Many of the pain points and challenges insurance brokers face can be solved or alleviated by smartly deploying an enrollment and administration (E&A) platform solution. By reducing the amount of time spent on each client, brokers can increase productivity and free up more time for sales. This can effectively increase profit without needing to increase the insurance broker’s salary.
Read below to understand the why and how of an E&A platform for brokers.
The right platform can help brokers overcome challenges
Brokers face many challenges that can be overcome by using the right platform. As an effective solution to busywork and customer pain points, the right platform can utilize technological advances in communication and data management to make everyone’s life easier and headache-free.
Instead of continuing to struggle with outdated modalities that create problems for brokers and turn away potential clients in an increasingly competitive insurance market, the time has come to implement a new solution.
Why you need to implement a platform to increase sales
Clients can be put off for many reasons; and with so many options out there, they won’t put up with clunky enrollment processes or inefficient administrative systems. Every instance of a potential client stopping mid-enrollment or deciding to complete the application later represents a potential lost sale or the need to spend more time to save it. By understanding client motivation to complete the sale, new insurance platforms have been tailored to benefit both customers and brokers alike.
Price and convenience are the biggest obstacles
Not surprisingly, the biggest obstacles from a customer’s point of view are the overall cost of the service and the convenience of signing up and utilizing the service. The right platform can resolve both issues at the same time.
Lower costs by freeing up more time
When you deploy an E&A platform solution, the amount of time a broker spends on an individual client can be reduced, freeing them up to take on a greater volume of clients within the same 40-hour workweek.
More time to sell means the ability to offer lower prices, improving competition within your market while still increasing profit. This will be a two-fold win for your sales team: you’ll have time to take on additional clients, and attracting them will be easier because you’ll be able to pass on the savings to them.
A streamlined process is more likely to be completed
The key is to offer an improved customer experience to make your sign-up process intuitive and efficient. If it’s easy to start and complete the process, customers will be more likely to finish the transaction instead of becoming frustrated and giving up part-way through.
Not only will your brokers have more time to pursue leads, but their success rate with conversions will also increase, making their time better spent and more profitable.
How the right platform decreases headaches for brokers and makes customers happy
In the end, taking on more clients will actually feel like less work for your brokers. Why? Because the process of signing each one will come with fewer headaches thanks to bypassing outdated, tedious processes.
Save time on data entry
Filling out and turning in paper documents is a thing of the past, and you have likely already adopted the practice of digital documents. But even without the printing requirement, sending PDFs back and forth can still take a lot of time and create lags in the enrollment process.
Further, transferring the information from these documents into the system takes additional time and creates opportunities for more errors when data is manually transcribed. Errors that are uncovered immediately during the sign-up process can require additional back-and-forth, but, even worse, they can cause problems further down the line if they’re not discovered until later.
In short, errors extend the broker’s time investment in every single client. With the implementation of a platform, though, brokers can save time and reduce errors by simplifying data collection with a seamless process that doesn’t require a back-and-forth exchange of documents or rely on manual entry. This will ultimately speed up the initial sign-up process and reduce follow-ups due to errors.
Resolve billing and non-payment issues
In many cases, after signing up for a policy, clients will turn to the broker when payment issues arise instead of reaching out to the carrier directly.
Since only the carrier can truly resolve these issues, acting as the middleman with no real ability to resolve the issue only wastes your time and tries the customer’s patience. When you have a platform that can handle billing questions and non-payment concerns, it’s easy for brokers to provide a level of customer service that will retain clients in the long run.
Improve reporting functionality
Knowing where you’re succeeding and where to redirect your focus is critical. By utilizing a platform that can provide easy access to quality reports whenever you need them, you’ll enable better decision-making and more sales for your team – with even less effort than before.
E&A platforms are there to help you succeed
E&A platforms are the way of the future; they’re there to keep you selling and keep you competitive in today’s market. When you’re ready to implement a platform solution, Genius Avenue can help you get started.