The main reason for operating any kind of business–including aninsurance agency–is to generate profit. While agencies play animportant role in society and in our country's economy, theirprimary purpose is to make a profit and provide income to theirowners.

We agency owners and producers tend to think of our technologyinvestment as one element of an overall strategy to maximizeprofitability, but we rarely consider technology itself to be asource of profit. Most agents and CSRs can, however, help increasetheir agencies' profitability by using a technology applicationavailable at their desktops through their agency managementsystems.

Real-time inquiry has been around for almost two years, and mostagencies with automated management systems represent at least onecompany offering it. Yet an amazing number of agencies do not usethis tool to save time–and therefore money–even thoughimplementation is easy and inexpensive. No other applicationpresents so much profit potential for such a small investment!

Every time a member of your staff uses real-time inquiry forpolicy detail, billing, claims or loss runs, he or she savesseveral minutes. Multiply that time by your hourly CSR salary andyou can quickly calculate the savings per transaction.

Every agency, no matter its size, can benefit from using thissimple tool. Once the first company is set up, the workflow forsubsequent companies will be identical. The only difference youwill notice will be in the display format. So if concern aboutmultiple workflows has kept you from implementing real-timeinquiry, put your fears aside and start using it today.

If you think your staff can conduct billing, claim or policyinquiries faster through company Web sites than with real-timeinquiry through your agency management system, try both methods andcompare the results. The real-time transaction will win hands-downevery time, and you'll automatically receive documentation whenit's been completed.

If your first attempt at real-time inquiry falters, your staffmay think it doesn't work and try to abandon it. Don't give up,though. Every agency has experienced some type of problem with amanagement system function, but it typically solves the problem andcarries on because that function is essential to agency operation.The same imperative applies to real-time inquiry. Persist until youachieve success and your staff sees that the process worksconsistently.

Even if you introduce a change that simplifies workflow andincreases productivity, you'll need to follow up to ensure everyoneadheres to it. We implemented real-time inquiry at our agency andwent over it with every employee. A month later, though, we foundthat some staff members were using the new method as instructed butothers were still going to company Web sites to perform variousfunctions. We used our system's report function to track dailyreal-time inquiry transaction activity and reviewed variances withindividual staff members. Within two weeks, everyone was usingreal-time inquiry and raving about its ease of use, the improvedworkflow and the automatic documentation of completedinquiries.

If you are an agency manager not yet familiar with real-timeinquiry, get someone to install it on a workstation. (Set-up willtake less than one hour.) Then compare a company Web-site billinginquiry to a similar real-time inquiry through your managementsystem. Once you see for yourself how such real-time functionswork, you'll better understanding the advantages they offer toCSRs.

You may wonder if companies benefit from offering agenciesreal-time transaction options. Web-based access and real-timeagency management system access are two different channels for thesame activity, and companies pay the same amount for both. It'sprimarily agencies that benefit from using agency managementsystem-based real-time inquiry, but if they don't adopt it,companies have no incentive to develop additional real-timetransaction capabilities.

No other application provides as great a return on technologyinvestment as does real-time inquiry, and no other topic I havereviewed in the past two years presents as much profit opportunityfor your agency. Yet a majority of agents don't use the real-timeinquiry functions available to them. I hope you're in theminority–an agency that does take advantage of this technology.

Don't confuse real-time comparative rating with real-timeinquiry activities. We are all frustrated with real-timecomparative rating, although progress is being made there–butreal-time inquiry activity has already been perfected! Real-time isnot all the same. Use the proven real-time inquiry functions thatwork now!

Edgar J. Higgins Jr., CPCU, is the owner of ProgressiveManagement Consulting and the Thousand Islands Agency in Clayton,N.Y. Readers can contact Ed at [email protected].