The Evolution of ONE PLATFORM™ and our Agency-In-A-Box Roadmap
It was only a few short years ago that EZLynx was known as simply a comparative rating platform. While our introduction of comparative rating changed the industry forever, we knew from our agents that they were facing significant challenges from direct carriers, captive carriers, and online agencies that hurt their bottom lines. Most agents were dealing with incompatible multi-vendor solutions that ended up creating silos of information with duplicate data.
Seven years ago we decided to solve this problem by defining a new EZLynx roadmap for the industry that would offer agents a one-stop solution. Since then, our underlying goal has consistently been to build a complete customer lifecycle solution that would not only help our agents achieve greater success, but would also redefine our industry—again. EZLynx Sales Center is our next step on that journey.
Announced at the 2016 AgentLynx User Conference, EZLynx Sales Center is focused on growing your business by streamlining your agency’s sales pipeline. Seamlessly integrated into the EZLynx ONE PLATFORM™, Sales Center helps you identify sales opportunities, manage sales tasks, track close ratios, and focus on generating new revenue.
But the customer lifecycle doesn’t begin with Sales Center…
Step 1 — EZLynx Agency Websites
Every day, millions of consumers are using their phones, tablets, and desktops to search for insurance. Optimized to help drive traffic to your digital presence, Agency Websites is your online storefront.
We felt it was important to apply our insurance and technical knowledge to help agents compete online. The most important aspect of our website services is that we seamlessly integrate our consumer-facing lead capture and custom service portals, which has always been something that many agents struggle with.
Retain Leads — 50% of all insurance shoppers are on a mobile device. Our designs automatically adjust to fit all screen sizes.
Expand Your Reach — Get found in 50 local online business directories consumers use to find professionals like insurance agents.
Great First Impression — With 30+ website designs choices and customization to match your branding, you get a unique site.
Promote Inbound Marketing — Custom content writing for service pages and monthly blog articles on topics important to insurance shoppers.
Expert Digital Strategy — Quarterly meetings with a website analyst to assess your website’s health and local performance.
Professional Guidance — Website specialists walk you through the setup process, host your site, and monitor its performance.
Step 2 — EZLynx Consumer Quoting
As consumers find your website, they are funneled through our various lead capture forms. We have made extensive updates to EZLynx Consumer Quoting over the past few years so that a single portal can now map leads into EZLynx for any line of business.
Your home and auto leads can give the consumer the option to complete a full online quote, but that is an entirely optional process. Meanwhile, your leads for other lines of businesses go directly into EZLynx without distracting or confusing the consumer with references to home and auto quotes. Commercial leads even create commercial applicants in EZLynx automatically.
Capture Leads — Collect leads by providing consumers option to generate real-time comparative quotes on your website or provide their basic contact info.
Retain Mobile Leads — 30% of people seeking quotes are on mobile devices. Our system detects & optimizes their quoting experience.
Maximize Social Media Impact — Offer comparative quoting directly on your agency’s Facebook page to increase social media leads.
Improve Customer Service — Set automatic follow up emails for customers who exit a non-completed quote form.
Stay Organized — Consumer risk information and all quotes automatically populate in your EZLynx account for easy access.
Step 3 — EZLynx Sales Center
Our latest product is going to revolutionize the way you manage your sales process. Best of all, it will keep you centered in EZLynx with Rating, Policy Management, and our suite of communication tools right at your fingertips.
Streamline Your Agency’s Sales Pipeline
Have you ever quoted a lead you didn’t write or had trouble tracking X-Dates, close rates, or point of sale information in your agency? Sales Center is focused on growing your business by streamlining your sales pipeline. From identifying missed sales opportunities to servicing existing customers, the EZLynx ONE PLATFORM™ helps you manage the full customer lifecycle, round accounts, and increase new business!
Easily Access Data
With easy access to pipeline data and relevant information, your sales managers can access the success of their producers and workflows. Sales dashboards allow you to quickly see close ratios for producers, deal aging, and assess your entire sales process to make informed decisions for your agency. Whether you are using Sales Center for true new business or rounding accounts, everything you need to know about an account is in one place.
Forecast Sales
Quote information from EZLynx fills into sales center to provide you the estimated value of each deal. As it moves through the pipeline, the estimated value becomes more accurate. This allows you to forecast your sales for month’s end. Follow each producer to make sure they are on target to hit sales goals and maximize agency revenue!
Track & Manage Sales Task
Sales Center is part of the EZLynx one platform center, so all your data is in one place. Track and manage the sales tasks through the Agency Workspace. Sales managers can follow the progression of a customer through the entire process. This means that identifying opportunities, sales, quoting, customer management, and renewal management all happen in one system. No more need for cumbersome spreadsheets, multiple systems, or lost opportunities. All your data is managed from a single platform.
Focus on Generating Revenue
Each day, a producer comes to work knowing each opportunity to target and the next task to close the deal. This allows producers to focus on revenue-generating activities and maximize their time. Tasks can be assigned to anyone in the agency and managed through Sales Center. Everything is accessible from the customer’s main EZLynx account.
Step 4 — EZLynx Rating Engine
The days of entering consumer information individually into each carrier’s system is over. One-time data entry in EZLynx yields dozens of comparative quotes in just seconds. You can even log into your EZLynx account on your mobile device to access quotes on the go.
We spent our early days perfecting the game of real-time rating and in doing so created the leading rater in the industry. Our web-based technology allows you to get instantaneous quotes from over 169 carriers in 48 states. Comparative cross-carrier quoting has never been this easy, and best of all, it is a seamless part of EZLynx Sales Center, EZLynx Management System, and EZLynx Retention Center.
As you work new prospects through Sales Center, you’ll be able to seamlessly tap into EZLynx Rating Engine as you transition that lead into a new customer.
Carrier Access — Instantly link to your carriers. We offer support with over 169 carriers across the continental US.
Protects Customers — Quickly deliver premium & coverage options via email with a secure connection for customer safety.
Streamline Renewals — Customers can update risk information securely online prior to re-quoting to streamline renewals.
Increased Productivity — Pre-fill & save quote templates with common answers, producer codes, and underwriting information.
Effortless Data Entry — Save time during quoting by pulling driver and vehicle data from LexisNexis® Data Pre-fill.
Protects Agents — Cloud-based system records all user activities for custom reports and to avoid E&O claims.
Step 5 — EZLynx Management System
At the heart of EZLynx, our Management System, paired with Sales Center, now combines both your book of business and your CRM. As your agency grows, it becomes increasingly important that your data aids in your daily workflow rather than hinder it.
EZLynx Management System allows you to maximize your agency’s potential by increasing your ability to retain current customers while acquiring new business.
Find all of your customer’s quotes, policies, and documents in one organized place and easily remarket with up-to-date information that is synced from your daily policy downloads.
Keep Existing Data — Stop stressing. Data conversion experts will import existing management system information painlessly.
Reduce E&O Exposure — Record everything, automatically. All notes, documents, emails, and tasks are linked to your client’s file.
Improve Customer Service — Use sticky notes, tasks, and reminders to streamline your workflow and maximize productivity.
Grow the Business — Reduce time with pre-filled forms and synced carrier information so that you can focus on growing your business.
Track Profits — Insurance accounting tracks premiums and commissions so that you can understand your book and plan for the future.
Step 6 — EZLynx Client Center
Tapping into the vast stores of customer data in your system, EZLynx Client Center sits on top of your Agency Website so that your clients can quickly access their policy details, shared documents, and submit change requests and questions.
Just like you, insurance clients now expect some level of online access to their account. More importantly, it saves you time to focus on revenue-generating activities by letting your clients perform the more basic customer service tasks like printing auto ID cards, to more complex service tasks like generating certificate holder for a commercial policy on their own.
We have exciting plans this year to further expand Client Center to make it even more useful to you and your clients.
Improve Customer Service — Customers can access policies on mobile devices & desktops from any Internet enabled device.
Exceed Expectations — keep your online shop open to customers 24/7/365 and give customers access to their own policies.
Decrease Response Time — Activity notifications are instantly sent to agents when customers electronically request changes.
Increase Productivity — Reducing general service requests frees up time for agents to focus on larger issues.
Reduce E&O Exposure — Client activities and communication is logged in EZLynx for quick access.
Step 7 — EZLynx Retention Center
Introduced 2 years ago, EZLynx Retention Center has redefined the renewal process at agencies using this solution.
With its patented technology, Retention Center can review and prioritize all daily renewals from high to low risk of attrition. This allows your employees to focus only on those renewals that are at greatest risk of a loss—all from a single screen in EZLynx.
Agents who implement Retention Center on average enjoy more than a 5 points increase in their retention.
Focused Strategy — Become proactive in your agency’s retention process to review every customer’s account at renewal.
Improved Customer Service — Communicate with every customer prior to the renewal to reinforce your agency’s value.
Greater Productivity — Utilize new technology to conduct and manage renewal process without increasing staff.
Expedite Remarketing — Utilize the policy sync feature to rapidly update a customer’s information and submit for quotes.
Expand Insight — Instant view into price and comparison of current policy and renewal to identify any changes.
Boost Revenue — Each additional point of retention corresponds to a specific dollar amount for each agency of increased profit.
Step 8 — EZLynx Communication Center
Encompassing all aspects of our product is EZLynx Communication Center. The ability to effectively communicate with your prospects and customers is essential to running an effective agency and is seamlessly used by all pieces of our customer lifecycle suite.
Communication Center is a bundle of digital communication tools that allow to you to email and text message with consumers directly from EZLynx. From completing the sales process with an electronic signature, to keeping your Microsoft Outlook inbox organized and in sync with EZLynx, Communication Center is at the center of your day-to-day workflow.
Drive Sales & Grow your Book — Leverage the power of EZLynx Reporting to define targeted and timely cross-sell email campaigns to increase your policy-per-customer average.
Improve Retention — Pro-actively communicate with clients via Text Message or Email to increase retention and improve the overall customer service experience.
Build Loyalty — Show customers you care by setting date-sensitive delivery for holidays, birthdays, or policy terms.
Seeing the Bigger Picture
While we are certainly excited about the release of EZLynx Sales Center this year, hopefully you see that it is just another piece to a larger vision we have for our industry. Your success is our validation of the roadmap we have set for our company over the past decade, and it will continue to be our benchmark for the decade to come. Be sure to take a look at our 2017 Roadmap if you haven’t already!
You can login to EZLynx here.
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the loss of a member of the EZLynx team. Bijesh Karuvarathodiyil passed away unexpectedly this week at home with his family.
Within eight weeks, your files are tested, cleaned up, reviewed and successfully converted to our system. As your data is analyzed, everything is accounted for, and you’ll be kept informed throughout the entire process.
After the holidays, as you start to prepare your marketing efforts for the new year, those of you that have our EZLynx Marketing Campaigns product will see a few changes. To begin with, you will soon find a new icon in EZLynx. This updated menu will be your hub for everything related to your email campaign settings, templates, and campaign status.
Best of all, you can insert these pre-written content samples completely independent from your design selection. The content is inserted wherever you place your cursor, making it easy to mix and match design and content.
While the ability to put an individual recipient on an email campaign has not changed, starting in late December all campaigns will being using one common template library. Not only will this clear up some confusion about the two functions, but it will also open up new features, such as the ability to send a multi-step (“Drip”) campaign to a single applicant or a bulk list of recipients.
There are three basic types of reports in the new version:
Use the Policy Master List to quickly build a chart from your data by Line of Business and Annualized Premium, giving you insight at not only the LOB breakdown of your policies, but also how much revenue each line is bringing in.
Being up-to-date with insurance trends is a major priority for insurance agents and others working in the field. It’s important to understand how these trends affect the industry, now and in the future. There are a few ways to follow the trends while increasing your knowledge base. Here are a few ways to accomplish this: