You are on your lunch break and your phone vibrates. It’s a customer asking you about a form and when the deadline is. You respond as soon as you get it, but as you type you keep thinking, I need to remember to put this into our system when I get back to work.
EZLynx Insurance Agency Management System announced the addition of integrated text messaging to their platform last week, the first of its kind.
“Other agency automated vendors usually go through third party systems,” said John McKay, the Director of Sales Operations at EzLynx. “This is all one. It’s one platform.”
The cloud-based messaging connects directly to each agency’s management system. When an agency purchases the program, the company is assigned a phone number. An agent can send and receive customer text messages through that number. As a message is sent or received, the communication gets saved and stored directly into the system.
“They don’t have to worry about entering interactions or anything because now all communication is stored and saved for future reference,” said Brett Burchett, EZLynx’s Business Analyst.
The automated entry helps eliminate E&O issues in client communications. For Kaleb DeMille, Agency Principal at Main Street Insurance Agency¬, this allows his company fully utilize quick communication.
“Customers open text messages faster than e-mail and faster than listening to voicemails,” DeMille said. “It works great for reminding customers about payments or applications that our agency needs.”
However, agents should be wary of using the system too frequently.
“A negative could be the possibility of other agencies abusing the text forum by texting ads or specials,” said Philip Doak, the President of Southwest Insurance Center Inc.
According to McKay, this also gives agents an increased customer-base.
“It’s able to reach out to different demographics who want to be communicated with,” McKay said.
According to the Pew Internet & Life Project, older adults are now making up the fastest-growing new population of texters. Another study found that text messaging open rates surpass 98 percent.
EZLynz Beta-tested the product with 10 to 20 companies, Main Street Insurance Agency being one of them, and were able to better the product to agency needs.
“One customer brought to our attention that their emails have a coverage disclaimer,” Burchett said. “Based on that, we will now send out a text message to the customers who haven’t responded in six months with a basic disclaimer to make sure agencies are covered by texting.”
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