Any company is always in search of ways to improve productivity. While it’s easy to find general advice for boosting productivity, not every method you find online will apply to an insurance agency. While some general tips will be helpful, you will get the best results by focusing on advice unique to insurance agencies. We’ve gathered the most important and useful ways to improve your productivity in one list.
Prioritize Employee Training
One of the best things you can do to boost productivity is to ensure your team has the knowledge and tools to succeed. Training is a crucial part of this. By training your team, you boost both their productivity and their efficiency. It can be tempting to skip training to give your new hires more time to make sales, but this will cost you productivity in the long run. Remember that any time and money you spend on training your employees will pay off, as long as the training is done right.
The best agency management software providers understand the importance of training and offer it. Jenesis, for example, offers training so your agents can efficiently use the software. Take advantage of this when switching to Jenesis for the first time or when onboarding new employees. Or just use it to give your team a refresher and ensure they are using the system to its full advantage.
Don’t Micromanage
You want to ensure your team gets everything done, which can lead to a tendency to micromanage. But micromanaging tends to hurt productivity. Instead, give your insurance agents and other staff the freedom to complete tasks on their own terms and mini-deadlines, as long as they meet your overall goals and deadlines. Having autonomy will improve employee happiness, which in turn boosts productivity. As a bonus, it gives your team practice solving issues and innovating, which can make them better insurance agents.
Take Advantage of Tech and Tools
One of the most effective ways to improve your insurance agency’s productivity is by putting technology and tools available to good use. For example, harness the power of an insurance agency management system like Jenesis.
Jenesis can improve productivity in multiple ways, including by letting clients handle basic requests themselves via the client portal. It also saves you the need to switch between programs for things like emailing and texting, invoicing, and receipts. You can further boost productivity with automated email marketing, the built-in commission manager, and direct carrier downloads. And those are just a handful of the ways Jenesis can boost your productivity. After all, efficiency and productivity go hand-in-hand, as your agents will deliver better numbers if they can work more efficiently.
Provide Access to Content
In addition to all of the little ways that Jenesis can boost productivity, it also provides the important benefit of giving your team access to the content they need. Insurance agencies have a long list of information to keep track of, and trying to work across various programs or hunt down that data can waste time and hurt the workflow. Using Jenesis means your team has access to all the information and data they need at any time and in an easily organized manner. Think of all the time they can save that would have been spent searching for information.
Simplify Products
Looking to the future, consider simplifying your insurance offerings. In fact, this is one of the trends McKinsey predicts for the future of insurance agencies. That is because by streamlining your offerings, you make life easier for both your clients and your agents. That, in turn, simplifies productivity.
What does this look like? It can take various forms. Maybe you will just reduce the add-ons that you offer. Or maybe you will compress your insurance offerings into three levels with simple names like Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Figuring out what that product simplification looks like for your agency will take a bit of planning and consideration of your goals, so don’t rush into it.
Take an Omnichannel Approach
There is already a strong trend toward an omnichannel approach in insurance, and McKinsey predicts this will increase in the coming years. At the same time, this is yet another way to improve productivity. For example, a potential client can start interacting with your agency online from the comfort of their home. Then, they can continue seamlessly with an in-person meeting or video call. By connecting all of these interactions, your team doesn’t have to start from square one with each interaction.
Track Data
As with any other goal, you need to track the productivity figures if you want to optimize productivity. Luckily, this is incredibly easy to do with the right agency management software. For example, Jenesis has an employee transaction and productivity log that provides data and insights. And you can pull customizable reports on production (and other aspects of your insurance agency).
Conclusion
Boosting productivity in your insurance agency should not be overwhelming. Start by empowering your employees with training, access to information, and a lack of micromanagement. Combine this with tech and tools to further boost productivity along with efficiency. Then, look to the future to find ways to improve productivity in the long term.