The Insurance Perspectives Podcast involves contributors outside of HawkSoft. The participants' views are entirely their own and may not reflect the views of HawkSoft.
This recap of the Insurance Perspectives Podcast summarizes highlights of the two episodes about Agency Revolution, where HawkSoft host Kenny Hendricks interviews Dave Morton of Agency Revolution and Jim King of Waverley Insurance Agency, which uses Agency Revolution's website and client marketing solutions.
Jim and Dave discuss the importance of having a marketing solution that integrates with the agency's management system, and the benefits of automating client communication touchpoints.
In this article:
- Part 1: Agency Revolution (Dave Morton)
- Part 2: Waverly Insurance Agency (Jim King)
Part 1: Agency Revolution (Dave Morton)
Watch the video podcast - Part 1
Question 1: Why does Agency Revolution exist? What is your reason for participating in the independent agency channel?
- Kenny Hendricks introduces Dave Morton, the Vice President of Sales at Agent Revolution, who has been with the company for nearly 10 years.
- Dave Morton explains that Agency Revolution’s vision is to provide solutions that allow agencies to stand out and deliver value to prospects and clients through their website solution and client communication platform.
- Agency Revolution started as a family-run business by Michael Jans that consulted with independent agencies on their marketing. This evolved into the company building the technology solutions to support these marketing strategies.
- Dave’s own father and brother work at an insurance agency, which gave him valuable background knowledge when he initially moved into the Insurtech space.
“Agency Revolution evolved from consulting into providing the technology solutions that help independent agencies deliver that execution in a modern way, with digital consumers.”
Question 2: If you had to pick one aspect of Agency Revolution that draws in and keeps agencies working with you, what would that be and why?
- Dave feels aside from the products they offer, what sets Agency Revolution apart is their desire to partner with each agency and help them showcase their agency’s personality, rather than force them to do things a certain way. He describes the company as an ally to help the agency accomplish their goals.
- Jim King agrees that Agency Revolution has made it easy for his agency to provide an optimal website and communication experience.
- Jim describes execution as the most difficult part of any new project, but Agency Revolution has been as strong on the execution as they are on the strategy end.
- Jim’s agency initially used Forge 3 for his agency’s website. Forge 3 was later acquired by Agency Revolution, and Jim felt the acquisition was seamless and both teams worked well together.
- Dave shares that Agency Revolution kept the entire Forge 3 team when they were acquired, and that both teams had similar philosophies and work ethics that made the company even stronger.
"We want to highlight the personality of the independent agency and help them deliver that unique story online and through their communications with clients. When you hire Agency Revolution you're hiring an ally, you're hiring a partner, you're hiring somebody that's going to help you accomplish your goals."
Question 3: How does Agency Revolution approach data ownership with regard to your customers?
- Dave mentions Agency Revolution has the same perspective as HawkSoft: the agency owns their data, and the company treats it as an extension of their relationship with their client.
- Agency Revolution aggregates some data to understand overall numbers such as how many emails they’ve sent a month, which is a standard practice for software providers.
- Agency Revolution does not sell agency data, and considers safeguarding this data as part of their role as a trusted ally of the agency.
“The perspective we take is that the data is owned by the agency. It's always the agency’s. We cannot use that data or interfere with that relationship that the agency has with their client in any way, shape, or form.”
Question 4: What is the hardest part of working with insurance agencies?
- Dave observes that agencies can sometimes get frustrated if there are any bumps during the implementation of a technology solution and want to give up, rather than sticking it out long enough to start reaping the benefits.
- Kenny agrees that HawkSoft has experienced this as well, where agencies occasionally “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
- Jim remarks that this phenomenon is not specific to the insurance industry, but tends to be more pronounced with agencies that are behind the technology curve.
“Insurance agencies sometimes expect technology projects to go perfectly right out of the gate. When you're implementing something new, a hiccup doesn't mean a failed project. A hiccup really means that we're just one step closer to getting what we want.”
Question 5: What is the best part of working with insurance agencies?
- Dave loves that independent agencies are relationship people, and that they view a value-driven relationship as a key element they offer their clients.
- He appreciates that as a whole, independent agents approach their clients and communities with their best interests in mind, rather than viewing them as another number or a sale.
“I find that most agencies have the best interests of their clients in mind and they care about their reputation, they care about how they deliver that experience to their clients, and that comes across. They are passionate about serving their communities and running their businesses.”
Question 6: How does Agency Revolution work with the HawkSoft management system?
- Kenny points out that Agency Revolution was one of the earliest integration partners with HawkSoft, and now offers two-way integration with HawkSoft, meaning it can add log notes into the management system.
- Dave explains that Agency Revolution can look at policy statuses or contact details to perform automated actions like sending emails, and then document the actions taken back into HawkSoft.
- When a form is filled out on the agency’s website, Agency Revolution can document this inside HawkSoft as well.
Part 2: Waverley Insurance Agency (Jim King)
Watch the video podcast - Part 2
In this episode:
Question 1: Tell us about your agency. How long have you been in the business, and how did you get into the business? Do you have any specializations? What gets you excited about insurance?
- Jim King is the general manager of Waverley Insurance Agency in Belmont, Massachusetts.
- Jim worked in the aerospace industry for over 10 years, but when his brother passed away in 2019, he made the career change to manage the independent agency he left behind (which was founded by his father back in 1953) and its 6 employees, knowing very little about insurance.
- The agency recently had two employees retire who had worked at the agency for around 40 years, illustrating the strong culture Jim’s father and brother fostered at the agency, which Jim seeks to maintain.
- The agency has about 80% personal lines and 20% commercial small business, and Jim is excited by the current environment of mergers and acquisitions and the potential it brings to the industry.
- One of Jim’s first projects was modernizing the agency digitally, including building a new website, being more present on social media, and other initiatives.
- The agency focuses on providing incredible customer service, and Jim feels Agency Revolution helps them to automate client communication while keeping it very personal and relevant.
“Having a platform like Fuse that allows us to reach out to clients in a very automated way, nonetheless a very personal way, is a real advantage for us. It allows us to maintain that personal level of contact but not burden our people with doing it on an hourly basis.”
Question 2: What was your agency looking for when you first encountered Agency Revolution?
- Jim knew he wanted to move his agency off their previous management system, and he allowed his own internal staff to choose the management system they felt would allow them to do their best work, which was HawkSoft.
- Their next step was to find a website solution that could integrate well with their new AMS. This was their motivating factor for choosing Forge, which was later acquired by Agency Revolution. The agency later added more of Agency Revolution’s products, like their Fuse email solution.
- Dave adds that a common pain point for agencies is having to use too many different systems, so Agency Revolution enables the agency to execute all their marketing strategies from one system.
- Jim observes that with his small team, there aren’t resources to have employees dedicated to specific areas like the website or email marketing, so he appreciates that Agency Revolution makes it easy for his staff to manage these areas.
"Get them [your team] the tools that they need to do their best job to service the clients. The proof is that we regularly ask clients for survey responses and 99% of the time we get nines and tens. The infrastructure supports what the people are doing from a work standpoint and that engagement with the clients."
Question 3: What is your agency able to do now with Agency Revolution that you couldn't do before?
- Jim says Agency Revolution has enabled the agency to communicate proactively with clients around 10 times a year, which his team wouldn’t have the resources to do otherwise.
- Another big impact for the agency is the ability to send automatic notifications ahead of renewal. This has been especially important for commercial policies because many are subject to audit. With Fuse, the agency is able to send clients a list of things to prepare for the audit, and personalize the email with the client’s specific policy and carrier.
- Dave agrees that using communication tools to act proactively can be hugely impactful to client retention.
- Jim also mentions he has uprate alerts set up in HawkSoft, which helps his team to proactively prepare for renewals.
“Many of our clients hold policies that are subject to audit, so we give heads up 60 days in advance and again 30 days in advance. We list the types of things that they need to be prepared to present to the audit, and through Fuse we're able to list the policies and the carriers on the email that we send them, so it all makes for a very nice package.”
Question 4: What is one thing that you would change about Agency Revolution if you could?
- Jim doesn’t have any feedback or criticism about the tools, but one area the agency sees less success in is social media.
- The agency posts frequently, and he would like to see higher engagement rates. He loves the tools Agency Revolution provides for implementation, but would like more guidance on how to achieve better engagement.
- Dave mentions that Agency Revolution has an account team that works with agencies on their strategies. He observes that social media is tricky because it has to be so personal and unique to each agency, and it’s difficult for a tech provider to provide content that works for all agencies.
“With social media, you have to engage the community in something that's personal and that the community cares about. That's hard to replicate as a technology provider - it's hard to be in every single community.”
Question 5: How would you describe the value that Agency Revolution brings to your agency?
- Jim feels Agency Revolution’s greatest value is in freeing their team from creating and scheduling communications, so they have time to do more meaningful activities like checking coverages.
"We've been able to retain the personal touch that we've been known for in the local community and yet do it in a way that's automated so it doesn't consume the time of the internal staff."
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