The health insurance business is incredibly competitive and complex. Laws, regulations, and coverage options change every year, causing many clients to frequently switch health plans. To thrive in this challenging environment, independent agents, brokerages, and agencies need to stay on top of industry trends while positioning themselves as trusted advisers. Insurance professionals also have to be available and responsive, anticipating the needs of their clients.
Beyond that, agencies and brokerages need to invest in modern tools that deliver more value to their clients while helping them operate more effectively. One such tool that all serious agencies, independent agents, and brokerages need today is called a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.
Chapter 1
A CRM system enables you to keep track of client-specific information—including names, birthdays, addresses, preferred mediums of communication, date last contacted, and a whole lot more. With the right CRM system in place, your agency or brokerage can easily stay connected to all of its clients, managing relationships effectively with easy access to relevant data.
For example, a CRM system enables you to automatically send “happy birthday” notes to each of your clients. You can also use a CRM to automatically send out messages reminding them that their policy renewal dates are approaching.
Personalized interactions, automated, at the most appropriate times.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
According to a number of recent studies, CRM solutions deliver a number of benefits. Users reported the following outcomes of implementing a CRM:
As you can see, CRM systems provide agencies, independent agents, and brokerages with a ton of upside. If you’re still relying on an old-fashioned approach to managing your insurance clients, you need to migrate to a new CRM system to remain competitive—it’s that simple.
Keep reading to learn how CRM systems increase productivity and what to look for when shopping for a new solution, including:
Chapter 2
A CRM system enables you to keep track of client-specific information—including names, birthdays, addresses, preferred mediums of communication, date last contacted, and a whole lot more. With the right CRM system in place, your agency or brokerage can easily stay connected to all of its clients, managing relationships effectively with easy access to relevant data.
For example, a CRM system enables you to automatically send “happy birthday” notes to each of your clients. You can also use a CRM to automatically send out messages reminding them that their policy renewal dates are approaching.
Personalized interactions, automated, at the most appropriate times.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
According to a number of recent studies, CRM solutions deliver a number of benefits. Users reported the following outcomes of implementing a CRM:
As you can see, CRM systems provide agencies, independent agents, and brokerages with a ton of upside. If you’re still relying on an old-fashioned approach to managing your insurance clients, you need to migrate to a new CRM system to remain competitive—it’s that simple.
Keep reading to learn how CRM systems increase productivity and what to look for when shopping for a new solution, including:
Chapter 3
For decades, insurance agencies, independent agents, and brokerages managed their customer relationships via spreadsheets. Although they might have worked well enough, when it comes to managing customer relationships, spreadsheets aren’t the right tool for the job.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at five reasons today’s leading agencies are moving away from spreadsheets to CRM systems.
1. Spreadsheets are for data management—not customer management
Spreadsheets are perfect for managing data. But they weren’t built for managing relationships. While you can use spreadsheets to manage customer relationships, it’s not anywhere near the most efficient approach. With a CRM solution, you can easily keep track of all relevant client data.
What’s more, leading systems built for the insurance industry include enterprise-grade security features that keep all sensitive client information protected and compliant.
When you use spreadsheets to manage client relationships, you are in charge of inputting data for each field—cross your fingers and hope you don’t make any mistakes. By automatically pulling data from various locations, CRM solutions remove human error from the equation altogether, giving you the peace of mind that comes with knowing your data has integrity.
You’ve spent an endless amount of time loading client data into a spreadsheet.
Congratulations!
Now you can reference that data whenever you choose to engage with it. CRMs, on the other hand, enable you to automate tons of repetitive tasks so you don’t miss an important event. For example, you can automatically get notified when it’s time to follow up with a client or prospect. Agents are also reminded when certain tasks need to be completed, and since customer data is pulled directly from the CRM, they don’t have to worry about things like misspelling a client’s name—and potentially irritating them.
If you’re an expert at Excel, you can run all kinds of reports with spreadsheets. But you need to be an actual expert. Excel is a cumbersome and complicated program; average employees will have a difficult time, at best, unlocking its full potential. CRM tools, on the other hand, make reporting incredibly easy. Leading solutions have robust reporting and analytics tools that are intuitive, enabling agents to easily get the information they need to make the best decisions.
Excepting the fact that you have control over which columns and rows you choose to put information into, spreadsheets aren’t really customizable. Compare that to leading CRM solutions, which can integrate with several popular systems—such as quoting and enrolling tools—to help you operate more effectively.
At this point, you understand why insurance agencies, independent agents, and brokerages are ditching spreadsheets and moving to modern CRM solutions. Now it’s time to take a look at the kinds of metrics you can track in your CRM tool.
Chapter 4
The best CRM tools make it easy for you to track all kinds of critical metrics. By keeping tabs on the following seven metrics, you will know where your brokerage or agency stands at any given point in time. And, more importantly, you will know which metrics need to be improved.
Here are seven KPIs you’ll want to track with your new CRM:
By tracking all of these critically important metrics, you can run all kinds of reports and leverage that data to continuously improve your operations.
Chapter 5
The best CRM tools make it easy for you to track all kinds of critical metrics. By keeping tabs on the following seven metrics, you will know where your brokerage or agency stands at any given point in time. And, more importantly, you will know which metrics need to be improved.
Here are seven KPIs you’ll want to track with your new CRM:
By tracking all of these critically important metrics, you can run all kinds of reports and leverage that data to continuously improve your operations.
Chapter 6
As you begin your search for the CRM system that works best for your business, you’ll quickly find out you have several options to consider. Here are three things to keep in mind as you look for the solution that is perfect for you.
There are CRM tools made for general business applications. Other solutions are made for financial services companies. Still others are made specifically for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
For the best results, look for a CRM solution that was designed with your insurance company’s specific needs in mind (e.g., built-in HIPAA and PCI compliance).
2. Find a CRM solution that can integrate with other tools
The whole point of moving to a CRM system is to consolidate your data and make the agent’s job easier. If your CRM solution doesn’t integrate with other tools your team relies on—such as quoting and enrollment software—you’ll be solving only part of the problem.
The best CRM solutions can integrate with the popular tools in your software suite, enabling you to get a stronger return on your investment with better data and additional productivity gains.
While you can get a CRM tool that integrates with other solutions, you can also get a CRM tool that offers a wealth of functionality out of the box. Instead of forcing you to connect different services to one another (which isn’t always as easy as we’d like), a comprehensive solution will provide all the tools you need in a single software solution.
Lead management and distribution, quoting and enrolling, auto-responding tools, and more are built-in, enabling you to transform your operations that much faster.
