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TABLE OF ContentS AUTHOR: Chapter 1: Organize Your Agency Chapter 2: Automate Your Agency Chapter 3: Grow Your Agency Try AgencyBloc for yourself
Chapter 1: organize your agency Organizing your agency begins with paying attention to the details. Which mundane activities take time and other resources from you? ORGANIZE your agency WITH AN AMS CREATE EFFICIENCIES WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS AgencyBloc is an agency management system(ams)/ CRM that helps life and health insurance agencies organize, automate and grow their agencies. We ve heard horror stories from our clients about the organization of their agencies before using AgencyBloc. So, we thoroughly believe in the power an agency management system can have on the efficiency of your agency. And it starts with organization. If you re not convinced you need an agency management system, think of it this way: which mundane activities do you find yourself doing each day that take up a significant amount of your time? Flipping through paper files to find a certain record? Searching through the post-it notes on your desk to see what followups you have that day? Sifting through all of your sales to see which products you sell the most of and where you can sell more? All of these activities (plus many, many more) can be done quickly and easily within an agency management system. Not to mention, all of your data is backed-up automatically, so no matter what happens, computer crash or natural disaster, your data is safe and retrievable. And the activities mentioned above only cover the organization of your agency. So, let s dive in
Dashboard Analytics in AgencyBloc (Policies example) and see how agency management systems specifically help keep your agency organized. comprehensive look at book-of-business With an agency management system, you can get a quick look at your agency as a whole on one screen. Your data is organized within categories, like individuals, groups, policies, agents and carriers. You ll also see a quick look at the activities you have going on that day, as AgencyBloc shows activity follow-ups and who each follow-up is assigned to. If you re an agent, you ll see the follow-ups you need to act on that day and your own performance via graphs and charts. Similarly, if you re someone who manages multiple agents, you can see their Activities and the performance of your agency as a whole within charts. With AgencyBloc, you can customize fields to better suit your needs. Using these fields and having your data stored within each of these tabs (Groups, Individuals, etc.) allows you to connect data together so that anyone on your team can look at the information within your account and understand what belongs where and what needs to be done next. manage follow-ups and activities As we said, you ll see your follow-ups on your dashboard in AgencyBloc. This helps you feel in control of your day and allows you Activity Details for an Individual in AgencyBloc to schedule your time wisely. Follow-ups can take up your entire day, so it s best to have them organized so that your day is planned for you the moment you open your AMS. Follow-ups and activities often require other team members, so assigning activities and commenting on them directly within the AMS saves you the time you might otherwise take calling your colleague or setting up a meeting. Seeing your followups at a glance and working with activities within an AMS also lend way to being able to automate these things. We ll see more of that later.
create & maintain a team environment An agency management system helps your agency stay organized by: QuiCK TIP: Attach any documents that pertain to each activity within AgencyBloc so that you re never missing any important information it s easy to find. see it in action Many of our clients tell us that after implementing AgencyBloc, it s saved them frustration and time when it comes to organizing their business. In the case of KHI Solutions, a health, life and financial agency with over 400 agents, owner and licensed agent Lynn Shreder says: I recommend AgencyBloc to anybody who s running an agency and trying to keep track of agents, policyholders, and carriers. With AgencyBloc, you ve got it all in one single place on the web, accessible 24 hours a day with backup. It s always been on for us. We ve never skipped a beat. If your data isn t organized in a way that everyone understands, nobody will ever be able to work seamlessly together. Maintaining your data within an agency management system like AgencyBloc allows you to not only assign tasks and leads to people within your agency, but it also simply allows for an inclusive environment for team members to work together, seeing the same information. Showing you a quick, overall look at your bookof-business Allowing you to see all of your follow-up activities on your dashboard/home screen Work seamlessly within your team because everyone understands how the data is organized It s always been on for us. We ve never skipped a beat. - Lynn, KHI Solutions Next, let s take a look at how an agency management system like AgencyBloc can automate your day-to-day activities, both internally and externally, as well as your communications to both clients and prospects.
Chapter 2: automate your agency Automating your agency s activities and internal and external communications saves you time and resources. AUTOMATE your Day WITH AN AMS AUTOMATE ACTIVITIES & communications You can probably think of several day-to-day activities that you d rather not spend much time on, yet you find yourself spending hours. You might be thinking of things like follow-up emails, assigning leads to agents, checking on policy renewals and sending the appropriate communications to the involved people. The list goes on and on. That s where you can quickly realize the problem of running an agency without an agency management system. Whether you re a one-man shop or you manage hundreds of agents, there are always going to be those tasks that seem small, but need to be done. That s exactly where an AMS can help you out. Of course, it begins with organizing your data within the system, as we talked about in Chapter 1. With this data, you can streamline your day-to-day activities, automate internal and external communications and automate any commissions processing you might do with three simple steps. We ll get to those in a bit. Let s take a look at using activities to streamline your day-to-day activities. use activities to streamline your day Activities within AgencyBloc are kind of like to-dos but are specifically assigned to an agent, administrator or another user of the AMS. They are often assigned a due date and have a string of comments that pertain to the activity. They can be manually added, or they can be automatically created when triggered. Triggers can be several things. The most common ones are dates: birthdates, policy
Activities screen in AgencyBloc renewal dates, license expiration dates. Another type of trigger that most people overlook are situational triggers, like when an individual goes from a prospect to a client or when a policy goes from enrollment to issued. All of these triggers can automatically create an activity that can also be automatically assigned to a certain agent depending how you set it up. And, of course, you could also automate emails from these triggers, but we ll get to that. As you can see from the screen above, activities are a lot like conversations within your agency. It s a way for you to see what you need to do, but it s also a way for everyone to maintain consistent communication and a way to work together on certain activities that require multiple people. An AgencyBloc account is set up to create activities at the Individual, Group, Agent and Carrier level. Activities can be created to follow up on items like: Setting appointments with new clients Following up on a request from an existing client who called you Setting a policy renewal followup with your group Remembering to call a carrier about a new product they are adding or about a policy quote you are waiting on for your agency Activity chart in AgencyBloc Above is an example of an Activity chart that would appear on an agency s Dashboard. Here, you can get a quick look at what your agency, as a whole, has going on. You can see this chart draws from the Activities on the previous page. Now, let s take a look at how you can automate communications within your agency and externally do your clients and prospects using the data within your AMS and the triggers we talked about. Automate internal and external communications Email is still an incredible tool to reach your clients and prospects, and it remains to be the main way of communicating with your coworkers. There are numerous examples of emails that you could think of where automation would make sense. Here are a few we ve thought of: Birthdays. Send a Happy Birthday email to your clients and/or agents on their birthday. These simple gestures are what keep your clients loyal to your agency. Clients turning 65. This works on the same theory of the birthday emails, but this is a little more specific as it only sends to clients that will be turning 65. You can send an email out a month or so ahead of their 65th birthday to tell them of the services you offer for Medicare-eligible individuals.
License Renewal dates. Within AgencyBloc, you can set up the campaign to send drip emails where you can specify on what date or after a certain amount of time has passed, an email will be sent to a defined recipient. All you have to do is set up what you want those emails to say, set your triggers and activate the campaign. New prospect or client. When a new individual record is created and a status is entered, a Welcome email can be sent. AgencyBloc even has a lead form feature to bring in prospect information from your website. New policy or updated policy status. When a status of a policy is changed to what you ve set up in the campaign, it will send out the defined email. Policy Renewal Date. Depending on when it expires, just set the renewal date when the policy is written, and the system will send a reminder email when the client s term policy is coming to an end. Again, these are only a few examples, but you can see the power of automating emails both internally and externally to create efficiencies within your workflow. And if we haven t said this enough, it begins with maintaining your data within an agency management system. The power lies in the organization of your data and using the data to strategically set up these campaigns and activities. Now, let s look at how AgencyBloc can help you simplify your commissions processing. simplify commissions processing The graph below shows, on a basic level, how AgencyBloc s Commissions Processing module works. It helps your agency automate the process so that you can spend your time and resources elsewhere. After you set up your AgencyBloc account, you ll be required to do three initial steps in order to process commissions. Those are: set up policies, set up rate tables and tie payees to policies. Set up policies. This can be done either via our import process or manually. AgencyBloc fully supports both individual and group business. Set up rate tables. Rate tables can be configured with multiple rates using percent of premium, percent of commission received, per life, or as a flat amount. They can also specify payouts based on carrier, coverage type, or even plan code. Tie payees to policies. Typical scenarios include paying a referral fee, trainer fee, manager override, or agency override. Each of these agents can be paid differently. AgencyBloc commissions processing
Those first three steps will be completed when you initially set up your AgencyBloc account. The last three steps are the magic of AgencyBloc and are what automate your commissions processing: Import carrier file. If your agency is receiving electronic commission statements, we can build import maps for directly importing that information into AgencyBloc. When these files are uploaded, AgencyBloc will match the information to the policies you have setup and automatically calculate commissions. Calculate/reconcile commissions. When commissions are imported, you ll see which policies were linked to the carrier s statement, each payment that was calculated and any policies that didn t match. AgencyBloc displays any exceptions that require further investigation as well as a quick snapshot of total premiums, total commissions payable and net commissions. Generate commissions statements. Once all your carrier commissions are reconciled for the payment period, you re ready to generate commission statements. Statements can be run in spreadsheet or PDF format. You can run statements monthly, bi-weekly or daily if you choose. Statements can be organized by sub-agency in order to facilitate paying multiple companies under your agency. Set up policies Set up rate tables Tie payees to policies Import carrier file Calculate commissions Generate statements QuiCK TIP: Use the Commissions Not Received report within AgencyBloc to identify policies that you were expecting to receive commission on but didn t. Get paid everything you deserve. see it in action An agency management system can automate your agency by: Streamlining your to-do list using activities Creating efficiencies within your internal and external communications Simplifying your commissions processing, allowing you to apply those time and monetary resources elsewhere AgencyBloc has made our office more efficient and has saved us time and money. Within the first year we recovered over $20,000 in unpaid commissions! - Ellen, Comprehensive Financial, Inc. Lastly, an agency management system can help you grow your agency by utilizing its marketing tools and also by studying the behavior of your data to make smarter business decisions.
GROW YOUR agency WITH AN AMS you generate and manage these new leads. find new selling opportunities Chapter 3: grow your agency To grow your agency, you need to make use of marketing tools, but you also need to understand your data and use it to its potential. growth comes from smart decisions The ultimate goal of many agencies, large and small, is to generate more leads and grow their agency. But before you can decide where to look for these new leads, you need to understand your current clients and study the data available within your agency management system. It s also necessary that you, as an agent/agency owner, have the time and resources needed to put towards lead generation efforts. That s why the last two chapters, organizing and automating your agency, are so important. They have allowed you to now think about adding more clients to your workload, and an agency management system can help Maintaining your data within an agency management system allows you to study how you gain leads and keep clients, but it also allows you to strategically use this data to run reports and identify new selling opportunities. AgencyBloc has a report called a Policy Cross Sell Report that shows what policies your clients don t currently have. For example, you can look for clients that have life insurance but do not currently own any long term or short term disability insurance. AgencyBloc s Policy Cross Sell Report
both. It can be customized to fit how you already refer to your prospects, or it could be an opportunity for your agency to better organize this process. strategically use your data Example lead form built in AgencyBloc Another way to generate leads is to make use of your online presence using lead forms. implement lead forms Agencies could use lead forms in a variety of ways. Some use simple Contact Us forms and sort out the submissions between leads, clients, and other inquiries. Other agents use more than one form on their website. For example, they probably have a Contact Us form on their Contact page, but they might also provide a Get a Quote form on their homepage or another page. Though you might see these more often for P&C agencies, life and health agencies can utilize these as well. Or, agencies could simply offer a form that allows prospects to contact them saying they re interested in receiving certain information pertaining to life or health insurance. Within AgencyBloc, you can build your lead form with whatever fields you want, and then those leads will filter into AgencyBloc automatically as forms are submitted. If you specify that it should tag leads as a certain tag, it can automatically do that as it funnels in as well. It s up to you how you want to set up the form and how you want the leads to funnel in. For example, you could set up a form that has checkboxes where the prospect can identify if they want to receive life insurance information, health insurance information or both. Then, AgencyBloc could automatically tag them as a life lead, a health lead or Like we mentioned, growth comes from making smart business decisions. And in order to make smart business decisions, you have to know how you currently gain business, how you keep it and where you can find more. This is the true power of maintaining your data within an agency management system like AgencyBloc. Within AgencyBloc, you can run reports to see how much of each product you sell, identify areas you could grow within, and more. But you can also view that information within graphs and charts on your dashboard, allowing you to keep an eye on your agency day-in and day-out without having to take much time away from all of your
Individuals & Policies by Lead Source chart in AgencyBloc other tasks for the day. You can quickly get an idea of the health of your agency and identify areas of growth within seconds. Above, you can see just one of several charts that will help you get the pulse of your agency at a glance. With this chart, you can identify where a lot of your sales have come from and act accordingly. Overall, an agency management system helps your agency grow because it helps you understand your data and strategically use it to either make changes to your business model or put more resources towards an area that s really profitable for you. The real danger is not knowing where you re profitable and where you aren t. We ve had many clients come to us fully knowing that their processes within their agency are going to change once they implement AgencyBloc. They know it won t be an easy change, but they can see how AgencyBloc will help them organize, automate and grow their agency. Those agencies are the ones that say how much easier their lives are now after the implementation, and they appreciate that our agency management system is customizable to fit their specific needs. We know our system, but only you know your data. QuiCK TIP: Use the information you find from AgencyBloc s Policies Cross Sell Report to create email marketing campaigns that send individuals information about the policy you identified they don t currently own. see it in action An agency management system helps your agency grow by: Finding new selling opportunities using your current data Allowing you to create lead forms that funnel leads straight back into your agency management system Strategically using your data to help you make better business decisions It is giving us reasons to get back in touch with clients that we may not have without AgencyBloc. - SaraMarie, Insurance Advocates See how you can try AgencyBloc for free on the next page!
helps life and health insurance agencies grow their business by organizing and automating their operations using a combination of an industry-specific CRM, commissions processing, and integrated marketing automation. We looked at several software options that claimed distinctiveness but after exploring and testing out those options AgencyBloc became the clear choice because it simplifies our health insurance organization. AgencyBloc is intuitive, uncomplicated and the service and support are fantastic! - Christina, Washington Employee Benefits Group AgencyBloc helps agencies of all sizes: Organize their clients, leads, and agents whether there are 100 or 1000s of them Automate their day-today activities as well as their internal & external communications Grow their agency by helping agencies use their data strategically to identify selling opportunities See agencybloc for yourself Sign up for a demo Or, you can start a free trial here. Organize, Automate & Grow Your Agency