Agents are happier with their agents lately. According to a recent
"Establishing and maintaining trust requires efficient and accessible communication between carriers and agents, and these findings are reflective of the value agents place on being able to communicate easily with their carriers,” says Clare DeNicola, president and chief executive officer of IVANS Inc. “It is also a testament to the investments that carriers have been making and to the success of industry campaigns such as getrealtime.org, which IVANS has been proud to co-sponsor since its inception four years ago."
Results of “IVANS 2011 Insurance Agents, Carriers & Technology Survey,” which measures agent-carrier trust, and usage of interface technology and social networking, shows that real-time upload has increased among agents from 36% in 2009 to 52% in 2011. Also, usage of commercial lines download also saw an increase from 42% to 59%, and claims download is up to 30% from 18% previously.
Of the agents not using real-time or commercial lines download, 60% said this is because carriers are not offering it. IVANs says carriers are hesitant to adopt the technology given the chance that agents may not use it, and carriers wouldn’t see a return on the investment. "Good communication is a two-way street, and agents need to proactively seek information for their own benefit and work with carriers that are implementing interface solutions to keep up with consumer demands for quicker service and faster quotes,” DeNicola says. “If certain carriers aren’t offering this technology or agents have it but aren’t using it, now is the time to get engaged and find out why."
Other findings from the survey include what agents believe threaten their bottom line: 43% said "customers shopping around more for quotes,” and 19% said direct online sales. Some agents fear that carriers are starting to overlook the value they bring to the sales process and are beginning to pursue direct online sales instead.
IVANS also questioned agents’ outlook on social networking tools, specifically how they use them:
• 52% do not use social networking
• 28% use social networking passively to maintain a presence and monitor conversations
• 27% use social networking for marketing purposes
• 14% use social networking to provide enhanced customer service
• 3% use social networking for recruiting
• 3% responded with “other”
