(The following article was derived from Ms. Nettles' presentation at the AMS Users' Group 32nd National Conference, held last March at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, Fla.) I would like to approach this article the same way I approach the problems my consulting clients bring to me. Frequently, their workflow difficulties can be represented by one of three fictional case studies–although they aren't that far from real life.

1) The We're Really Big Agency: Because of our size, nothing we try to implement will work for us.
2) The Time to Combine Departments Agency: If personal and select lines are together, somebody wants to separate them. If they're separated, somebody wants to combine them.
3) The Marketing's Out of Control Agency: This is strictly a commercial lines phenomenon.
In this article, I'll diagnose the symptoms of constricted workflow for each of these agencies and offer solutions for clearing out the obstructions. Fixing workflow problems sounds like a tall order, but it's actually quite simple. You just have to get started.
The We're Really Big Agency
The No. 1 symptom is unmanageable e-mail. Paper and policies are everywhere. People are complaining. The staff is working overtime. No one can catch up and everyone is screaming, “Hire more people!”
Is hiring more people really a solution? Even if you do need more people, hiring them won't solve the workflow problem. That's treating the symptom. We're after the disease.
The first thing to do is to run audits to determine two things: what the backlog actually consists of, and the volume of transactions flowing through your agency management system. You can't get rid of a backlog until you know what's stacking up, and you can't balance the workload among your staff until you know who's doing what and how often.
Start with measuring backlog by service provider. Give your CSRs or processors a chart on which to write down the number of endorsements, policies, submissions, cancellations, audits, e-mail inquiries, etc., currently pending on their desks. It shouldn't take them more than 15 minutes to count them up. After you key the information into a spreadsheet and make a chart of it, you can see what your backlog really looks like. Much of the data likely will represent past-due activities. If you eliminate those items, the main problem will probably be policy checking–and we'll deal with that momentarily. But now you know what your backlog actually is, and that's the first step to dealing with it. By defining it, you take away its power.
You must devise an action plan for dealing with past-due activities. Find out when the suspenses are being set. I still find agencies that diary endorsement requests for 30 days. The endorsements don't come in and get processed within 30 days, so the diaries become “pass-through” items that are simply left hanging out in space. You need to evaluate every suspense date and make sure it's reasonable. You need to make sure there is time in every suspense to receive the item and process it.
Also, you need to check policies as they come in. When I visit agencies, I may see CSRs with 40 or more policies on their desks–but 10 of them are for one client. They've been there two weeks, while the CSRs wait for a D&O policy or other policy to come in.
Is that backlog? No! I tell the CSRs: “You're not allowed to do that anymore. You need to check the policies as they come in and put them aside. Call the pile the 'checked stack, waiting to go out.' Better yet, go ahead and send the policies to the client with a letter saying, 'We're still awaiting that D&O policy. It should be here in four to six weeks. As soon as it comes in, we'll check it and forward it to you.'”
Occasionally I run into an agency that is really out of control. For example, it has 400 outstanding e-mails awaiting response. In these cases, all bets are off. I have to look at each workflow process to see what's actually going on at the desks. That brings us to the next step, which is doing a “transaction” audit. This is nothing but a dump of your activities from your agency management system.
Your staff must log all transactions they perform into your agency management system. (If they aren't, have them start immediately.) Then you will know how many transactions each CSR processes in a given time frame. Let's say a CSR processed only 70 items in December. There are 18 working days that month, so that's less than four transactions a day. No wonder she's backlogged! Granted, some transactions take longer than others, so create a chart that breaks them down by renewal, endorsement, cancellation, etc. A CSR's low volume in a certain time period might be explained by a lot of renewals she's been processing.
Of course, CSRs may be processing comparatively few transactions because they are not following company procedures. That's a problem you can do something about–if you know it exists. Again, monitoring these transactions helps you pinpoint problems and take corrective action.
The volume audit also will help with workflow distribution. You can analyze workflow by the agency's various teams or units. CSRs at corresponding levels on the different teams should be handling the same number of transactions. If they're not, examine the workflow distribution at that level to see if you need to adjust it. You may need to eliminate some tasks, or move them to a different level.
After setting up your auditing system, implement all the transaction-processing features of your agency management system. Typically, I find that the system's basic features are not well implemented in the We're Really Big Agency. For example, the certificate master screen is improperly used. They don't use the archive feature, so they have certificate masters going back for years and nobody can find the right one. Another common problem is that management doesn't require the use of the agency management system's policy memo or the change request feature. Instead, people just bounce outside the system and do a quick e-mail to a carrier. Maybe they use a carrier's “real-time” transaction capability. Real-time is great–but you have to know the workflow for each carrier. With some carriers, a real-time transaction also automatically updates your agency management system; with others, it doesn't. You must make sure that your agency management system always is updated.
Are you using your agency management system's submission-tracking feature? Many systems will track quotes as they come in from carriers. You can see if a quote has been received and the next follow-up date. Or do you have people going through piles of paper to discover what quotes are out there? Implementing all the system's features (which you paid for) can solve a world of problems.
Next, standardize the workflow. Automate as many manual controls as possible. If there are still “hard copy” binder logs, invoice logs or expiration-tracking lists that people are maintaining, those need to go.
In larger agencies, there is a clear delineation between those who service the customer and those who process the transactions. I believe those two roles are equally important. Many large agencies have an account manager and technical assistant, or an account manager and a CSR. When I run audits, I try to make sure the role of processor (whatever title that person has) is standardized throughout the agency. One thing that creates the “we're too big” mentality is allowing the account manager to define the workflow for the assistant. That means the assistant's role differs from team to team. That decreases efficiency. Managers of agencies that have chaos and backlog often wonder why processors can't seem to check those policies, VIN numbers, etc. and get everything out the door on time. They can-if they're properly trained and their roles are standardized.
The Time to Combine Depts. Agency
Here's a typical scenario: Personal lines are in great shape. The staff is T-filing, downloading, using service centers, etc., but because the workflows were streamlined, the personal-lines department now has more people than it needs. Meanwhile, management wants to grow the select (small commercial lines) unit, so the solution is obvious: Combine the two departments. Unfortunately, the staff has made one thing perfectly clear: They're totally opposed to any kind of merger.
If you want to proceed anyway, you must end producers' involvement in the renewal of select-unit accounts. What I find–and this is why merging these two units often doesn't work–is there are still producers with assigned select-unit accounts. Producers are making calls and saying, “I want that renewal kit. We'll take this account to market and get six quotes for it.” But it's a select account. You're not supposed to be treating it that way. So producers have to be dedicated to bringing in new business in that unit or different types of accounts, but not dealing with renewals in the select-account unit.
Also, you'll need to provide cross-training. The personal-lines people have never worked on a BOP. The commercial lines CSRs don't know an HO-2 from an HO-3 from an HO-82. They'll need to be trained.
If you're going to combine the personal-lines and select departments, make as much use as possible of service centers. That will take some of the workload off the staff, which makes the buy-in much easier.
You can “semi-implement” a service center–use it and then still take calls. You must write workflows for this approach, however, because there are E&O issues. Whatever happens at the service center today does not show up on your staff's computer screens until tomorrow.
Incorporate your carriers' real-time transaction capabilities into your procedures, because real time is the workflow of the future–particularly in personal and small-commercial lines. Depending on the carrier, real time can be used for quoting, billing inquiries, claims inquiries, policy endorsements or information requests. Don't let your competition get ahead of you by using the same tools you can be using.
The Marketing's Out of Control Agency
At this agency, the commercial-lines operation is fully automated, and the agency management system is integrated with a document management system–yet, the marketing department is buried in paper. This is amazing, because marketing–the people who handle submissions and otherwise interact with underwriters–was the first group to embrace the PC revolution. They were the spreadsheet gurus. So they're not afraid of computers–but they simply refuse to touch the agency management system, especially in the larger shops. They store the marketing information outside the agency management system, because they claim it doesn't “fit” that system. E-mails are everywhere. They're in Outlook, they're sitting in folders on the network drives. Things are as messed up as they can be.
Where to begin? First and foremost, make submission tracking a reality. Tools are available on your agency management system for this purpose. At a minimum, you need to be able to use your system to ascertain such basic information as to which carriers you've made submissions, what quotes have come in and who's been declined.
Then implement document management in the marketing department, just as you have in the rest of the commercial-lines department. Stress that using this tool to organize and keep track of all marketing material is “non-optional behavior.”
Next, evaluate third-party solutions that provide carriers with online access to agency submissions. A common objection from marketing is: “Our submissions are so big. The carriers balk at them and their security blocks them,” etc. Well, products are available that enable you to put your submissions online and attach all your documents. Then the carriers grab them off the site. You know how underwriters sometimes say they never got certain submissions? Well, these products tell you when they have.
To evaluate these third-party products, use the task force approach. Be sure to let the marketing people have a say in all of this. Allowing them to design their own procedures to automate the department guarantees success.
Now, you may say, “But they may not do a good job. They don't know a lot about technology.” If that's a concern, bring in a technology consultant to guide them. Workflow implementation is a process, not a project. It never stops. When they're done, you can look at it and say: “Hey, that's pretty good. Let's implement it. And then next month, let's look at a better way of handling what paper we have left.”
You can't improve workflow in the marketing department without looking at e-mail. Probably 85% to 90% of marketing transactions are handled electronically–usually via e-mail. You want to avoid over-documenting your system with what I call “content and routing e-mails.” You have tons of these in marketing, where the e-conversations go on and on.
You must develop guidelines for dealing with e-mail. There are no wrong guidelines, only undocumented ones. Without guidelines, everyone will devise his or her own system. For example, your guideline could be, “We're going to document and store, as an attachment, all our marketing e-mails, using a marketing action code.” That will work–as long as everyone follows the guideline. Then it becomes a question of what's left. When are you going to store these e-mails? Are you going to store every one? This is where the task force comes in.
Step back-but monitor
The key–in fact, the key to everything discussed in this article–is to let the people who do the work define the guidelines. Management cannot successfully lead the workflow procedures overhaul. Rather, management must let staff work it out for itself. Management defines the parameters and says where they want the agency to end up, but let the staff find the way there. They need to decide what the follow-up and turnaround times should be. When they define the guidelines, they'll be much more likely to adhere to them.
Last but not least–monitor, monitor, monitor. Whatever you decide to do, you must make sure staff is actually doing it. If you allow your people to say, “This is a great idea–but not for me,” you're getting into the “we're too big” mentality. So set your guidelines, and then verify that everyone is following them. Laura Nettles is founder of the Nettles Consulting Network. Her career in the insurance industry includes more than 15 years of hands-on experience in all aspects of agency operations. Her forte is analyzing and creating independent agency workflows that integrate technology into everyday activities. Ms. Nettles has published more than 20 articles in industry journals and on Web sites. Recently, she developed the Best Practices Guide to Agency Business Processes and Workflows in conjunction with the Agents Council for Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].