Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

No, it's not a reference to a vacation or a competition, but rather, to today's consumer and how they wish—no, demand—that business be transacted. "The shorthand term is 'multichannel engagement,'" says Michael Howe, senior vice president of product management for Applied Systems. "Customers want to work with the agency on their terms. It's no longer sufficient to say, 'I have office hours from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.'"

This method has been in place in other industries for years. In banking, think back to when ATMs first arrived on the scene; now recall the first instances of online banking and mobile deposits, which take advantage of a smartphone's optical character recognition software. Yet the insurance industry can be slow to adapt to emerging tech trends.

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