Insurance Agent Forum

[somarco]

i-Relay.

Comments,?

[rgoodart]

Its a good web based solution geared towards insurance and finance professionals. They have great customer service and the system has pre-designed letters, marketing campaigns, etc to help. Would strongly recommend looking into them more.

[trvlnut]

After looking at the demo, I am really impressed. Looks like it's ready to go with little set-up. I also like that you can access it from anywhere if you have web access.

Not sure I want to swallow $25 per month since I have a pretty small book right now. I would sign on pretty fast if I had a bigger book. I am looking at the free SugarCRM that Al suggested. Not sure if I want to take the time to set it up though.

[djs]

Is anyone using this? I don't mind the $25 a month but without a usable demo on the site, it's hard to know if it's worth this much, or if it's worth 10 times this much.

I'm always in the market for something that allows me to better manage my prospect lists. Existing customers I do pretty well with, but prospecting is much, much tougher to manage where you are in any given cycle, much less tracking how effective anything is.

Dan

[Dvan]

Hi all
I am new to the forum. Good to be here. I am always shy about recommending anything but my agency is using I-Relay today and we love it. Been using it for about two years now. What I really like about the tool is the fact it gets downloads from my brokerage agencies. It automatically updates my policies for me without me having to rekey the data. The marketing module (included) is also a huge help keeping me in front of my clients and prospects.

I have tried some of the free ones and couldnt get any service out them and when it came to customizing them for insurance it was a pain. I-Relay had pretty much all of that covered for us - good product and good service.

Thanks for the neat site. Looking forward to learning more!

[al3]

Originally Posted by trvlnut

After looking at the demo, I am really impressed. Looks like it's ready to go with little set-up. I also like that you can access it from anywhere if you have web access.

Not sure I want to swallow $25 per month since I have a pretty small book right now. I would sign on pretty fast if I had a bigger book. I am looking at the free SugarCRM that Al suggested. Not sure if I want to take the time to set it up though.

To set Sugar up on your home machine will require a bit of effort. but I understand their 'stack' installers (apache, php, mySQL and sugar) are very good. You should give it a try and let us know. If you read their community forum (similar to this) they have lots of ordinary people who have done it.

A real 'advantage' of installing it on your web host is that you can use it anywhere in the world. And it is a lot easier to set Sugar up on your web host.... assuming they have MySQL and PHP (most do... if they don't... forget about it and get another host!).

Once you create the empty database shell (sometimes the host staff does this for you or you do it via their online control panel) all you have to do is upload one (big) folder of stuff and enter the URL to install it. It will create the database tables for you. Piece of cake.

You might be able to get your web host to do this for you, maybe for a small fee. I'll bet you could contact the tech guy of this board who will do it for you for a few bucks (you just give him FTP access to your web server. Most sites will give you a temporary user/password that you can use.)

Granted, I really am an expert at this stuff, but I set it up on my own server last night and it was really simple... I mean REALLY simple. Here are the directions.

Table of Contents

It's really not hard.... assuming you know how to upload a file to your web server via FTP or whatever. You just have to set the file permissions (again, usually very simple depending on what FTP client you use to upload. That's the only 'geeky' part of this... and it's not a big deal). The rest is just filling in a bunch of info on the install screen and you are done!

And if anyone needs help, all they have to do is contact me by email or phone (www.insurancesolutions123.com) and I'll be happy to help.

Of course you should try the Sugar online demo and see if you LIKE Sugar. I love it. It keeps track of stuff for me, lets me send out mass emails, and is intuitive to use. Also the administration of it is simple... just fill out the screens. Oh, did I mention that it is FREE? Try the demo:
SugarCRM - Commercial Open Source CRM

Al
www.insurancesolutions123.com