Many insurance agencies are inundated with the number of tasks they need to keep track of and which agents a task has been assigned to. These tasks are usually created by manually checking information in the different business systems an agency uses, which is a laborious process. Some agencies might be tempted to build their own application to automate this process but then find that maintaining the application becomes a costly, ongoing project. There are solutions, however, that can automate the consolidation of tasks across multiple systems and provide an easy way of tracking them.
Insurance agencies these days don’t have just one system to manage their clients and products. When it comes to creating and keeping track of tasks in these different systems, they often use a manual process and then find that they are unable to effectively keep track of tasks, who is responsible, and when the task needs to be completed. This usually results in a list of tasks that are not completed and have to be done in a rush come month end.
Inefficient task management can have revenue repercussions if policies are not renewed, or there is not enough time for other sales activities. If agents are unable to keep track of policy expiration dates (X-dates) they can miss out on contacting a client before they renew their policies with another agency.
If these current challenges are not addressed by agencies, they will continue to use old-fashioned methods to keep track of tasks with reminder boards and notes in diaries and post-it notes. Of course, what comes with manual updates and reminders is the potential for errors.
The business systems that insurance agencies use include some form of workflow management, that includes tracking tasks, but agencies do not use just one system. Orchestrating the data that moves across these systems is not a straightforward project. However, there is now a way to integrate, consolidate, and orchestrate data across different agency systems so that agents can manage tasks allowing them to effectively engage with their clients.
The Synatic Data Integration Hub (DIH) provides the platform to automatically extract task information from across agency systems, consolidate this information into one data warehouse, and structure the data in such a way that agents can use standard tools to view and manage their tasks.
The DIH consists of an integration engine that has connectors for many different insurance systems. This simplifies and speeds up the process of extracting data. The next stage of the integration process is to check the data for possible errors, such as invalid dates or duplicate records. After the validation process, the DIH transforms and consolidates the task data so that it can be stored in the DIH’s built-in data warehouse. The entire process can be done in near real-time, but for task management, this usually is not required. Instead, a daily or weekly update process can be scheduled. This periodic process can also update task information back into the agency's AMS so that data in those systems and the data warehouse are synchronized.
Other applications can be layered over Synatic’s Data Warehouse to provide reporting and task management capabilities. Such examples include applications like Microsoft’s Power BI data visualization tool and Salesforce’s Tableau analytics engine.
With the Synatic DIH, and the power of its built-in data warehouse, agents can be assured that they have all the data they need in the palm of their hand. With easy and instant access to the right data at the right time, agents will not miss any tasks and simultaneously improve client service and sales. Agents will not have to waste time checking different systems and manually updating task information in a diary. Agency managers can also use the data in the data warehouse to monitor tasks and get insights into how business processes can be improved.
To find out how you can leverage Synatic and use the platform to help your agency and its agents better manage tasks, contact Synatic today.
