Sales Pipeline Automation: AgencyZoom & Ameriguard Insurance Podcast Recap

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 AgencyZoom, where HawkSoft host Kenny Hendricks interviews Sydney (Syd) Roe of AgencyZoom and Brad Boldt of Ameriguard Insurance Agency, which uses the AgencyZoom solution.

Syd and Brad discuss how sales pipeline visualization, optimization, and automation can make a huge impact on an independent agency's processes and results.

In this article:

• Part 1: AgencyZoom (Syd Roe)
  
  • What is AgencyZoom's reason for participating in the independent agency channel?
  • What one aspect of AgencyZoom draws agencies in and keeps them working with you?
  • How does AgencyZoom approach data ownership with regard to your customers?
  • What is the hardest part of working with insurance agencies?
  • What is the best part of working with insurance agencies?
  • How does Insurance AgencyZoom work with HawkSoft?

• Part 2: Ameriguard Insurance Agency (Brad Boldt)
  • Tell us about your agency
  • What was your agency looking for when you first encountered AgencyZoom?
  • What is your agency able to do now with AgencyZoom that you couldn't do before?
  • What is one thing you would change about AgencyZoom if you could?
  • How would you describe the value that AgencyZoom brings to your agency?

Part 1: AgencyZoom (Syd Roe)

Watch the video podcast - Part 1

Question 1: Why does AgencyZoom exist? What is your reason for participating in the independent agency channel?

• Kenny Hendricks introduces Sydney (Syd) Roe, who has been involved in the insurance industry her whole life. She worked at her family’s insurance agency in Florida before moving on to work on the PR and marketing side for several insurtechs in the industry.
  
  
• Syd discusses how it can be difficult for independent agencies to standardize their operations and find ways to make their processes more efficient.
  
  
• AgencyZoom helps agencies to visualize their processes, standardize them, and create automation to optimize them.
  
  
• She describes the client experience as the flip side of the coin from agency actions; each action an agency makes will affect the client as well. AgencyZoom helps to handle the customer experience when an action takes place from the agency side.
  
  
• AgencyZoom can help agencies scale their operations in several ways, including personalizing at scale, providing data insights to recommend contacts to reach out to, and more.
  
  
• Syd highlights Vertafore’s long history as an insurance technology provider, and their acquisition of AgencyZoom in order to help agencies build a tech stack that can compete with what direct writers use.
  
  
• She discusses the decision of AgencyZoom’s founder, Moe Latif, to sell to Vertafore, and explains that he remains involved in the company because he truly believes the acquisition has allowed them to realize his vision of making AgencyZoom more powerful for all types of agencies.

“AgencyZoom brings light to your processes by bringing them into a digital format where you can actually visualize it and see what's going on. Once you see it, you can optimize it. You can achieve operational excellence by creating some automation. That’s the beauty behind AgencyZoom.”

Question 2: If you had to pick one aspect of AgencyZoom that draws in and keeps agencies working with you, what would that be and why?

• Brad Boldt mentions that his agency was initially drawn in by the sales pipeline functionality of AgencyZoom, and later began to make use of more of the automation and communication features.
  
  
• Syd mentions that AgencyZoom is currently working on incorporating AI into their tools as well, including a smart search to pull up multiple types of data and information in one place, as well as smart CRM functionality for creating email copy and pipeline automation.

“Agencies get clients checking up on things that they already asked for. Our service center automation can actually help keep the customer informed, like a Domino's pizza tracker. ‘The driver's five minutes away. Do not worry about it. We've got you covered.’ Those are some little ways that we're seeing agencies expand with the system, and why they stay.”

Question 3: How does AgencyZoom approach data ownership with regard to your customers?

• Syd defines AgencyZoom’s idea of data ownership as the ability to access your data, request all or part of it from your provider at any time, or move or delete it if desired.
  
  
• AgencyZoom provides an agency’s data to them if requested, or makes it available through APIs to allow them to move the data to another system.
  
  
• AgencyZoom also offers pre-built integrations with a number of partners, and allows integration with Zapier, which agencies can use to build their own custom integrations with other systems.
  
  
• Syd mentions that with all new technology, it can take time to develop the ability for data to easily be exported out of it, and that it takes a conscious effort on the side of the technology provider to do so.
  
  

“If you want to keep the data in the system and move it around, or if you want to pull it out through the APIs, we can send you the documentation and you're welcome to use it however you'd like. The depth of APIs for AgencyZoom continues to grow.”

 

Question 4: What is the hardest part of working with insurance agencies?

• Syd observes that it can be difficult to help agencies that are resistant to change and would rather maintain the status quo than try something new that can help their agency grow.
  
  
• Brad agrees that some agencies are not willing to put in the time it takes to successfully implement a new tool, and are then disappointed when it doesn’t work the way they want it to.
  
  
• Syd acknowledges that it’s the duty of the technology provider to make their tools as easy to implement as possible, but the agency also has the responsibility to make sure it’s implemented correctly in their processes and that staff are trained. This can be an upfront investment for the agency, but will maximize their success with the technology in the long run.
  
  

“I'm a big believer that if you're not growing and changing, you're dying. At the end of the day, we're a ‘big small’ industry. We're not going anywhere, but every single one of us has to fight and challenge other models and show that we are capable of growing and winning and competing in order for this model to be around for another 400 years.”

Question 5: What is the best part of working with insurance agencies?

• Syd loves all the relationships she’s built over her lifetime in the industry, and the opportunity to help solve problems for people in all walks of life.
  
  
• She looks forward to being able to see where all the work she’s done in the industry will go in the future, and to keep challenging the status quo.
  
  

“It’s like compound interest. Over the first ten years, I was building the relationship. And this next ten years is going to be maximizing those relationships and doing more things with them and really challenging the status quo not so much as a lone wolf, but with more of a wolf pack. I'm really excited to see all the investments that are still rolling in.”

Question 6: How does AgencyZoom work with the HawkSoft management system? 

• Kenny mentions that AgencyZoom was one of HawkSoft’s first API partners, and continues to be proactive in developing new functionality for the two-way integration.
  
  
• Syd points out that HawkSoft was one of the first and deepest AMS integrations they offered as well, and that AgencyZoom appreciates that they don’t have to wait on HawkSoft in order to develop the integration further, as they do with many other partners.

Part 2: Ameriguard Insurance Agency (Brad Boldt)

Watch the video podcast - Part 2

In this episode:

• Tell us about your agency
• What was your agency looking for when you first encountered AgencyZoom?
• What is your agency able to do now with AgencyZoom that you couldn't do before?
• What is one thing you would change about AgencyZoom if you could?
• How would you describe the value that AgencyZoom brings to your agency?

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?

• Kenny Hendricks introduces Brad Boldt, president of Ameriguard Insurance Agency in Minnesota. Brad has been in insurance for 25 years, including time as a captive agent, independent agent, and over 13 years as the president of his agency.
  
  
• Ameriguard started as an early adopter of AgencyZoom in 2018 and has been with HawkSoft since 2021.
  
  
• Kenny points out that Brad and Syd both host their own insurance podcasts as well.
  
  
• Brad mentions that he loved moving from captive to independent, and appreciates the carrier relationships and flexibility he has as an independent agent.
  
  
• Ameriguard writes 85% personal lines and 15% commercial, and Brad has been enjoying growing the small commercial side of the business and getting to work with other small businesses. The agency has also recently started a long-haul trucking niche.
  
  
• Brad most enjoys the leadership and teambuilding aspect of his position at the agency.
  
  
• Syd asks how Brad creates a strong culture at his agency, and he shares that he makes time for employees to take short breaks from work to do fun things together, whether it’s a quick game or a walk outside, to grow personal bonds.
  
  
• Kenny shares ways the HawkSoft team also takes time to have fun with each other, and not just work.

“It's very special to me to see this group walk together, talk, bond together. Culture is a buzzword and it's easy to say, harder to do. What gets me excited is building a group, building a team, and building this business.”

Question 2: What was your agency looking for when you first encountered AgencyZoom?

• Brad started with AgencyZoom because he was looking for a sales pipeline tool to help the team standardize and streamline the sales process.
  
  
• Over time, the agency began to use more of the CRM tools in AgencyZoom to communicate with customers.
  
  
• AgencyZoom allows Brad to visually see the sales his producers were working on, what stage of the process they were in, and which activities were yielding the most leads.
  
  

“I wanted to see where our producers’ sales were, what their process was. I didn't have any way of tracking where we were getting business from, how much we were writing a month. So this was a way for me to keep better track of our prospects and our producers.”

 

 

Question 3: What is your agency able to do now with AgencyZoom that you couldn't do before?

• AgencyZoom allows Brad to automate the sales process as much as possible. Prospects can come in through a Google ad, fill out a form, and get a quote in less than an hour, all without requiring a phone call.
  
  
• Brad also appreciates the ability to assign tasks from within the platform, and to see what’s being sent by producers so he can provide coaching if needed.
  
  
• Syd mentions that the automated task reminders act as a guide to remind producers what they should be doing at each point in the process, which prevents things from falling through the cracks or taking longer than they should.
  
  

“To be able to basically quote someone's business within maybe an hour, without even talking to them, is pretty powerful. The automation that we've been able to develop has been the biggest game changer for us with Agency Zoom.”

Question 4: What is one thing that you would change about AgencyZoom if you could?

• Brad mentions small frustrations he’s had in the past with getting the right support for problems, such as issues he had when building out email templates.
  
  
• His biggest wishlist item would be getting tighter integration between AgencyZoom and HawkSoft, so that leads from AgencyZoom can be automatically created in HawkSoft.
  
  
• Kenny explains that while AgencyZoom and other partners can add log notes and attachments back into HawkSoft, none of them can currently create a new client in HawkSoft. HawkSoft has plans to develop a method to do this via API in the future.

“For us to be able to capture the information that we put in the AgencyZoom file, create a HawkSoft client, and push those notes into that file would be huge in the way of fewer duplicated processes.”

Question 5: How would you describe the value that AgencyZoom brings to your agency?

• Brad describes AgencyZoom as the backbone of his agency and the tool they use more than anything else. It’s the starting point for their automations and allows them to be proactive rather than reactive with prospects and clients.
  
  
• The platform allows them to create a roadmap of communications for customers, and helps them be more efficient with their time.
  
  
• Kenny notes that it’s important to hear the different ways that agencies use their tech stack, and to see that the AMS may not always act as the central piece of technology for the agency.

“We use AgencyZoom more than anything else and it's the backbone of where all of our processes start. I like to play offense rather than defense, not just with our prospecting but with our customers, and AgencyZoom has enabled us to play offense by automating a lot of these processes. It's made us more efficient and enabled us to do way more.”