Lessons Learned from the Pandemic

If the pandemic taught insurance agency owners anything, it was that having multiple ways of communicating with your clients is more important than ever. Posting notices on websites, sending client emails, phone call campaigns, and even mail were all used for outgoing communications, but what about incoming?

Multi-Channel Communications

At its simplest, multi-channel communications means being able to communicate with your clients (and prospects!) in any form they prefer. At a deeper level, it means being prepared for alternate modes of communication and having a plan and systems in place to handle these new/additional channels. Examples would be website contact forms, catch-all email addresses on websites and social media sites, text messaging, web chat, and social media instant messaging. The pandemic has, by necessity, placed all of these channels into play as a primary way for clients and prospects to contact your insurance agency. How you handle these new channels can make a big difference in your agency’s efficiency and in building an audit trail for protection from E&O claims.

A Solution

New technologies are stepping up to the plate to fill the void in the post-pandemic, socially-distant world. Who hasn’t attended a company meeting thru a webinar by now? Employees are collaborating by zoom and other means while working from home. But what about client and prospect communications? Enter, Chatfully. Chatfully is building a multi-channel communications system that fits nicely into the post-pandemic world.

Chatfully is essentially an online dashboard that brings your company texts, webchats, and instant messaging all into one comprehensive place to be managed and acted upon. Chatfully ties into your Facebook instant messaging account for your company Facebook page, they provide “widgets” for webchat that can be easily installed on your website, and they can text-enable any existing land-lines your company is already using (or provide an 800 number to be used for corporate texting.)

A person (or team) at your company is assigned the task of being your “virtual receptionist”. Chatfully’s software automatically routes all the incoming texts, instant messages, and webchats initiated by your clients and prospects and can assign them to the appropriate team member. Or, the Chatfully dashboard can be set up with multiple inboxes, and team members can be assigned to each inbox. You could, for instance, have an inbox for sales, customer service, accounting, etc,

Chats, texts, and instant messages are archived by the Chatfully dashboard, so your E&O audit capabilities are maintained. Chatfully even includes a basic CRM system so that you can track your communications by client or prospect, regardless of the channel being used.

Chatfully can also be used to initiate outgoing text campaigns. Remember the difficulty in communicating that your office was closed? You can now import your client list and send a “blast” text to your existing clients. (Granted, this would require you to have your clients’ cell phone numbers and permission to text, but this is something you should probably already be striving to achieve.) This could also be used to communicate emergency claims information in the event of a natural disaster. Sadly, it’s no longer all that difficult to come up with similar situations in which this capability could be used.

Reach a new Generation of Prospects

As valuable as all the above is, perhaps the best reason to implement a system such as Chatfully is to make your company available to a new breed of customer. Today’s tech-savvy consumers now expect to be able to text or instant message the companies they interact with, and they’re actually more inclined to initiate a webchat to solve an issue than to make an actual phone call. By implementing a multi-channel communications platform, you are letting your prospects know that you want to do business with them – however they prefer to do it.

Multi-channel communications with clients and prospects. Secure, auditable archives of client communications organized by a CRM system, outgoing emergency communications, multiple inboxes based upon teams or function, assignment of team members based upon their need to access a certain inbox. The reasons for moving in this direction are many, and in light of recent events, the timing could not be better.

And best of all? Chatfully is free for small teams with basic needs and starts at $50 per month to start texting with unlimited users, includes a text-enabled number of your choice, and the full feature set

Contact Us to discuss implementing Chatfully for your company or, if you’re ready to evolve your communications, click below to start your free trial!

About AgencyEvolved

AgencyEvolved is a comprehensive custom digital marketing service. We help insurance related companies evolve by creating long-term growth and value through strategic digital marketing. We offer website creation, SEO, email marketing, social media posting, digital advertising and more.

We specialize in the insurance marketplace: Agents, Brokers, Wholesalers, Program Managers and Companies.

Custom Digital Marketing Solutions for the Insurance Industry

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