commissions, that’s not very good.)
 
So let’s compare the previous baseline with the new baseline and how they affect the agencies cross-road …
 
  • Initial Cross-Road & Baseline: your cross-roads initially was $75,000 of commissions per CSR which equals 156.25 policies per CSR and $625,000 of premium.
  • New Cross-Road after Purchasing new System creating the new Baseline: Now each CSR is able to manage up to $100,000 of commissions per CSR which equals 208.3 policies per CSR and $833,333 of premium.
So what’s happened here is as an agency you’ve increased how long between cross-roads because your CSR’s are now able to manage more business each.  You’ve also help increase the profitability per CSR.
 
With the new baseline you wouldn’t need to bring a new CSR on until you have written another $833,333 of business versus the previously needed $625,000.  Make sense?
 
Another way of looking at this is you’ve increased each CSR’s productivity by $208,000 of premium, or $25,000 of commissions increasing your profit margin by $25,000 per CSR. 
 
I should also point out here that the more profitable an agency is per CSR traditionally the higher the CSR’s are paid so it would behoove the CSR’s to be committed to increased productivity.
 
For many agencies, hiring another CSR is just putting a bandage on a gushing cut where it’s money that’s gushing out!  There are other, better solutions than just hiring another CSR.  Remember, the key here is “Productivity” … the more productive your staff is the more profitable you’ll be!
 
What are some ways you could affect the productivity of your CSR’s and decrease the frequency of hitting cross-roads in your agency?  Let’s take a look …
 

Teaching your CSR’s to use their current agency management system better.  The better you know your system the faster you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for, do data-entry and handle a task.  However, when it comes to your management system nothing will increase your productivity more than …

Teach your CSR’s workflows with your management system.  Workflows is truly where you maximize productivity in agency. 

However, many systems weren’t designed for this because they’re glorified databases or the creator didn’t understand workflows when the system was designed and built.  It’s not enough to just be able to handle, say, an endorsement.  HOW does the system handle an endorsement?  What are the steps?  How is it automated?

Teach your CSR’s productivity strategies.  This includes strategies that have nothing to do with your agency management system.

Teach your CSR’s how to more efficiently use the other software your agency uses like rating programs, company websites, etc.

Are you using Outlook?  If so, are you using Rules to better manage your inbound and outbound emails?  Rules is a beautiful feature.  I use it very heavily myself!

If you use other programs, can they be integrated together?  For example, MS Word has some amazing mail-merge functionality that may help you increase productivity. 

I’ve helped agencies merge data from their management system and other software programs into a MS Word document.  For continuously used documents we even create templates with the merge fields already on it so all the user has to do is open that template and hit print!  Nice!

Make sure each CSR’s computer is setup for maximum effectiveness.  You can setup the desktop and Internet Explorer to increase productivity. 

I did a video on each of these.  When I find them I’ll edit this article and put a link to them here. 

You’ll be amazed at how much more efficient you can be when you know how to setup your desktop and Internet Explorer properly.  Another very nice strategy.

Make sure you’re using a management system that will allow you to maximize the productivity of your staff.  Nothing will do more to increasing the productivity of your staff than your agency management system.

As I’ve already pointed out, every management system has a cap as to how productive each CSR can be based upon the design of the system, how easy it is to use, workflows, providing the features you need and being single entry.

Are you starting to get the idea? 

Because of how much more money an agency makes in profits by increasing their productivity agencies will spend $10,000 or more to have consultants like myself teach them how to increase their productivity by even just 5%.   Consultants are so much more knowledgeable and have so much more experience than vendor trainers.  You simply cannot rely on a vendors trainers to help your agency maximize it’s productivity. 
 
Cross-roads and profitability is also why increased productivity was foundational to the Desktop CSR and TIME System.  I very clearly understand how important it is to your profits to increase the productivity and efficiency in your agency, as I hope you can see by what you’re reading here. Like I’ve always said, “Productivity equals profitability!”
 
Having said all of this, be very clear to understand that how productive you are is in direct relationship to the system you’re using.  Nothing affects your productivity more than the automation that you use and your proficiency in using it!
 
With the low-end systems which traditionally have a lot of double entry, a poor workflow and don’t provide the level of functionality to service clients & policies like the more advanced systems, there’s a lower cap of how productive you can be. In other words, your staff won’t be able to service as many clients and policies.  Don’t shoot the messenger here … I’m just telling you the way it is! 
 
And yes, even the more expensive full feature systems have a cap but it’s quite a bit higher than the low end system. With proper training to become proficient on the full-feature system, which may take quite a few months due to how much more complex and harder to use they are, you’ll find you’re able to service more clients and policies than the low-end products.
 
Because our products have been designed from the ground floor up to massively increase your productivity starting by very efficiently handling your day-to-day workload we expect our systems to allow a CSR to handle a much larger book of business and workload than any other system. This is foundational to our systems!
 
Since we’re on the subject of increased profitability, which is a by-product of how productive you are, here’s something else for you to consider … if you think you don’t need an agency management system and think you can run your agency jumping from carrier website to website, you are loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits every year (depending on your size).  I’ve proven this point time and time again with agencies. That’s all I want to say about this at this time.
 
Now you know what an agency “cross-road” is and what a baseline is. Now you need to figure out what yours is for your agency so you know what to improve upon.
 
As a vendor, our first goal is to get your CSR labor hours to $200,000 of commissions per CSR.  How productive and profitable would that make you?
 

Once You’ve Chosen Your Agency Management System, Step 2 Is Making Sure You Know How To Use It to Maximize It’s Ability to Help You Create a Productive Agency

Next to owning a management system that offers the ability to massively increase your productivity, training is the next most important thing you can do. However, not always can you get the kind of training you need to increase your productivity.
 
In the area of training, there are two types of trainers and two types of training. Let me explain.
 
For types of training there is …
 
1) Product Knowledge training. This is teaching you “how” to use a specific feature. How to add a note, how to add a client record, how to add a policy, etc. You get the idea.
 
2) Productivity Training. Here you learn “workflow” strategies which is showing you the best steps to processing a task. In addition, it’s teaching other strategies to increase agency productivity. Productivity courses could include automation strategies and non-computer strategies like how a receptionist handles call-in’s.
 
Regarding trainers, there are company trainers and there are consultants. 
 
Earlier I somewhat already addressed consultants versus vendor trainers.  My experience is that the high majority of vendor hired trainers only teach product knowledge. Vendor trainers teach what the vendor tells them to teach with very few having any workflow experience and therefore they aren’t able to teach that. Most vendor trainers simply teach what’s in their own manual and other training courses! (You should be having a “huhmm” moment at this point.) 
 
Pretty consistently agencies are turning to consultants like myself to learn effective workflow strategies and how to more effectively use their management system to increase productivity. 
 
I remember a training workshop I did with a group of agencies with the last system I represented. At this workshop, of the other 20 people, there were 3 CSR’s who had been using the system for 6 years and had no idea why the owner felt they needed to be at this workshop believing they had the system mastered. They had serious reservations about being at the workshop, they bluntly told me when they arrived!
 
At the end of the first day after teach just the “basics” to proper workflows and showing them step by step what a proper workflow process was, all 3 of these CSR’s came up to me and apologized! They were absolutely amazed at how much they didn’t know!  All 3 swore they just increased their productivity by at least 15%, saying what I taught them that day was monumental in their using their management system.
 
The CSR’s also questioned why the training staff at the company didn’t teach this stuff.  
 
Because they’re not consultants who “specialize in productivity and workflow strategies”.  To teach it you must know it and understand it.  Make sense? 
 
Then, you may be wondering, how can someone write an agency management system that’s productivity driven and maximizes workflows if they don’t understand workflows and productivity strategies? 
 
Ding, ding, ding … is the light coming on?
 
This is why I decided to take on the huge task of having an agency management system written… so you’d have a system tailor made to the insurance agency to increase your productivity and thus increase your profitability. THEN, once that’s in place, we’ll bring into your agency the additional elements to really make you shine, grow and prosper! 
 
But it all starts with the foundation of being able to handle your day to day work in the fastest, most productive way possible.  It’s here that big profits are gained or lost!  It’s here where true agency management systems are separated from glorified database programs with ACORD forms in them like the new systems being introduced to the industry these days. There are also quite a few low-end systems that have been out on the market that fit this description.
 
What do you want? What results are you after with your agency management system? What direction is your agency going? 
 
I would think you’d want to be as profitable as possible! 
 

Productivity and YOUR Agency

Since I’ve discussed “baselines” and “cross-roads” in this article, if you’re going to actually analyze your own agency I felt I better add this additional information because there’s more to it than what I’ve already shared and I want you to have proper and accurate information. 
 
So here’s the scenario.  You’re getting ready to analyze your agency to establish your baseline so you can more accurately project when or how close your agency is to coming up to a cross-road so you can plan for it.
 
As an added bonus, this information is key to help you analyze the effectiveness of your staff AND automation!
 

As a business, you should break down your labor hours down by customer service, accounting, marketing, sales and administration.  That way you know how much time is spent in each area to help you analyze your agency accurately.

Here’s what you do … if an employee spent his/her full 8 hours of work today doing customer service that would be 8 hours under customer service.  As we discuss this example, you’ll understand why you should do it this way.  If the employee spent 2 hours doing quoting and you consider this a sales task then this CSR would’ve only spent 6 hours doing Customer Service tasks.  Make sense?

A very common way of measuring an agencies productivity is by taking the total commission coming into the agency and dividing it by …

… what to divide it by is controversial.  Some say you should divide it by your total staff while other say you should divide it by the number of CSR’s you have making sure to exclude producers.  The real answer is, what you divide it by is based upon what you’re trying to determine or accomplish with the analysis.

My preference is to divide it by your customer service labor hours.  This is how you determine how productive you are. 

You see, it’s your CSR’s who are servicing your book of business and as a business I want to know what size book of business my CSR’s can manage.  Once I know this  it allows me to make some very important decisions, which is another topic for another day.  For today I want to stay focused on your productivity in relationship to your agency. 

So let’s put some numbers to this (this is an example only).

This time let’s say you have 10 employees and for illustrational purposes you use 240 customer service hours each week to service your clients which is equivalent to 6 CSR’s (240 hours divided by 40 hours per week). 

Then let’s say you’ve got $750,000 of commissions coming into your agency.

We’re now going to take that $750,000 and divide it by 6 CSR’s (240 CSR Hrs divided by the work week of 40 hrs per week) to equal $125,000.  This means each CSR is able to manage $125,000 of commissions each.  If the average commission in your agency is 15%, that’s means each CSR is able to manage $833,333 of volume each. 

Are you following me so far?  This is important stuff.

Your agency management system should be able to tell you most of these figures.  Having said that, I am aware that for many of the systems, getting this information is next to impossible.

Does this make things more clear?

The point in this article is productivity and how to increase it, and being able to predict when your agency will be htting its next cross-road so you can be pro-active.  Along with these core points, I hit on a number of other important points that I hope got you thinking on how to improve the productivity in your agency. 

As I’ve said for years …

Productivity equals Profitability!  And increasing your Productivity starts with being able to quickly and efficiently handle your day-to-day workload.  This is where BIG agency profits are GAINED or LOST!

Future Articles Based Upon This Article …

I will be using the information from this article in an upcoming article covering “Agency Management Systems:  How To Choose Them (Part x)”  where I’ll discuss these elements in comparison to your agency management system.  In this upcoming article I’ll illustrate from a financial point of view the end financial results to an agency that’s considering switching systems thinking they’re paying too much money in support fees.  You’ll definately want to read this article because you’ll find it very enlightening!

In addition, because cross-roads and agency productivity affect the small agency far more than mid-sized and larger agency’s due to their much smaller profit margins and a few other elements, small agencies need to be able to put in place cost effective productive strategies so they can grow, which I’ll also address in a future article.

I know, I know … I’m getting a lot of emails thanking me for these educational articles, but they want more information.  Like I said in the first article I did on choosing agency management systems (part 1), this is a monstrous topic that should really be handled in a book, not via articles or blogs because there’s so much too it and so many elements to consider and so many variables that change the results/outcome. 

This is why agencies hired me to help them choose the right system for their agency … because there is so much to it and because I know it all so intimately!

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to write a book.  Therefore you’ll have to settle for my articles in this blog.  Eventually I’ll have it all out and in print so you can read each of the articles to learn about productivity strategies and your agency, how to effectively analyze and compare management systems and much more.

I love this industry, and love helping agency’s prosper and grow.  I hope you found this article on productivity helpful to your agency.

Remember, at our home page for our agency management systems you’ll find product information.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-productivity_agencys-cross-road.html/feed 0 Agency Management Systems: Choosing Between Them (Part 1) http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-management-systems-choosing-between-them-part1.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-management-systems-choosing-between-them-part1.html#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:36:21 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=288 Helping Agencies Choose An Agency Management System (Part 1-Introduction)
 
Still to this day agencies are asking for my help in reviewing agency management systems. It’s not easy to wade through the different systems trying to figure out which one will truly provide the greatest financial advantage to the agency. That’s because there are so many things to consider.
 
When I help an agency review systems I look at a lot of things.  Once I understand the agency, what they sell, their market place, their goals and a number of other things I then analyze the agency management systems and their ability to meet the needs of the agency. 
 
Now, you'll notice, my focal point is on areas that deal with a CSR's day to day workload.  I don't spend very much time reviewing "whistles and bells" (those extra's) because when it comes to automating your agency it's the system's ability to effectively and quickly handle your staff's day to day work that will make the biggest difference, the biggest impact in your agency.   Here's are some of the things I’ll look at …
 
 
* The database the system uses. This could be Access, Paradox, Omnis or SQL to name a few.  Believe me, the database used is very important.  Just ask your IT person. 
 
Because the database is so important I’m in the process of writing an article on this very point which I’ll publish soon.
 
* The data-entry windows and how they’re laid out … do they flow fluently?  Does it make sense?  Is doing the data-entry easy?
 
* How users navigate the system to find what they’re looking for.
 
* The ability to service more than one client and one policy at the same time.  Because the average CSR will be servicing more than one client at the same time, or will handle more than one process at the same time, can the system accomodate this?!
 
* How easily (and effectively) does the system manage outstanding work and help the CSR make sure it gets completed.
 
Outstanding work like Follow Ups to questions, or endorsements you've submitted, or renewals you're working on but are waiting for someone to do a task before you can finish it, does the system give you the ability to stay on top of these items easily?  With all of the different areas of a system that tracks "work in progress" items, does the system help you stay on top of all of these areas and make sure things don't slip through your fingertips?
 
Too often the agency just accepts that the system handles follow ups and staying on top of different tasks, but it's not until you actually see exactly how the system manages outstanding tasks that you can establish if that systems methods are acceptable to your agency.
 
* How complete the system is for capturing information needed by the CSR. 
 
* Tools to help the CSR do their job faster.
 
For example, when you call the carrier do you have all carrier follow ups at your fingertips so you can handle multiple client issues with the carrier at the same time?  Or when submitting policies to multiple carriers does the submission process give you the ability to send them all at the same time with the right information being included for each carrier? 
 
This is just 2 examples of hundreds of ways a CSR's job could be improved upon and done faster.  What task are you doing many times a day that could be automated?
 
* Can the CSR find what they're looking for?  When the user needs to find a record or a policy, how easy is it to do that?  There are so many ways a CSR or staff person will be searching for a record, can the system find the records in all of these ways? 
 
For commercial lines, can I search by the contact name?  Can I search by the policy number, or even just a partial policy number, but have the choice of either pulling up the client record or the policy?
 
In the same respect, you're constantly adding notes, follow-ups, attachments, correspondence, etc. to the system.  If you need to find a specific note or a specific attachment, how easy is that done?
 
* I spend a tremendous amount of time analyzing the workflow (the steps to process a task) because it’s here where the rubber hits the road to increase an agency’s productivity. 
 
This is also one of the areas where you separate the “glorified database systems” from the true “agency management systems”. 
 
* I analyze how easy the system is to learn and use … is it common sense? Does it flow with the task? Are menu’s easy to understand? Can I quickly find the information I’m needing? 
 
Easy-to-use is the #1 request of the agency, and for good reason!  That's because, for starters, it takes agency resources to train someone how to use a system.  Some systems are so complex it's taking CSR's up to 9 months to effectively use the system … that's just down right unacceptable!
 
Along with analyzing how easy a system is to learn and use, I analyze the training the vendor offers.  Some methods are far better than others, and certain types help the staff retain the information better which reduces the overall cost to training.
 
* Is the system single-entry?
 
My experience has been that the more single entry the system the more expensive the system because of how much more programming is required and because it’s cutting costs to the agency. Not being single-entry is a huge factor in how many CSR’s you’ll need due to the wasted time of re-entering information already in the system into the system again in another area. That’s not good!
 
If a vendor isn't building into the system workflows and the ability to carry data to other areas of the system so you're not re-entering information already in the system, all you're going to have is a glorified database system, and there are quite a few of these on the market today.  These are the low-cost systems.
 
If this was all we were going to offer you, we could've easily had the system released within a year.  It's taken the addtional 2+ years to build in the workflows, making sure the system is single-entry and building in the systems ability to automate processes, along with re-engineering many standard features found in an agency management system.
 
* I review the steps it takes to process different tasks like doing a renewal or handling an endorsement.
 
* Going paperless. If the agency is paperless (or wanting to go paperless), I carefully analyze the systems ability to allow the agency to accomplish this and what the process is to accomplish this. You’d be surprised how different the systems are in this area.
 
* I also review how the system handles downloaded data … does it update policy information, for example. 
 
There are quite a few areas I analyze here because if the system doesn’t handle the downloaded data properly then it’s going to cost you a lot of time fixing the problems created.
 
* I analyze how the system handles personal lines policies, commercial lines policies and packages. It’s truly amazing how very few systems properly handle commercial lines forcing the agency to hire more commercial lines CSR’s than necessary.
 
* Then there's the accounting of the system.
 
And all of this is just the beginning!
 
It’s quite a process to help an agency review automation systems, especially when you do it thoroughly and do it right.  It's about time the agency is educated on how to compare the differences between systems so the agency can make a good decision on an agency management system. 
 
Unfortunately, because agencies aren't educated in this area (and this industry seems to be very biased) and because of the complexity of management systems and all of the areas you really need to analyze to make a good decision on a system, it doesn’t surprise me to see agencies simply buy the cheapest system. Many figure that this will at least get them started and then down the road they can upgrade to a better system.
 

4 Key Reasons To Not Get Frustrated And End Up Just Purchasing The Cheapest or A Low-Priced System

While I understand why they do this, in reality this isn’t a very good idea for four key reasons: 
 
1)  When you upgrade to a better system you’ll be faced with a data conversion which is an additional cost. 
 
You’ll want to make sure you plan for this by finding out how difficult it is to get the data out of the system you're on and what formats are available.  I know of a few systems that getting the information out of is either very difficult along with being incomplete or is very expensive.  Remember, this is YOUR data!
 
When converting to a new system, how much data in your current system do you want to carry forward to the new system?  Are you able to get ALL of your data?  Is there a cost to get your data?  Don't you agree that knowing this upfront would be a good idea?  Here's why …
 
The reality is, the average life cycle of an agency on a management system is 6.5 years so regardless to which system you purchase you should find out this information upfront.
 
2)  If you purchase a system that's "hosted only" or that you don't own because it's a subscription lease plan, you've just greatly affected what you'll have available to help you make the transition to the new system! 
 
Believe me, vendors who offer these types of systems are well aware of this and hope you'll conclude it's too much of a headache and loss of data to make the switch.  Thankfully there are still some systems that you can own and that you can install on your servers (or have hosted) based upon your needs, especially if you know you're going to be upgrading to a better system down the road.  Let me briefly explain why this is an issue.
 
Back in the old days we'd have the agency take the old system and keep it on the server so the staff could access it as needed.  The staff was continuously referencing the old system, especially in the first year.  They'd reference it for many different reasons …
 
* to fill in the blanks that the data conversion didn't populate or to get the information if they were manually populating the new system,
* to retrieve past term policies since the normal data conversion only converts active policies,
* to access payment history for agency bill clients and accounting details since you never convert accounting data but instead take the ending balances in your current system and make them the beginning balances of your new system. 
 
These are just a few reasons, but should be enough to help you realize how much of a disadvantage it is to your agency to not be able to reference the old system.
 
Today, between "subscription" plans and "hosted only" systems this strategy of putting your old system on the server to be referenced is just not possible with certain systems and vendors.  That's definitely not in the best interest of the agency, especially when the agency had been on the old system for a long time and has a lot of data in the system. 
 
There's a lot more to this topic of why it's so much more advantageous to own your software so you're able to put it on the server for the staff to continue to reference as needed if you switch systems than what I'm sharing here.  For now I just want to introduce this point to you.  In a future article I'll cover this factor in much more detail.
 
By the way, as a side note, as a vendor ourselves we clearly understand the huge financial advantage gained by only offering a "subscription" plan.  However, they're not always in your best interest which is why I'm bluntly pointing them out here and will be offering a more detailed article on them in the future. 
 
FYI, we do offer a purchase plan so you can own the software.  We have started an blog article that explains the different purchase options vendors use, their advantages and disadvanteges and what we're doing different that's more focused on meeting YOUR needs!
 
The bottom line is, you should be using a system because it's providing you with the results you want, not because a vendor has made it too hard to switch to a new, better system.  Make sense?
 
3)  It’s costing you upfront on your staff hours. My experience has been that the low-cost systems are not very efficient and require more CSR hours to do the total job.  Those additional hours are going against your agencies profitability.
 
You see, it’s easy to write a “feature-driven” system, or to write a glorified database. But it’s the system workflows and proper ways to process a task along with making the system single-entry that make the biggest difference and allow the agency to create a productive and efficient agency.
 
4)  The learning curve. Not only are you now needing to learn a new system, by switching systems you’ll be learning different ways to handle a task. 
 
The problem is the longer you do something one way the harder it will be to learn a different way even if it’s better. It’s the same with any software program … we all get comfortable with the one we use, even if it's not the best solution for us. 
 
For example, in the early 90’s I use to use Lotus AmiPro for my word processing while everyone else used either MS Word or WordPerfect. Even though MS Word really was becoming the standard, it was AmiPro that I was familiar with and therefore I had no intentions of switching because that would require me to learn a new system. Plus, with as busy as I was I simply didn’t have time to learn a new system.
 
Over the years I've heard many agencies say they just don't have the time to switch to the better system because they're too busy to learn a new system even if it is able to help each CSR manage more policies.  The fact is, they can't afford not too!  In future blogs on this topic I'll explain why.
 
Now, having said all of this and shared these 4 key points, what if it's too late and you've already purchased that low-end system and now you're ready to upgrade to a better, more efficient, more productive system?
 
If the new system is going to allow your staff to manage more policies and clients so that each CSR is managing a larger book of business, then you just may need to bite the bullet and upgrade.  We'll explain when it makes sense and when it doesn't in a future article. 
 
We'll also discuss how to properly and smoothly convert to a new system. 
 

Final Message On Part 1 of This Important Topic

Take the time to do your due diligence in analyzing and reviewing management systems.  It will pay off tremendously in the end.  Don't settle for just low-cost.  As you're going to learn in this series of blogs covering "How to Choose an Agency Management System", it's all about the results you gain from the management system. 
 
You're also going to learn and be proven that the upfront cost of a management system is really insignificant, that it's the ongoing costs that make the biggest difference in what the management system cost.  Have you noticed you can't hardly "purchase and own" a system any more, that almost all vendors have gone to a "subscription" based approach? 
 
There's a reason they've done that and in future blogs I'll be disclosing why.
 
In summary, it's the ongoing cost that establishes the true cost of the management system.  Add to this the results you gain from the management system (number of policies a CSR is capable of managing as one) and you establish your Return on Investment (ROI).  I will also be breaking this down for you in future blogs so you understand the significance of these factors.
 
As you can see, there is a lot to this topic.  This is just part 1 of an ongoing series to help the independent agency understand the factors associated to choosing a management system and how each of these factors play a role in helping your agency improve your financial profitability and help your agency get the job done. 
 
In the series we'll continue to break the process down, each of the factors down and show you how to effectively compare systems, including how to compare pricing which can be very misleading these days.
 
But remember, before an analysis can be done there needs to be a clear understanding of who you are as an agency … what Lines of Business do you sell?  Who's your market place?  What's your goals?  What's the budget for automation and staff?  What's the character of the owner?  What's the focus of the owner? 
 
This is the small list!  The point is, you must know who you are as an agency and the direction you're going before you can start the journey of reviewing systems. 
 
Agency management systems are not created equal, nor do they offer the same ability or results.  That's why this topic of "How to Choose an Agency Management System" is so important!  And, for the first time ever, the formula to making the right decision for your agency is about to be revealed!
 
I hope you found this first blog to be a good opener to the topic of, "How to Choose an Agency Management System".
 
For more information about our agency management systems, you can go to our home page to request information.
]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/agency-management-systems-choosing-between-them-part1.html/feed 0 What’s Taking So Long To Get The System Released? http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/whats-taking-so-long-to-release-agency-management-systems.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/whats-taking-so-long-to-release-agency-management-systems.html#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:35:43 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=154 Are You Also Wondering What's Taking So Long To Get System To General Release?

Hardly a week goes by that I'm not getting a phone call or email asking what the status is of the Desktop CSR and when it'll be released.

If we were just writing a glorified database system it would've been released within a year.  But when you add in our commitment to creating a "single-entry" system, an easy-to-use system, and building a system with proper workflows so your staff is handling tasks like renewals and endorsement very quickly and easily, along with having to re-engineer standard features so they're accomplishing their task like they should in 2010 (this isn't 1980 anymore), you should be able to appreciate our commitment to our future clients and the product we'll be introducing to this industry.  It takes a lot of programming hours to create a system like we've designed.

Why this is so important to us, and should be to you too, is your day-to-day workload is the foundation to how productive you are or how ineffecient you are.  This is where the big profits are made or lost.  The more productive your agency is in handling your day-to-day work the more profitable you'll be, and visa-versa. 

Knowing this, along with 20 years of experience in working hand in hand with agencies on their automation, we set out to design and create an agency management system like only insurance automation consultants could.  You won't be disappointed, and will find the wait well worth it! 

For many reasons I wish the system was already released. It's going to be exciting when I can show you feature by feature, task by task, job by job how our systems will drop your workload and allow you to be more productive.  At this point you'll see what I mean.

I can tell you that I'm working very long hours and programming is working long hours to get this project to the point of General Release.  But, we're not willing to cut corners!

I'm putting all of me into this because I love what I do and I love working with agencies.  This is something I'm passionate about, which is the #1 reason why it's taking so long.  I want the product to do what it's been designed to do, which in the end is to massively increase your productivity by handling, for starters and most importantly, your day to day work in the most efficient way possible.  I know what the system needs to do.   

Nobody wants just "another" management system on the market, nor do I want just another low-end low-cost system that's just a glorified database with basic features.  As an industry we've all been begging for a system that would allow you to do your day to day work in the least amount of steps and the least amount of time.  Just that alone would make a monumental difference in every agency across the country.

Upfront as foundational to the system my focus is on the day to day work an agency does.  Create a system that handles that piece efficiently and you've created a system that will be of high demand.  I don't care much about those extra whistles and bells right now.  What matters to me is creating a system that will allow you to process your work and handle your tasks quickly and easily.  This is where profits are made or lost in an agency!  This is foundational!  (I'll get to the whistles and bells at version 2+ after the foundational part of the system has been completed!)

Then we add to the foundational system powerful, time saving, 21st century features that just simply make your job that much easier too do.  How about the ability to have multiple client records opened up at the same time?  That's huge. 

And as far as that goes, how about having multiple policies and/or forms opened up at the same time.  You'll have the tools to do your job so much better, so much faster … what will you do with all of your free time?

Now, I could've released the product prematurely.  But come on.  Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't do that.  Grant the fact that I can give you a hundred reasons why I wanted to release the system this last quarter, it still comes back to the simple fact that the product just hasn't been ready to be released. 

Please, be patient with me.  When it's all said and done and we show you what our systems are all about I'm sure you'll agree that the wait was worth it.

The Hold Up Today Is …

Today the hold up is Endorsements.

Handling an endorsement is a very important process, and it's something you do daily! We are bringing some very advanced functionality here to handle the endorsement process correctly and efficiently. Programming found it to be far more work to create the results I was after for handling endorsement.

For example, if the Endorsement Date is a future date then it doesn't give you the ability to update the policy when you save the endorsement. When that date arrives, the assigned CSR is notified that she has Endorsements Due Today, with a list of them, for her to checkmark to update the policy. 

That way your policies are accurate. Very nice.

We use a similar process for handling renewals. You can renew a policy for a future date (very common) but the CSR can see both the current "active" policy AND the renewal policy. You'll like this a lot! We've built other functionalities in with this.

Back to the endorsement process, you'll use the ACORD PCR forms to create the endorsement but you'll submit them on a PCR memo because it's cleaner and less confusing for all. Then, when the endorsement is received back via the download, our download engine will compare what was endorsed with what you requested. If they're not the same, the system will create a "differences" report that will be sent to the assigned CSR. It's all very cool how it handles all of this, and how much time it will save you!

Anyway, that's short explanation behind it. 

For the first time in a management system the policies will flow like you process them and work with them.  Believe me, it absolutely has NOT been easy to create a system like this and has really pushed programming to the limit.  But, after working with agencies on automation for as many years as I have, if I was going to take this project on I was going to do it right or not do it at all. 

There's only one way to do things … the right way.  Just unfortunately sometimes it takes longer and cost more to do things the right way, but so be it because I don't know any other way to live my life or conduct business. 

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/whats-taking-so-long-to-release-agency-management-systems.html/feed 0 Mr Chesnut Discusses SMA Report http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/mr-chesnut-discusses-sma-report.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/mr-chesnut-discusses-sma-report.html#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:08:55 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=190 Mr. Chesnut’s Discusses the SMA Report On Agency Management Systems that Was Published in August 2009

Back in August StrategyMeetsAction.com (SMA) published a report on agency management systems.  It was a pretty informative report that addressed two key questions and provided the answers as an average from agencies and vendors.  In a video I shared my thoughts and response to this report.  It can be watched below …

In this video, Bradley Chesnut (President & Consultant) discusses the SMA Report, “Agency Management Systems: Marketplace and Vendor Analysis”

Key Video Markers (Min:Second):

  • 1:10 – 1st question report addresses regarding technology
  • 1:44 – Explanation of the top thing agencies are trying to accomplish
  • 3:17 – One of the benefits of agency automation
  • 5:12 – Explains the #2 thing agencies are trying to accomplish
  • 9:34 – The other 3 things agencies are trying to accomplish
  • 9:58 – The 2nd key question this report addresses & analyzes
  • 10:36 – #1 answer … you don’t want to miss this answer!
  • 10:42 – #2 surprising answer
  • 13:08 – Introduction of my next blogs which is the most valuable blogs I could write
  • 13:37 – What’s really exciting about what this report presents
  • 15:24 – A problem that has been plaguing this industry for many years
  • 16:34 – What’s foundational to agency automation and management systems 

I hope you found this as enlightening as everyone else.  Personally, I was just glad they did this analysis and published the results.

Bradley Chesnut
P.S. I know I said I was going to share another very important blog next, but since my last blog I ran across this report and felt the need to share my thoughts of it with everyone.  I hope you found it educational.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/mr-chesnut-discusses-sma-report.html/feed 0 The Desktop CSR Is A Major Upgrade and Huge Improvement Without The High Cost! http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/desktop-csr-huge-improvement-without-high-cost.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/desktop-csr-huge-improvement-without-high-cost.html#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:31:55 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=96 (This is a Video Blog)

Attention Agencies on Low-End Systems:

The Desktop CSR Is A Major Upgrade and Huge Improvement Without The High Cost!

There are a lot of small agencies on low-end systems because of their low cost. That's a fact and something I can verify from my 20 years of working with agencies.  Money matters to the small agency, period!   

In fact, some agencies struggle even to purchase a low cost system but do so because they understand the importance of having something in place over nothing at all, not to mention that there are carriers that won't do business with an agency if they can't receive their downloads. 

Our solution to help these agencies is to …

introduce a state of the art system at a low price so you can still save money on your management system while having a system that will allow you to increase the productivity in your agency. 

Every agency needs a system that will allow them to massively increase their productivity.  I might even go so far as to say the smaller agencies, agencies under 5 users and especially the 1-2 user agency, needs a productive system even worse because of the small profit margins they work with.   

You see, it's a fact that the more productive you are, the more profitable you'll be.  Without this point over taking the purpose of this blog (already discussed this in another area), let me explain it this way … the more policies and clients a CSR can effectively manage the less CSR's you need.  That's the quick explanation. 

Agencies on no system and on low-end systems are finding the Desktop CSR to be a far better automation solution than the low-cost, low-end systems on the market.  Yes, we're pretty low-cost too but for a different reason … after 20 years of working with agencies we understand how big of a role price plays to the smaller agency.  That's why our introductory price is just $1595 and $85/mo. 

This blog is going to take a different approach.  Rather than writing why the Desktop CSR is a major upgrade and huge improvement over so many of the systems on the market, I'm going to show you in a video blog.  This should be fun!

 

Impressive, Isn't It? 

We are Insurance Automation Consultants and agency automation is what we do!!

Of the 95 items on a list that we quickly put together in an hour, I showed maybe 15 of them in the 20 minute video giving each item just 1.3 minutes each.  I had really hoped to present at least half of them.  The problem is, the 20 minute video is 24 mgs which is bigger than I had wanted.

There really is a lot to this system.  After over 2 1/2 years of programming we're close to our first release which many would say is equivalent to a new vendors Version 3 or 4.  That's because we know what we're doing!

At our home page for our agency management systems you'll find product information.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/desktop-csr-huge-improvement-without-high-cost.html/feed 0 The Critiquing of Version 0.921 http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/critiquing-v-0-921.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/critiquing-v-0-921.html#comments Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:55:36 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=71 Since my last blog on critiquing the system when I critiqued version 0.7 back in May, we’ve had a tremendous amount of improvements to the system.  If you read my last blog about covering "The Process of Writing a Management System" you know we’re now doing the front-end programming.  That’s why it’s an exciting time… we’re seeing the pieces come together.

We're now at version 0.921.  When I got version 0.91 I was jumping for joy.  Then I did something for a select number of agencies that dropped their jaws to the floor they were so impressed.

To show some key people what we're creating, I did the first overview video I've ever done of the system. 

For those I shared this video with, they all were saying the same kind of things … "Impressive beyond words", "Exactly what I'm looking for in a system", "I love how I can have multiple windows opened up at the same time" and other gloating comments like that.  For most of the people I shared the 37 minutes of video with, this was their first real look at the system.  The system was unquestionably far more impressive than they expected!

It all started by logging in which brings us to the Client Find window for the Desktop CSR.  For the TIME System (will be released roughly 4-6 months after the Desktop CSR),depending on the users position with the agency and user setup, upon logging in the user will go to either their My Activities Page, their Management Hub page or to the Client Find window.

At the Client Find window I demo'd how easy it is to find that needle in a hay stack.  That's because we built in over 34 ways to find the record (client, prospect or suspect) you're looking for.  Watching the process and seeing how easy it is to find the record you're looking for and seeing how powerful our Find windows are jump started the overview video and got everyone very excited.

Then I blew everyone away.  I showed them how they could open a Client Hub Record, task swap back to the Find window to find yet another record and open it up also.  I showed how I could keep doing this as many times as I wanted to open up as many records as I wanted, and not just Client Hub records.  I could also open up a staff record (Staff Hub), a carrier record (Carrier Hub) or any other Hub I wanted and have multiple windows opened up all at the same time.  Nice, very nice!

At the Client Hub I then broke down the window to show why we designed it the way we did.  It's logical and common-sense and had the viewers of the video continue to sit on the edge of their seat not wanting to miss a thing.  Of course, with so much to share I have to admit I was also talking pretty fast too.  Regardless, the design of the Client Hub is to help you do your job faster and more efficiently. 

At the Client Hub I showed some of the amazing functionality our users will have at their fingertips.  I showed them how they could more effectively service their clients without spending wasted time wading through information to find what they need to service them.  This was another of those jaw dropping things I showed in the video. 

One of the people who watched the video was telling me that about the time he thought it couldn't get more impressive I showed something else that had him once again shaking his head in total amazement!  As he stated, "This is the kind of system you dream about but don't expect to experience.  You really out-did yourself with this system."

The video was so captivating it was the shortest 37 minutes anyone had ever spent.  The only bad part about the video was everyone wanted to see more. 

The 37 minutes of video was broke down to 3 separate video's.  Between them I showed the Client Hub, explained its design, explained our Service Tools, showed some amazing features when adding a new record, stepped through each of the carefully selected Tabs for the client record, and then for the clincher I showed the policy layout and design.  Those who saw the video saw how fast and easy it is to pull up a package policy and have access to all sections.  It was an "awe" moment!

Before I end this blog, let me share a few things about the Tabbed area of the Client Hub.  They are a strategic design element to the Client Hub to make key information more readily available.

We carefully selected what would be included and the functionality each Tab would have.  For example, we have a tab called "Contacts".  Depending on whether the record is an Individual Record or Business Record determines what columns you'll see.  By having Contacts in a tab you don't need to open up another window just to see the contacts for the record or get their contact information (phone #, email address, etc.).   You can also add or edit a contact from here.

While you can't do everything available with a contact from the Contact Tab, having the contacts and their contact information readily available will be very advantageous in helping you service your client.  For the more advanced features associated to a contact you'd go into the Contact Service Tool.

To further help you better and more quickly service your clients, we put Locations, Drivers and Vehicles in the Tabbed area.  This way you don't need to go through the additional steps of opening up a policy to access these  items.   Take a Vehicle record for example.  You can see the full vehicle detail information.  If you need to pull up the policy for more information, it's just a hyperlink away.  And, depending on whether you're on a Personal Lines record or Commercial Lines record will determine what information you'll see.  You'll like what we've done here.

The fact is, the more information we put at your fingertips and the more functionality we offer you in these areas, the less steps you'll need to go through and the faster you'll be able to do your job so you can move on to the next insured that needs your help. 

Realizing the fact that by putting more information at your fingertips requires less steps to access it, we were still very careful not to convolute the Client Hub window with non-essential information.  We realize how important the "layout" of the window is and how this is a key part to creating a common-sense and easy to use system.

Like I've said all along, "Just wait until you see what Insurance Automation Consultants can design for an agency management system… you won't be disappointed". 

We are Insurance Automation Consultants and agency automation is what we do!!  I can't wait for you to have a demo of this system yourself and see just how amazing of a system it is.

At our home page for our agency management systems you'll find product information.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/critiquing-v-0-921.html/feed 0 The Process of Writing An Agency Management System http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/process-of-writing-agency-management-system.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/process-of-writing-agency-management-system.html#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:53:26 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=28 Before I can really get into the topic for this blog, some preliminary information needs to first be shared with you.  As you'll learn, this preliminary information is foundational and crucial to the success of designing and writing a management system.  Let's begin.

Having an Extensive Background of Working With Agencies and Management Systems Is Very Important

In the past 20 years in this industry I've had a tremendous amount of experience with the agency management system.  Not only have I worked on or with many of the management systems on the market this past 20 years, I also represented two of them.  With the first starting in 1991 I also did some programming in it.  With both I worked closely with the design team (along with numerous other parts of the company which is another blog). 

In addition, I'm also a very analytical consultant striving to find and teaching the best and fastest ways to do things, master your automation (management system & 3rd party programs) and to process your work.  I also have a strong working knowledge of many 3rd party programs which has proven to be very advantageous in my helping agencies.  The end objective is to help agencies decrease their workload, be more efficient and to better protect themselves from E&O exposures. 

Finally, I also do programming and have written many single purpose database programs for agencies over the years like marketing database systems, phone logging system, client management systems and much more.  I even wrote a custom management system for an agency in 2006 that dropped their workload by over 40%.  I just talked to them this past week and they were commenting on how big of an impact the system has made in their agency.  The difference is I understand workflows and processing work which I included in the design of the system.  I can't begin to emphasize how important this is!  We'll discuss this more further down. 

The Agency Management System Is A Complex System

The agency management system is far from being some simple database program.  Instead, the agency management system is a complex, multi-facet system that handles many different tasks required in an agency and captures a lot of different information.  It's also been said that the management system is multiple programs all tied together into one program.

Regardless to how you describe an agency management system, it's a very advanced piece of software! 

It’s not only designed to keep track of information like clients and their policies, in today's time it's also suppose to help you process your work like submitting new applications or endorsing policies.  The fact that its also suppose to help in the processing of your work takes the management system to a whole new level of software. 

Keep in mind the evolution of the management system.  Prior to the 1980's it was predominately an accounting system to keep track of billings to the insured since most policies were Agency Billed, not Direct Billed from the carrier which is now dominate today.  Then in the early 80's we saw our first major overhaul of the management system when client and policy management was added to it.   

That was an exciting time because this new approach to agency automation opened up so many more doors for agencies and gave agencies the ability to work more closely with their clients.  Over the years we watched more and more features being added to an agency management system to help you do your job.  Things like imaging and T-History to do T-Filing.  

Today we talk in terms of "going paperless", SEMCI, Real Time and other terms/phrases to symbolize creating a more efficient, productive and therefore, a more automated agency.  

As a consultant I would work with the agency on how to process their work with the system they were on.  Agencies committed to increasing their productivity found this to be the key … learning proper workflows to process a task.  The problem is, the systems on the market were not designed to be process driven which made teaching CSR's how to process a task a difficult job.  I'm sure you can relate with this.  

It's been a constant battle of teaching staff proper workflows and making sure everyone's doing it the same way to protect the agency from E&O exposures.  This is why the "workflow manual" and "workflow courses" has been just as important as the management system itself!  That's because it's how the system allows you to process your work that establishes how efficient and productive your agency will be.  And considering productivity is a huge factor in your profitability, creating a productive agency is very important when striving to create a profitable agency. 

What we haven't seen yet in the evolution of the management system is a system built from the ground floor up with workflows and tools to help you process your work as an integral part of the system.  That is until now with the creation of the Desktop CSR and the TIME System.  

I'm actually not surprised we haven't seen this built into the foundation of a management system until now.  In my opinion, that's because the big boys are too arrogant to bring in consultants to help them design a system (not to mention it's extremely expensive to have a system re-designed and written fresh with all new code like we did) and the newer vendors on the market are just simply duplicating/mimicking what's already out there, but that's just my opinion from what I've seen and the experiences I've had the past 20 years. 

Up to this point I've shared some key information about management systems, a pre-requisite to this topic.  Now it's time to get to the very point of this blog which is, "The Process of Writing a Management System."  So let's move on to the real reason why I wrote this blog … 

The Process of Writing a Management System:  You Start With Back-End Programming … This is Foundational! 

The most important part to the writing of a system is knowing upfront what you want the system to do which includes what features you need, understanding workflows, how to process a task along with what parts of the system are used to process each task, and then be able to put it all together.  All of this MUST be known upfront before writing the blue print and then programming the system!  Would you agree all of this collectively is key information to know if you're going to write a management system? 

Let me give you an example of how important it is to know agency automation and all very well prior to designing a system –  When you do an endorsement to a policy you also always add a note to the record to show what you did.  In our system that note is created automatically for you adding what you changed on the policy and includes a link to the Policy Change Request form.  It only makes sense to automate this consistent process, which is another exclusive feature of our systems.  We have many features like this throughout the system along with over 40 exclusive features in the system. 

When I represented and worked with other vendors and systems the past 20 years I was consistently making suggestions on how to enhance their systems.  While the vendors were quite impressed with my suggestions, what I was consistently told was "in order to add that to the system we'd have to do a re-write of the system and we're not going to do that."  As I pointed out, knowing upfront what you want the system to do is the most important part to writing the system!  Here's why … 

Back-end programming is the next most important part of writing the system, and it's foundational.  Look at the back-end of the program as the power behind the product, the engine, if you will.  It's the table structures (which we paid very close attention too for numerous reasons such as to make integrating with other programs much easier), how each table integrates with other tables, the programming of each field and table, and much much.  These are things users don't see because it's the automation behind the scenes type stuff.  Can you see why having all of the preliminary knowledge and information is so important? 

Without it, we would end up with just another feature driven system.  You see, when I took on this project I knew how critical it was to build in workflows and make sure you could process your work quickly and easily as part of the design of the system.  However, if I didn't know productivity strategies and workflows as well as I do … which is intimately … then I couldn't have built them into the system from the ground floor up. 

This is exactly what I've done … built the system from the ground floor up with proper workflows and productivity pieces & tools! 

Many say this is the next evolution of management systems.  One thing for sure, adding this piece to the management system requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience in workflows, productivity strategies and processing tasks which is why it doesn't surprise that we're the first vendor to add this element to the management system. 

In this project the two areas that took the longest time is the policy management side which includes ACORD forms and the accounting.  I was very clear on how important the policy management piece is, which programming has done a great job putting together.  How the data flows and the functionality of the different forms like Certificates is just absolutely amazing!  The foresight to this project is going to amaze you! 

We also re-engineered many of the core pieces of the management system.  Follow-Ups, for example, can be one of three different things … a client follow-up, a carrier follow-up in behalf of the client and a policy or a scheduled appointment.  Because this is a new approach to a follow-up, once we explain this to you you'll wonder why it took this long for the follow-up to be designed properly to maximize it's purpose!  And like I said, follow-ups is just one of many features we completely overhauled and re-engineered! 

Once the backend programming was basically done we moved on to the next part … 

The Process of Writing a Management System:  The Front-End Programming (Window Layouts, etc.) … What The End User Sees.

With the back-end programming in place (the engine), it's time to do the front-end programming.  Look at the front-end as the steering wheel and all of the controls.  Where now taking all of that power we programmed on the back-end and make it all usable by the end user.  To add to the complexity of this, the end users can be CSR's, producers, managers, owners, bookkeepers and accounting people, and people handling the marketing in the agency.  That's what the front-end programming  is all about … making the system usable for each of the different types of end users.  

Here we're designing the layout and putting the windows together, placing the appropriate buttons on each of the windows, putting our menu system together, setting up security and system setups, and much more.  Here we're designing what the end-user sees and how the end user will use the system. 

A key element to this piece is it's here where easy-to-use is created or missed.  With our tremendous experience in working with agencies on automation, teaching agencies how to use their automation and being frustrated with so many of the vendors in their failure to design a system easy-to-teach and learn, I have no doubt in my mind that you'll find our systems the easiest to learn and use of everything else on the market.  

In the past 2 months I've really seen this piece — the front-end programming — come together.  The windows are starting to have the look and layout I provided to programming as a proto-type and the functionality on the windows is coming together.  What we'll do is give each of the windows the functionality for that window and then last we'll do the eye-candy piece. 

I fully understand how important the visual side is.  Not to discard its importance, traditionally the eye candy piece is the last thing that's done, yet it's how many people judge how good a system is.  

It's important that we make sure each of the windows have the functionality they were designed to have and that each window has the ability to efficiently handle the job they were designed to do, along with making sure each window is common-sense in it's layout and design so it's easy to learn and use.  Then comes the eye candy.  We are doing the eye candy as we go along and as each window is ready for it.  I should also point out, doing the eye candy visual layout is also a lot of work! 

In closing, I hope that you found this to be educational.  It's a tremendous amount of work to design and then have a management system written especially when you refuse to mimic anything else on the market because you don't want to end up with another feature driven system.  We literally designed the system from scratch based off of our many years of insurance automation experience with a very clearly focused objective … 

  • To massively increase your productivity … this encompasses many parts of the system and requires building in the workflows into the system 
  • To create the absolute easiest system to learn and use 
  • To handle data conversions very well 
  • To integrate with 3rd programs and interface with your carriers 
  • To provide features and functionality to do your job better, easier and faster 
  • To bring agency automation to the 21st century! 

You're not going to be disappointed at all with what we're bringing to the industry!

Now, all of this is what we wanted to accomplish with the product.  Wait until you see how we've overhauled support and training, which is another blog for another day! At our home page for our agency management systems you'll find product information.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/process-of-writing-agency-management-system.html/feed 0 The Re-Engineering Of The Agency Management System http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/the-re-engineering-of-the-agency-management-system.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/the-re-engineering-of-the-agency-management-system.html#comments Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:01:31 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=12 When I started this project of designing an agency management system it wasn't my intent at that time to literally re-engineer the agency management system nor did I think that was what I would do. I just simply wanted to design a system that would massively increase your productivity which in turn would massively increase your profitability so you’d have the money and time to work “on” your agency and grow your agency.

What you personally may not realize is all of the areas that affect your productivity in a management system. There are a lot.

For example, a hard to learn and use system will take your staff a lot more time to become proficient at, yet the sooner they become proficient the sooner they become an asset to the agency with the ability to support a larger number of clients and policies. Plus, hire a new person with a hard to use system and the training process becomes a nightmare, literally!

Therefore, I knew the system had to be very easy to use. Of course I already knew how important “easy to use” was because of the many survey’s I’ve done in this industry and from the literally hundreds of agencies I’ve worked with all telling me they wanted an easy-to-use system. I heard you all loud and clear!

There’s also the design of the system, there's having common-sense menus and having workflows like CSR’s would process their work, to name a few more things.

To create a system that will massively increase your productivity we looked at workflows, we looked at ways to further automate your job while still maintaining flexibility because not every agency does it the same way, and we looked at all of the parts of the management system. In fact, we literally tore the management system down, which really opened up our eyes. From tearing it down and being focused on creating a massively productive system we realized that all of the different parts of the system like policy management, notes, follow-ups, etc had to be completely re-engineered if we were going to create the massively productive system we were after.

I’m telling you, this became a huge job which has taken far longer to complete due to how committed we are to creating a system that will massively increase your productivity. This task is not something someone who doesn’t have the experience and expertise’s we have could do. That’s why you see so many “feature-driven” systems on the market … these other vendors just don’t understand the workflows or how to create a productive agency like us consultants do so they weren't able to make these elements foundational to their system like we have with ours.

As a consultant I have a very high expectation for the management systems I work with. That’s because my profession is helping agencies to create a productive, efficient and profitable agency realizing the management system is the core and most important tool to accomplish this task. Believe me, I know from experience and from working with so many agencies, management systems are not created equal!

Thankfully, after 18 years of working with agencies hand in hand and having worked on so many other systems I knew exactly what I wanted the system to do. I also knew what I wanted to avoid!

I wasn't asking for too much. Okay, maybe I was asking for a lot considering nobody else had accomplished what I was trying to accomplish yet. I just knew from my many years of working with management systems that in order to help agencies become productive these systems had to be converted from being feature-driven to being process-driven.

As I got into this project doing the design work I realized very quickly that how things are currently done in other system won’t provide me with the result I’m looking for. Oh sure, the old way basically did the job but at a cost of time with too many steps, in some cases doing double entry, or one of a hundred things. Or it didn't integrate properly. The list of problems with the old way continued to grow, and with the power we have with today's software that just wasn't acceptable!

So, to create the outcome I was after, I ended up thinking completely outside of the box and re-designing how things worked so the agencies I worked with would get the results they wanted. I mean, isn’t that ultimately the bottom line … the results you get from the software you use?

A little over a year ago I was talking to another automation consultant in the industry and demo'ing some of the things we were doing with the TIME System. As I was showing him many of the different automations strategies, tools and better ways of processing a CSR's work he stops me and says, "Brad, do you realize you have literally re-engineered the agency management system?"

Up to that point I honestly hadn’t realized just what I had done until he pointed it out to me, but he was right, I had completely re-engineered the agency management system. All I knew was I was bound and determined to create a management system that would, being redundant here, massively increase your productivity, which is exactly what I have created.

What he observed and pointed out was we didn't mimic any of the other systems on the market. [I knew that.] Instead, we took a look at how agencies do their work and designed a system to handle their day to day work in a more efficient, streamlined way. When you consider my ultimate goal is to help agencies to massively increase their productivity, or said differently, to massively decrease their workload, you can see how we ultimately ended up re-engineering the management system.

Bluntly, it was unavoidable if we were going to accomplish what we had set out to accomplish. Otherwise we would've ended up with just another feature driven system like everything else out there, and that wouldn’t have been acceptable!

The point here is my focus wasn’t on creating just another “agency management system”. That’s was never what I wanted. What I wanted was …

* A system that would allow the agency to massively increase their productivity which in turn would massively increase their profits (productivity and profits go hand in hand);

* I wanted a system that was very easy to use;

* I wanted a system that would integrate with carriers the way it should to eliminate all double-entry work … I was after a result, and a clearly defined result at that!

Mimicking the other systems on the market was not going to give me this result which is why I had to re-think, or as the other consultant put it, re-engineer the agency management system.

I am certain that you will love what we’ve accomplished and will appreciate how much more productive and profitable our systems will allow you to be.

One of the agencies I personally demo’d this system too made this observation …

"I would hate to spend money on another management system when what you’re bringing to the market will do so much more for my agency, help me to be more productive and profitable than any other system and will even show me how productive I am and what areas I need training in to increase my productivity. As far as that goes, I can’t believe that you actually built into your system the ability to actually see how productive, or unproductive, my agency is. Good move! Just like you said, you are very committed to creating the most productive agencies industry wide. I have no doubt that you’ve accomplished that."

Go to http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/, fill out the form and make sure to do a walk-through of the system to see how amazing of a system it is. The wait for these systems will be well worth it, I promise you!

At our home page for our agency management systems you'll find product information.

]]> http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/the-re-engineering-of-the-agency-management-system.html/feed 0 Just Critiqued V 0.7- We’re Getting Closer http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/just-critiqued-v-0-7.html http://www.agencyautomationteam.com/blog/just-critiqued-v-0-7.html#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 13:27:59 +0000 Bradley Chesnut http://agencyautomationteam.com/blog/?p=5 Looking back at this past week when I critiqued 0.7, I sit here with a huge smile on my face.  Why?  

For two years I’ve been diligently working on this project.  I knew day one before even a single sentence had been written in the blue print manual what I wanted in a system.  Four things were foundational to this system.  Four things I wouldn’t compromise on.  Four things this industry has been begging for.  Those four things are …  

  1. It had to be easy to use!  This has always been the number one request of agencies in every survey I’ve ever done! 
  2. It had to be single entry!  I do NOT like double entry.  Entering information already in the system into the system again in a different area is just down right unacceptable, and the biggest thief of time in other system out there.
  3. It has to integrate with 3rd party programs like rating system and it had to work seamlessly with your carriers for interfacing and other functions.  It had to handle data-conversions exceptionally well giving our users a very thorough and complete conversion of their data.
  4. And likely the core piece I want in this system is … it must massively increase your productivity and I do mean massively!!

After almost 20 years of working hand in hand with agencies and experiencing first hand their frustration with their current system and witnessing first hand the many shortcomings with other systems on the market, I knew I had to complete re-engineer the management system.  That’s exactly what I did!   

Mimicking the systems on the market would’ve only produced just another “feature driven” system and there are enough of those systems out there.  This industry needs a Process-Driven system …   

  • a system that allows you to handle your day to day work and tasks in the fastest, most efficient way possible;
  • a system that doesn’t allow things to slip through your fingers, and when staff allow that to happen then management is notified automatically;
  • a system that’s built from the ground floor up around workflow strategies, productivity strategies and around the tasks that you as an agency do day in and day out; and finally,
  • to create a better, more tightly connected relationship and integration of data between your agency and your carriers. 

If profits and agency profitability matter to you, then you’ll understand the significant advantage you gain by owning a Process Driven system over a Feature Driven system!  

I’ve just completed my critique of Version 0.7.  I am so impressed and so happy with how this product is turning out.  My programming team has been so patient with my relentless passion of creating a system that is easy to use and will massively increase an agencies productivity by handling their day to day work in a very efficient and totally automated way.  I get goose bumps just thinking about what we’re going to be introducing to the industry.  

My only frustration is it hasn’t been released yet.  However, I know that the wait will be well worth it considering everything this system will do for an agency.  And the comments I’m getting from agencies inquiring about this product is they have been waiting a long time for a system like this.  “It’s that breath of fresh air we’ve been waiting for”, they write.  

Thank goodness programming and I work together so well.  I’m ruthless in my critiques!  But programming knows very well what I’m trying to accomplish so they put up with me.  I can’t tell you how many times they’ve heard me say, for example, “Come on you guys, our customers are insurance people, not programmers … you have got to make that a whole lot easier and more common-sense”, and they do!  Some times they just like showing off their programming skills.  After 20 years of working agencies, I get that this kind of showing off wouldn’t impress you like an easy to use system  that gets the job done would.   

Talking to CSR’s, they all say basically the same thing … “I just want to service my customers quickly and efficiently, and for them to know how important serving them is to me.”  Just wait until you see the tools you’ll have to do this.  

In fact, because of our focus of creating the most productivity system on the market and because of re-engineering the management system creating a process-driven system, we will be introducing to the industry over 40 exclusive features no other system has all designed to help you do your job better, faster, in less steps and bringing more automation to the process.  This is truly agency automation at its finest!  

We’ve come a long ways in over 2 years.  We’re now just months away from introducing our TWO managements to the industry.   

As it is, we’re receiving between 5 to 10 inquiries a week of agencies wanting information on our systems.  They are tired of the non-productive, hard to use, expensive systems on the market today and are anxious for our systems to be released.  Believe me, I’m doing everything I can to get these systems on the market without sacrificing their functionality

At our home page for our agency management systems you’ll find product information.

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