I believe that for me to speak credibly to our prospects and customers about going paperless in their agency or business, I need to do the same in my personal life. The benefits that we discuss about being able to receive documents electronically, to find them quickly, to print them only when needed on demand, to share them easily by email or fax, and to purge them when no longer needed are just as important to me as they are to our agencies and customers. One of the benefits of being a Docstar employee is that I am provided with a scanner (the first I’ve ever had), and I was determined to use it as our customers would. I had a very full lateral file with my records and like most of us, could never find the document I needed and dreaded the yearly (sometimes bi-yearly) cleanout.

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Most readers here, I would guess, have used a technology-based social network of some kind within the past month. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or maybe a specialized system in the workplace that enables collaboration.

The ways in which technology can connect people seem to multiply each year, but at a fundamental level nothing can substitute for person-to-person contact.  My last post “Technology Can Turn Your Policyholders Into Your Salesforce” commented on making use of the leads that you collect.  Since then I have been observing the ways in which savvy professionals convert leads and contacts from technological systems into meetings and phone conversations.

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Blog Tools We Are Trying Out

August 23, 2010

It has been a while since we shared with you some different technologies and plugins that are being tested and used at Insurance Ecosystem’s blog and other places.  Some of these have been around for a very long time but little known or used and others just discovered(there are so many great tools).  I believe [...]

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Shift in Culture is Redefining Insurance Agencies and Brokers

August 16, 2010

Nick Brown shares with us responses he received from Astonish Results member and non-member agencies to the question:   What does agency culture mean to you and how has it changed over the past five years? These are great responses.  Nick asks you to share what agency culture means in your agency.  Please share with us [...]

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Agents Council for Technology Seminars

August 13, 2010

ACT has announced the following upcoming free Real Time and Commercial Lines Download webinars to your agents.  Recent surveys confirm that both Real Time and Commercial Lines Download workflows are significant time savers for agencies– time that can help agencies significantly in a tough market to reach out to current clients to protect renewals, upsell [...]

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The Best Web Marketing Strategy You’ve Never Heard

August 6, 2010

About this article: The author provides independent agencies with a fast and easy strategy to increase their Internet leads and search engine positioning. Even better, it’s free and makes use of free local search tools provided by the major search engines and online directories. The article then provides agents with the simple steps on how [...]

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Technology Can Turn Your Policyholders Into Your Salesforce

August 2, 2010

Please help me in welcoming Sandy Haviland, Founder & CEO of Confidant as Insurance Ecosystem’s newest Communicator.  I think this is a great post and I am looking forward to many more.
By definition, perceived value is a matter of how you look at things.  Do insurance agencies look at their existing policyholders as ambassadors, sources [...]

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Google Docs, What’s Not To Love?

July 28, 2010

I have wondered how insurance agencies that must use Microsoft Word to integrate with their agency management systems could make use of Google Docs.  One of my clients showed me this very example of managing information to their CSR24 portal.  Thank you Tina for explaining this for us.
Why is it that folks seem to be [...]

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What Independent Agents Need to Do…And Do It Now!

July 19, 2010

This is a guest post by Cindy Donaldson, Director of Marketing  & Personal Lines Sales, Founders Insurance Group, Inc.  Cindy Posted this several weeks ago at the Founders Insurance Group, Inc. blog.  I  thought is was so appropriate I requested permission to post at Insurance Ecosystem.  A big thanks to Cindy and The Founders Forum.
I [...]

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Agency E&O Considerations When Using Social Media

July 14, 2010

A lot has been written about how agencies can use social networking tools to enhance their online marketing and market reach. This article explores how the use of social media can impact the E&O risks agencies face and recommends specific steps agencies can take to mitigate those risks, so that the agency can get the [...]

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