How easy is it to manage the everyday logistics of your insurance business? If you roll your eyes and shake your head at that question, you’re probably one of many people struggling to maintain a high quality of service while organizing your business internally. While insurance is the focus of your business, to provide quality to your clients, you need to have your internal logistics in order. From keeping such things as paper, envelopes, and ink pens available to finding the right third-party vendors to work with, established processes are key to a well-managed insurance business.
Focus Your Energy
While it may sometimes make sense for logistical tasks, such as keeping community areas organized, to be shared at your insurance agency, in general, it makes more sense for responsibilities to be assigned to individuals on your team. That way, those individuals refine a process for doing each task, no matter how small that task might be.
For instance, one person can be responsible for coordinating office cleaning. This may mean rotating the task so that each person at the office takes a turn at handling the chore, or, one person may be responsible for collaborating with a professional cleaning company that can meet the needs of your agency.
Bring Professionals On for Specific Needs
Some tasks are best left to the professionals. For instance, it’s best to have accounting processes that allow each person to track expenses but leave the actual accounting and taxes to a professional if you’re a small insurance agency without a staff person dedicated to this task. Specialization improves the efficiency of your agency’s processes: if you can’t hire an individual to do a specialized task, then consider bringing someone in sporadically to do that task, such as developing and adjusting your website or providing accounting assistance.
Create Consistent Procedures
Knowing how to do things is just as important as knowing who does specific tasks. According to SMBCEO, “You can’t operate well if there’s a lack of management.” When you’re refining your logistics at your insurance agency, make sure that you develop and write down the procedures you use for each logistical task.
For example, if you want to have a greener form of paper in the office, you’ll need to do your research to decide what kind of paper to use. Since the paper needs of the agency, as well as your available options, may change over time, it is more efficient to do this type of research every few months or perhaps on a yearly basis, rather than each time paper is ordered.
Create standards for your paper quality and sourcing, and then determine where to find the paper you want. Developing a process that works will help save a tremendous amount of repeated effort and ensure that your agency’s purchases and practices consistently align with your values.
Refine Each Process
Regularly review each process to make sure that it is working well for you. For example, this includes ordering deadlines. If you know that you need to purchase office supplies approximately every four months, then put these supplies on order so that they will arrive just before the last ones run out. This allows you to avoid the panic of realizing that there are no more envelopes for those key client letters. Small actions like this make a huge difference in your insurance agency’s efficiency.
At American Agents Alliance, we provide options for logistical support for your business. From discounted E&O insurance to shipping services, our members enjoy many different opportunities to save on services that will help their insurance agencies maintain a high quality of service. Are you curious about how an insurance agent association can help your business grow? Contact us today.
