VoIP integration: Lightspeed Voice & Handzel & Associates 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 HawkSoft API Partner Lightspeed Voice, where HawkSoft host Kenny Hendricks interviews Jacob Smith of Lightspeed Voice and Bogus Handzel of Handzel & Associates, who uses Lightspeed Voice in his multi-lingual agency. 

Bogus and Jacob discuss the need for integration between VoIP and the agency management system, as well as the exciting potential for AI advancements in distilling insights from call recordings.

In this article:

• Part 1: Lightspeed Voice (Jacob Smith)

• • What is Lightspeed's reason for participating in the independent agency channel?
  • What one aspect of Lightspeed draws agencies in and keeps them working with you?
  • How does Lightspeed 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 Lightspeed work with HawkSoft?

• Part 2: Handzel & Associates (Bogus Handzel)
  • Tell us about your agency
  • What was your agency looking for when you first encountered Lightspeed?
  • What is your agency able to do now with Lightspeed that you couldn't do before?
  • What is one thing you would change about Lightspeed if you could?
  • How would you describe the value that Lightspeed brings to your agency?

Part 1: Lightspeed Voice (Jacob Smith)

Watch the video podcast - Part 1

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

• Jacob Smith explains Lightspeed Voice is a phone system designed specifically for insurance agencies, unlike other providers.  It offers integration with agency management systems like HawkSoft.
  
  
• 4,000+ agencies currently use Lightspeed Voice, benefiting from features like custom call routing, IVR (interactive voice response), and best-practice recommendations tailored for insurance agencies.
  
  
• The company was initially founded in 2009 by an agency owner who was dissatisfied with the available phone service options. Lightspeed evolved to serve friends, family, and eventually thousands of agencies nationwide.
  
  
• Unlike white-labeled VoIP solutions, Lightspeed develops its own features in-house, with most feature arising from requests from agency owners.

“We're a phone system built for insurance agencies. Most of our customers, their previous providers were built for anyone and everyone. A generic provider is not going to have any idea how a small independent agency should route calls or how their IVR should be set up.”

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

• Jacob feels customers love receiving exceptional customer service from a US-based support team trained to assist insurance agencies specifically.
  
  
• Lightspeed’s support team can provide industry-specific recommendations based on similar-sized agencies for features like on-hold marketing, after-hours call routing, and integration with management systems.
  
  
• Bogus Handzel agrees that his experiences with Lightspeed support have been excellent, and that they help agencies find the solutions that work best for their needs.
  
  
• Kenny emphasizes that phone support is still a real need for customers, even with the move toward self-help resources by many companies.
  
  

“We service agency owners and that's our only job. You can call in and just say, what do you recommend? The customer support representative will be able to like tell you all of the different use cases on what other agencies of a similar size or a similar market are doing and what's working for them.”

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

• Jacob shares that Lightspeed’s approach is that agencies retain full ownership of their data.
  
  
• Call recordings are stored for three years, but agencies can download and export their data anytime.
  
  
• Lightspeed also provides detailed reporting on call metrics, time tracking, and payroll-related data that can be exported any time. 
  
  
• Bogus confirms that it’s easy to get the data he needs from Lightspeed, and when there are additional metrics or reports he needs, Lightspeed has been able to add them.

“We believe data ownership is pretty simple. The agents own their own data. Customers have full control over their own information. Everything that is in the system that is your data, you can just download it. We make it really easy.”

 

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

• Jacob observes that no two agencies operate the same way, making it a challenge to create a universal solution.
  
  
• Changing technology calls for constant feature updates, such as requests for AI and automation, so it can be difficult to stay current with these advancements.
  
  
• Bogus agrees that rapid technology evolution presents challenges for agencies by requiring them to keep changing their processes.

“No two agencies are going to run the same. No two agencies will need the same features. That's why we're staying focused in the insurance space, because you can spend an endless amount of time there to really make a system work for that audience.”

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

• Jacob loves seeing how much value the system brings to agencies, especially those switching from outdated phone systems.
  
  
• Features like automated call summaries using Lightspeed’s Nova AI allow agencies to log calls, texts, and summaries directly into HawkSoft, saving time and improving documentation.
  
  

“It’s amazing when customers are excited to see what they've been missing out on and all of these things that can make things more effective inside their agency, like having calls recorded and automatically logged into HawkSoft with an AI call summary.”

Question 6: How does Lightspeed work with HawkSoft? 

• Jacob explains that when a call comes in, Lightspeed automatically pulls up the caller’s profile in HawkSoft. All call details (agent name, time, duration, call recordings, and texts) are logged automatically in HawkSoft.
  
  
• The Nova AI feature summarizes calls and rates customer sentiment, reducing the need for manual note-taking.
  
  
• Lightspeed also offers texting from the agency’s main number, with texts logged to the customer’s profile.
  
  
• Bogus adds that the integration with HawkSoft ensures all communication data stays in one place in the agency management system.

Part 2: Handzel & Associates Insurance (Bogus Handzel)

Watch the video podcast - Part 2

In this episode:

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

• Bogus Handzel is the Chief Operating Officer of Handzel and Associates Insurance, which was founded in 1989 by his father Greg Handzel, who came to Chicago from Poland and focused on serving the Polish community in the area.
  
  
• Bogus started at the agency in 2005, and worked at many positions in the agency before becoming COO and helping his brother Lucas run the agency.
  
  
• The agency has about 30 team members, many of whom speak two or three languages, as Polish and Ukrainian are used at the agency more commonly than English.
  
  
• The agency started as a non-standard agency and expanded to a full-service insurance provider as community needs evolved.
  
  
• Bogus is passionate about the independent agent community and enjoys sharing knowledge with other agencies and problem-solving.
  
  

“My father had a dream of creating a better life for his family when they came over from Poland. We serve the Polish community here in the Chicagoland area. As Polish families immigrated over to the States and started creating livelihoods for themselves, we started adding additional products.”

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

• Bogus shares that Handzel & Associates transitioned from a traditional phone system to VoIP due to the cost savings and improved capabilities.
  
  
• The agency added Lightspeed Voice around 2017–2018, before adopting HawkSoft. Later, Lightspeed Voice became one of the first VoIP systems to integrate with HawkSoft.
  
  
• Bogus appreciates Lightspeed’s willingness to listen to agency feedback and shape product development accordingly, and feels both HawkSoft and Lightspeed have successfully kept this as a focus as they’ve grown.
  
  

“If you’re willing to hear what your client needs and expects from you, that's going to make your business better. Both HawkSoft and Lightspeed have been able to maintain customer voice being number one importance to drive their product.”

 

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

• Bogus says the agency can now provide better customer service with call routing based on language preference or LOB.
  
  
• When a client calls, their HawkSoft profile opens automatically with details like language preference. Bogus was one of the first agents to help test and refine Lightspeed’s call pop-ups and logging in HawkSoft.
  
  
• Jacob agrees that Lightspeed works with many agencies to set up call routing for multilingual customer bases.
  
  

“When we pick the phone up, it opens up that client account in Hawk Soft, where it also displays their language preference. So that client care associate that's picking up that phone call already knows to start in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, or the person that does speak that language knows that that's the one they should be picking up."

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

• Bogus realizes that his agency has very specific language needs, but would love to see more accurate multi-language AI support for translating call transcriptions and summaries.
  
  
• In the future, Bogus would love to see automatic creation of tasks in HawkSoft based off action items from a call recording.
  
  
• Bogus emphasizes that both HawkSoft and Lightspeed Voice excel in listening to customer feedback and evolving their products accordingly.
  
  

“I pick partners because they listen. They put my requests on the  pipeline that's going to be done at some point. And that communication is open. I'd love to see advancements with the API and the AI behind it so that hopefully it'll get to a point where I can get that translated over in Polish.”

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

• Bogus loves the time savings provided by Lightspeed through features like bulk voicemail deletion and searchable call logs.
  
  
• The agency appreciates HawkSoft’s integration with Lightspeed Voice, and feels that switching providers would be one of the most difficult business changes to make.
  
  

“For me, Lightspeed has a smooth process from A to Z. So the time saved with all the features is absolutely fantastic. I don't think you can quantify the amount of value that that brings.”