The agency management system is the heart of an agent's operating environment. This must be recognized by carriers. Driving agents to proprietary portals for new business quotes is an enormous time waster. Carriers must work with integration vendors to facilitate single entry of data from the agency management system for new business quoting. Real-time transactions must be the standard. This includes real-time integration with third-party information providers. Upload/download is absolutely necessary, [and] it must be for all transactions across all product lines. Agents must be able to work with different carriers in the same manner. If not, the best agents will turn to the carriers who are easiest to do business with. Back-end systems must be fully integrated with front-end data gathering so that there is no rekeying or manual intervention.

Younger workers will demand technology commensurate with their personal lives. Mobile technology, mobile applications and collaboration tools will be mandatory, especially for agents who write commercial lines. Business customers conduct their transactions in an e-commerce environment and they will only select agents, and carriers, who are able to match their processes. E-signature technology is an integral part. A single view of the customer is an imperative for both the agent and the carrier so that consumer self-service can occur. Aggregated customer data will allow agents to aggressively up-sell and cross-sell.

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