The Best Agency Management Systems for Your Business

TLTR: This article explores agency management systems and their benefits, and explains which ones would work best for your insurance agency.

What Is an Agency Management System?

An agency management system (AMS for short) is a computer program used by insurance agencies to manage the agency’s financials, contacts, and daily tasks. They can be customized with specific agency needs in mind. This allows the agency owner or manager to track leads and any related follow-ups.

Furthermore, there are agency management systems that help agencies with managing their clients. Moreover, they also provide tools for payroll and billing.

Many of these systems will also track client financial information, such as policy amounts and payment schedules. This data helps agency owners better understand how much work needs to be done for each client while at the same time making sure the agency is getting paid.

There’s a wide range of agency management systems available on the market today. The features you choose will depend on your specific needs as an agency owner or manager. Therefore, finding an agency management system that will suit your agency’s needs shouldn’t be a problem.

Note: AMS is also known as SaaS (software as a service) technology.

Agency Management Systems vs. Customer Relationship Management Software

By definition, an agency management system is a tool that assists insurance agencies in automating their daily tasks according to the line of insurance, while CRM means “customer relationship management,” which helps cultivate greater customer interaction.

AMSs and CRMs can both keep track of agency data, but agency management systems are designed for agency owners, while sales representatives use CRMs.

Some agency management systems can sync with a CRM so that you can shift information from your agency management system into your CRM. But not vice versa. CRM has many functions outside of an agency management system, such as social media, email marketing, lead generation, and more.

AMS is great if you want to improve your agency overall and manage information relevant to carriers and general agencies. A CRM is more focused on nurturing your relationship with your existing and potential customers.

How Helpful Are Agency Management Systems?

As an agency owner, you’ll have a suite of features at your fingertips, including billing and accounting reports, custom marketing efforts, and any other tools or functions you choose to add via customization. This is how one–way agency management systems help increase productivity within insurance agencies.

With an AMS, agency owners can quickly see how much work they need to do for each client. For agency managers, an AMS helps them increase their productivity by enabling them to track leads and follow-ups with ease. Ina ddition to that, managers can also monitor which types of marketing efforts are working best, helping round out their agency’s overall strategy.

In many cases, agency management systems may not require a specific collaborative effort from employees to be effective. Above all, agency managers can benefit from the multitude of tools provided by agency management systems while working independently, with little disruption of day-to-day agency activities.

A Closer Look at the Benefits of Agency Management Systems

When you’re running an agency, there are many aspects you need to look over, especially concerning client policies and commissions. A CRM could be useful in handling this information. On the other hand, an AMS will have the exact features you need. Let’s take a more detailed look at the benefits you get from an AMS as an agency owner:

Track Policies

As an agency, keeping track of your policies is crucial. Agency management systems can track both individual and group policies. As a result, the information in these policies ends up being extremely useful for the success of your business. An AMS will be able to track your policies and also be able to integrate them from various platforms or types of software.

This feature makes things easier for agents. Besides that, an AMS can easily provide you with details such as the application status, renewal dates, and client information mentioned in a policy.

Process Commissions Faster

Commissions are the bread and butter of an agency. Keeping track of all sources of commissions can be a challenging task. You might think of utilizing a CRM, but it isn’t the best option. With an AMS, your agency will be able to keep track of your commissions and help your business grow.

You can get detailed records of various policies and are able to track commissions effortlessly. AMS software will provide you with information such as commissions from carriers, how much the agency gets, and how it splits fees with agents. In other words, with such records you will see where your agency stands financially and what you can do to enhance your future.

Serve Clients Better

Good customer service is what the insurance industry is all about. It’s in the best interest of an agency that wants to be successful to cater to their customers’ needs. When you serve them well and provide the services they require, you make them happy, and they are likely to remain loyal. Best case scenario: They might even refer you to their friends and family.

So how can an agency management system help keep customers satisfied? For one thing, it’s very client-centric in terms of the information it manages. Initially, you need to get your clients’ relevant details, such as birthdays, anniversaries, policy renewal notifications, and any applicable alerts. The AMS can give you periodic reminders to create a good communication channel with your customers.

Such reminders are helpful because your interaction with the client will make them feel special and involved. They will appreciate the effort you put in by reaching out to them and giving them a greeting or a policy notification.

Reporting for Leads

Leads are vital for any agency and an important source of income. But collecting the information related to leads and managing it can be quite a repetitive and time-consuming task.

Taking these data into account and generating real-time reports to understand how the business is doing is a big plus for any agency. It’s not entirely feasible to create a real-time report through human effort alone. An AMS can assist in creating a reporting structure that can help dictate potential future income generation steams and boost sales efforts.

Agency management systems can help achieve this by:

• Keeping track and displaying all the policies sold and renewed, as well as claims settled by the agency
• Monitoring the agency’s overall performance, noting inefficiency, and streamlining efficiency
• Keeping a detailed record of leads based on their inquiry, location, and other parameters

Sales Automation

Selling insurance to different people can seem very repetitive. As an agent, it can be pretty dull and time-consuming to go through the same process over and over again. With an agency management system, the software can handle much of the tedium without any human involvement. By utilizing a sales automation procedure with an AMS, you can efficiently handle the mundane and recurring tasks of the insurance sale process.

With automation, you can fulfill the following tasks in your insurance agency:

• Sending automated emails to prospects based on the information received
• Relaying agents with potential leads based on their inquiry and region
• Alerting agents with important events as defined by the agency
• Ranking quality leads based on their activity
• Analyzing sales performance based on reports and other relevant data

Upselling and Cross-Selling

Once you have a loyal base of customers, you’ll want to keep them in mind for sales of new insurance products. These clients may require additional policies or services based on their situation. If you don’t explore this option and reach out to them, you’re ignoring a lot of potential business.

While finding relevant details about existing customers that could help you upsell or cross-sell is important, it’s also a daunting task. So, this is where an AMS comes in. An agency management system can assist with this process by:

• Grouping potential customers for up-selling and cross-selling by policy type, client details, policy dates, and relevant data.
• Setting up renewal alerts to help agents keep up with customers and their activities.
• Automating marketing campaigns and efforts based on client’s information.

Best Agency Management Systems for Businesses

So, which insurance agency management system is the best for your agency?

That depends on what you’re looking to do with your agency management system and how much time you spend learning how to use it. Some agency management systems have a short learning curve, while others require extensive training.

So, the answer depends on what your current agency goals are. If you want to build your customer base and focus on sales, go with a CRM. However, if you want that and more, then an AMS is something you need to consider. With that in mind, here are some AMS systems you can look into:

• EZLynx
• Applied Epic
• Agency Matrix
• Agency Bloc
• HowkSoft
• Jenesis

Keep in mind that, regardless of what tool you use for your business, if you don’t know your business goal, no amount of software will help you progress.

In Conclusion,

Technology is integral to our personal and professional lives. That fact is as evident in the insurance industry as anywhere else. Agency management systems are essential for any insurance business, as they assist in automation of daily tasks and your customer relationships. With the help of an AMS, you and your agency can focus on the larger picture and not waste valuable time with mundane, tedious daily operations. Thanks to such insurance software, agents have sufficient time to concentrate their efforts on generating more leads.

Wondering which AMS would work well for your business? Why don’t you explore our insurance directory and see what some of our top listings are working with. Add a listing today!