The need to improve the client experience   

For Parker, Smith & Feek, Inc., creating a positive, consistent client experience is everything. Sherisa Crevier, vice president and brokerage operations manager, says, “Our cultural thought process behind serving clients is in everything that we’re doing, whether it’s technology-based, workflow-based, whatever it is, we need to be thinking of the client experience.” However, with almost 2,000 clients and 265 brokers, tending fully to every client’s needs is no small task. To assist with processing, the firm needed an application platform. Additionally, the manual application process consumed a majority of brokers’ time and often delayed application turnaround. Crevier added, “There was a lot of back and forth between clients and staff, which resulted in frustration on the client’s part. The process wasn’t streamlined by any means.” The brokerage also found it difficult to capture new business. Selecting a new broker is a difficult process for a client. As Crevier explains, even if they’re not satisfied with their current broker, clients still have someone who knows their history — a downside for PS&F customer acquisition. To combat these challenges and continue to improve the client/employee experience, management began searching for an efficient solution to manage client applications.

Automating the application process with Indio

Indio turned out to be the perfect fit for PS&F. It improved their client experience while also being easy for staff to use. The firm took an incremental approach to integrate Indio into their process — testing first with their small business team. “That’s the group [where] we look to streamline things as much as possible,” explains Crevier. Once the small business team started working with Indio, they quickly caught on to the advantages Indio offers. “They really jumped in and got excited about it,” Crevier remembers. “That’s how we created internal advocates for Indio. Then we rolled out the implementation department-wide for commercial and it just became part of the standard workflow.”

Indio’s online portal stores digitized smart application forms. The client receives a single link where they can fill out their application form directly within the portal. Common answers like name and phone number are auto mapped across forms, keeping clients from entering the same information multiple times. Indio’s features are easy to demonstrate and explain, which helps improve conversations with prospective clients as they learn how much faster they can complete applications with the platform. With the help of Indio, PS&F staff now spend more time consulting clients on their risk, clients turn in applications faster than ever, and new client opportunities have increased.

One application to automate internal operations and enhance client experience

The Indio platform helps make application processes as efficient as possible so that brokers can truly serve as risk management consultants for clients. For example, instead of sending multiple emails, staff now only have to send one link that directs clients to online application forms. Common data fields, such as names, populate automatically across all forms, saving clients a significant amount of time on form completion. As a result, clients return completed information significantly faster than they were in the past. What once took three or four conversations to get client applications back to brokers, now takes about a day. PS&F then gets applications out to market faster, which improves the client experience.

PS&F clients now have a “metrics” mindset due to Indio’s application progress feature. While PS&F staff members can see progress within the Indio platform and determine if they need to reach out, clients can also keep track of how close their applications are to completion.

Indio is a strong selling point in prospect conversations. PS&F can now demonstrate how the Indio platform will save their prospect hours of time during the application process. Highlighting Indio’s features makes conversations easier when brokers bring someone new onboard. For example, Crevier was speaking to a group of risk managers at a large organization. The risk management team was excited about the PS&F innovations and Indio, but one risk management consultant was skeptical. She found it hard to believe that all of the carrier applications their company required to be insured would actually be available within Indio. “When I explained that Indio has 100% of the applications they need to be digitized in the system, the room fell silent,” Crevier says, “The group was amazed and thrilled at the capabilities of the platform.”

In addition to using Indio to assist with their prospect conversations, PS&F is able to generate new leads with Indio’s Lead Capture tool. Using these forms, PS&F creates different lead capture pages for various PS&F partner associations. They then distribute these lead capture pages to the respective association, which allows the leads from the association to be captured within Indio.

Indio’s Lead Capture tool obtains information that a generic quote request form would, as well as, enables leads to jump right into the application process – all without interacting with a producer or account manager. Account executives are notified every time someone completes a lead capture form. The beauty of the process is that when the account executives receive leads from the Lead Capture tool, the prospects have already been created in Indio’s system, labeled as prospects and have already started if not completed their applications. The account executives can simply review the information and reach out.

By combining their commitment to teamwork and client satisfaction with Indio’s capabilities, PS&F has added an extra layer of efficiency, resulting in multiple benefits for the firm. “Indio has streamlined our processes,” says Crevier, “Along with the helpful Indio team, Indio is a fantastic partner in improving the client/employee experience. And that, in my opinion, is what sets Indio apart from other vendors that work in the insurance space.”