Insurance brokers play an important role in connecting individuals or companies with the right insurance coverage. Like in many industries, acquiring customers requires a consistent influx of leads coming from various sources. However, inputting the data related to those new leads into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system often takes considerable time and attention to detail. This can hurt a broker’s competitiveness in an industry where fast response is key to converting leads into customers.
So in this article, we’re going to take a look at the issues that insurance brokers face when they rely exclusively on manual data entry, and what they should do instead to streamline insurance lead management and speed up the sales process.
Issue #1: Keeping up with the influx of new leads
Generating new leads with methods like referrals and online marketing is great, but it also means you have a large volume of data to enter into your CRM.
Insurance brokers always need to enter lead data such as names, emails addresses, age, occupation, marital status, medical history, credit history, etc. Unfortunately, inputting that information manually is often time-consuming and error-prone.
Whether you’re typing information or copying and pasting it, you will have to spend a lot of time doing it and verify that everything is correct afterwards. Doing this is tedious and stressful, especially when dealing with a high volume of leads. If you can’t move that data into your system quickly, there will be delays in processing new leads and following up with them, which will cause you to miss out on opportunities.
Issue #2: Struggling with different formats and structures
In many cases, the sales team at an insurance brokerage receives leads via email. And since leads come from various sources, the emails will most likely have different formats and structures.
While you can use basic data extraction tools in the hopes of speeding up the data entry process, the differences in email formats and structures may result in inaccurate data extraction. Plus, some emails may contain different fields and formats than others, leaving you with no choice but to manually copy and paste all that data into your system. You know how long and error-prone this can be.
Issue #3: Slow response times
The third issue is a direct consequence of the first and second: because you and your team spend so much time entering data and making sure it’s correct, you will most likely struggle to respond quickly to new leads.
Slow response times will hurt your competitiveness and result in lost opportunities. When clients reach out to insurance brokers with inquiries or requests, a prompt response demonstrates professionalism, attentiveness, and a commitment to customer satisfaction. So quick response times help you establish your business as a reliable and trusted partner, thus giving you an edge over your competitors.
So what should you do to streamline insurance lead management? The answer is clear as day: leverage the power of automation.
Enter Automation: the Solution to Data Entry Issues
Automation has been a huge trend in recent years, and it’s here to stay. Every day, businesses find new ways to automate repeatable tasks to boost efficiency and become more competitive. You can be sure that insurance brokers are investing in automation tools to solve the issues we just discussed, so why not do the same?
Brokers can leverage advanced data extraction tools to work faster and smarter. These tools can extract relevant lead data from various sources, such as emails, web forms, or documents, and automatically populate the CRM system — even when lead data comes via emails with varying layouts and structures.
By automating the data entry process, sales teams will:
- Save time and effort
- Process more leads in the same amount of time, which can be just a few minutes
- Improve data accuracy to near-perfection, thus preventing the cost of incorrect data
- Focus on actively engaging with leads to maximize conversion rates
- Grow your insurance brokerage
Closing Thoughts
In the fast-paced world of insurance lead management, reliance on manual data entry can hinder your productivity, efficiency, and overall competitiveness. So instead of typing data manually, or paying a data entry service provider to handle that process (a costly option), it’s far easier and more efficient to use an automation tool to extract lead data and move it to your favorite CRM via an integration.
If this sounds like a good opportunity to lower data entry costs and speed up your sales process, be sure to try Mailparser, the leading email parser in the insurance industry. Mailparser extracts lead data from incoming emails and automatically exports it to your system, saving you hours of work. You can get started for free and without needing any technical knowledge. To learn how to use Mailparser, read our blog post “How to Manage Insurance Leads with Mailparser”.
Thank you for reading!
