Although agent adoption of technology is gaining steam, many inthe insurance industry are wondering how technology adoption can betaken a step further toward technology truly being part of agents'sales behavior. How can we as an industry build upon existingautomation investments and how can we influence behavioral changein the distribution channels that remain paper based?

The answer lies in providing enough value to the end user todrive the desired change. Simply having in-good-order submissions,faster commission payments and cost savings associated with paperbased processing is no longer compelling enough to drive thedesired widespread change in agent behavior. These once desiredvalues are viewed today as baseline requirements in automatedbusiness processing platforms. To encourage end user adoption andinfluence behavior change, there must be additional values for theend user that are delivered at a price point that enablessuccessful ROI implementations for the home office.

In order to broaden automation adoption across multipledistribution channels, first understand what motivates and driveseach target audience. After evaluating the unique focus ofdifferent agent/channels, it is apparent that the main commonuniversal truth is that agents do not place value in how businessis actually processed, but rather how efficiently they can processsales. Agents are not concerned with how the business is beingprocessed unless there is an issue in the process that impactssales or client relationships. This means that agents will continueto use paper forms over automated electronic forms if it avoidsbusiness processing issues that negatively impact theirclients.

Thus, the real question is: What values must be provided toentice the agent to migrate to digital forms and adopt analternative automated approach to processing business?

With the existing value propositions of in good order, fastercommissions and elimination of paper processing cost as baselinerequirements, automated business processing must begin to take intoaccount the complete business picture and not simply focus on thebusiness requirements of automating business submissions. Thetechnology must meet the end user where they are or want to be.

For example, a sales agent armed with a form and a pen has theflexibility to engage with a client anywhere at any time. Iftechnology handcuffs agents to a desk or an Internet connection,this does not meet the agent where they already are, or moreimportantly, where they need to be. When technology is reliant uponan Internet connection and the agent is unable to connect whilemeeting with a client, the technology is prohibiting the agent fromdoing their job effectively, inadvertently influencing the agent torevert back to the way they know how to process business—in thiscase with paper.

Meeting agents where they are is a key to securing theiracceptance of new technology. Today's automation must deliver salesprocessing benefits and added abilities. These include supportingtablet devices while leveraging a single business process acrossdevices, disconnected support for anytime business processing,multiple electronic signature capture capabilities and automatedpayment processing. This will make a real positive impact in anagent's ability to conduct business. In addition, providing anintuitive process without the heavy burden of training and learningcurve is an absolute requirement. By leveraging existing carrierforms that agents are familiar with, an automation solution can besimple for agents to adapt and adopt.

A process providing these additional end user values, while atthe same time meeting the end user where they already are, presentsa solution that drives behavioral change. It provides significantvalues to agents that they did not know could make a positiveimprint on their sales and client relationships.

Jim Ferrell is vice president of product management at InsuranceTechnologies and leads development of the company's FireLightproduct. He can be reached at [email protected].