Automations

[ValeRosso]

What automations are y'all using for your senior market business (anything at all) and is it helping you a lot, or is it just modestly helping?

There are some automations that im looking into, but not sure if its worth the time and cost of setting it up, etc.

 

[Fisher]

I use Spark for the bulk of my Medicare contracts and they handle 95% of any automation I could think of. Enrollment followup, service issues, birthday cards, reminders, monthly newsletter, etc.

It does help a lot.

 

[somarco]

Direct deposit of commission checks has reduced drive time to the bank 20x per month.

 

[sshafran]

What automations are y'all using for your senior market business (anything at all) and is it helping you a lot, or is it just modestly helping?

There are some automations that im looking into, but not sure if its worth the time and cost of setting it up, etc.

I reached out to a realtor to buy a rental and he used some sort of AI auto responder (he didn't say, "hey, this is a robot!" but I could tell)

I asked a specific question and it wasn't answered - then later on he (the AI) asked me a specific question that - based on what I had written - would show him to be dumb (and not listening).

So, yeah, contacted Jenny and spoke with a person who didn't pretend she was so busy that she had to hide behind an AI like Greg did.
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But as far as tools go, the classics like Calendly are great. Saves a ton of time. Sends them a reminder if you set it up to do so. I use intake forms for Rx's and docs though I'm not afraid to just get the info by phone. But I do steer clear of automation/ai where it matters most critically (front of sales cycle).

 

[somarco]

I asked a specific question and it wasn't answered - then later on he (the AI) asked me a specific question that - based on what I had written - would show him to be dumb (and not listening).

Must have been model ED -209 . . . just a glitch . . .

 

[sshafran]

I reached out to a realtor to buy a rental and he used some sort of AI auto responder (he didn't say, "hey, this is a robot!" but I could tell)

I asked a specific question and it wasn't answered - then later on he (the AI) asked me a specific question that - based on what I had written - would show him to be dumb (and not listening).

So, yeah, contacted Jenny and spoke with a person who didn't pretend she was so busy that she had to hide behind an AI like Greg did.
------
But as far as tools go, the classics like Calendly are great. Saves a ton of time. Sends them a reminder if you set it up to do so. I use intake forms for Rx's and docs though I'm not afraid to just get the info by phone. But I do steer clear of automation/ai where it matters most critically (front of sales cycle).

For what it's worth, Jenny sent her mailing list a big annual update in January recapping 2023 - and she had her best year and was top 1% in her county on transactions.

But I bet Greg is patting himself on the back as he thinks his AI has helped him "weed out the tire kickers and save time."

 

[kgmom219]

What are you trying to automate?

We figured out that the automation stuff is just a PITA.

We still do old school, with a spreadsheet built by tasks in the CRM.

 

[ValeRosso]

What are you trying to automate?

We figured out that the automation stuff is just a PITA.

We still do old school, with a spreadsheet built by tasks in the CRM.

Everything I can lol.

My thoughts:
-Automated Greeting cards (bday, xmas, etc) I know there are companies for this but not sure which is the best in terms of pricing and quality.

-I really wish there was an automated text/email saying "your plan is approved and ready to go for xx/xxxx" instead of me checking up on 30 different policies at a time.

-Automated texts/emails for new leads, etc

Just some things Ive been thinking about.

 

[ValeRosso]

I use Spark for the bulk of my Medicare contracts and they handle 95% of any automation I could think of. Enrollment followup, service issues, birthday cards, reminders, monthly newsletter, etc.

It does help a lot.

What is Spark? Spark Advisors?

 

[sshafran]

-I really wish there was an automated text/email saying "your plan is approved and ready to go for xx/xxxx" instead of me checking up on 30 different policies at a time.

Here's what we do for that, specifically (my admin).
- Record sale in CRM - status "pending" (even if open enrollment)
- We batch every three days - so every three days, we go thru the sales and send out the approval e-mails.
- With Zoho we have a "blueprint" for sales to move it from "underwriting" to "approved" to "sent approval e-mail"

Pretty easy - in Zoho we record sales with a field for carrier - so we sort "pending" sales by carrier, then I'm then marking as approved and sending out the e-mail to all the WellCare people at the same time.... or all the pending UHC apps at the same time... or pending Humana apps, etc...

If you do it every three days - but not every day - in batches it would save you time.

Similar to e-mail... Some people check their e-mail all day every day. Studies out there show people can check their e-mail 8+ times per hour. Wow! What a waste of time! I close my e-mail down for the majority of the day. I then "batch" it a few times per day, and I (try to be) disciplined to not look at it other times of the day.

For Birthday Cards
- On the 20th of May - we'll run a report of all June birthdays (I have a Month of Birth field in Zoho). We'll print envelopes for those people with birthdays in June. We have three small baskets (1-10; 11-20; 21-31) - we'll toss the cards in the right basket based on the day. Then, around the 28th, we send out all of the 1-10; around the 7th, we send out all the 11-20; around the 18th, we send out all the 21-31.

So a month's birthdays takes maybe an hour or two on the 20th to set up and put segment.

OR - spend a lot more money per card and automate/outsource it I guess. My birthday cards run me a few cents per card plus a stamp since we buy 1,000 notecards from Vistaprint then batch them.

I know - I'm rambling a bit but e-mail management and batching tasks is a soapbox of mine...