NextAgency Principles: Part I
NextAgency is a powerful agency management system with CRM, marketing and commission management tools designed to save life and health agencies time money and clients.
NextAgency is available now, and we’re constantly improving it with new features and tools. The platform is expanding, too. For example, we started off supporting just employee benefit agencies. Now we have tools for brokers selling individual or group coverage, benefits or property and casualty insurance, and support a number of coverage types.
Because NextAgency is evolving, we think it’s important for you to understand the principles that guide our software development and drive the company behind the platform, Take 44, Inc. We have five key principles:
- Start with brokers: build from brokers out.
- Don’t interfere: broker-client relationships are paramount.
- Empower choice: brokers and clients choose their own vendors.
- Be realistic: don’t overpromise.
- Protect data: offer secure systems and clear permissions.
This post explores the first two principles. The rest are explained in Part II and Part III.
Start with brokers.
Some vendors selling software to brokers started out as PEOs, payroll companies or HR administrators. Eventually they realized the value you deliver to your clients. They changed their marketing and grafted some broker-facing tools to their existing platforms. This was smart. At the end of the day, however, they’re still PEOs, payroll companies and HR administrators.
On the other hand, NextAgency started as an agency management system. Everything we build is centered around helping you grow your business. No big surprise there. Three of Take 44’s founders are licensed agents (and the fourth a carrier executive). Two of us are past presidents of the National Association of Health Underwriters. We not only understand what you do, we appreciate what you do. “Your Value. Our Tech. Unbeatable.” is more than our marketing statement. It’s our reason for launching NextAgency in the first place.
This focus is why NextAgency is an agency management system designed for life and health insurance brokers. Everything we build orbits this principle. Of course, we realize no two agencies are alike. So we enable you to easily customize records for cases (prospects and clients), policies, sub-agents, commissions and contacts. And it’s why we recently (note: updated March 2020) integrated with Ease, the benefit administration software.
Don’t interfere.
With this focus, it’s only natural we help help you strengthen your relationship with prospects and clients. This means not getting between you and them. This approach is rarer than it should be. Too many health insurance companies, for example, think they “own” the groups you bring them. They’re wrong. They are your clients. Want proof? When’s the last an employer fired their benefits broker at the suggestion of their health insurance company? Yet employers fire their carriers on the advice of brokers on the first of every month.
The same holds true with software. Too many technology companies believe that once your clients start using their product, they own them. If they want to cross-sell to your clients they will, regardless of your wishes. They’re wrong and they shouldn’t. You are your clients adviser, consultant and advocate. You have the primary relationship with them.
Yes, this will cost us some money. Holding to principles sometimes does that. It’s a price worth paying as it reflects who we are.
At NextAgency we start with brokers and we bolster your client relationships. One of the outcomes of this approach is that we don’t force you to change who you work with and how you work with them in order to use NextAgency. That’s the topic of Part II.
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