Automation or doing it by hand: what actually changes
Most agency service desks run on the shared inbox and good people. This guide sets out, without hype, what changes when requests are read, routed and drafted by software, and what does not. It is written for the service manager who has to decide whether the change is worth it.
A desk of three, and a growing book
An agency's commercial book has grown steadily for two years. The service desk has not: three people, one shared inbox, a spreadsheet of who is doing what. Each morning starts with an hour of reading and sorting. Certificates are produced by copying from the AMS. Deadlines live in people's heads, so the owner finds out a request was missed when the customer calls.
The owner has three options: hire a fourth person, outsource part of the work, or automate the parts that are mechanical. None is wrong. The right one depends on what the desk's time is actually spent on, and that is what this guide helps you find out.
What your desk does today
- Opens every email to find out whether it is work, and what kind.
- Finds the customer and the policy it is about.
- Retypes values from the agency management system (AMS) into a form, a certificate of insurance (COI) or a reply.
- Works out whose turn it is, and remembers the deadline.
- Chases the customer or carrier, and files the email when it is done.
What automation takes over
- Reading and sorting: requests arrive recognized, matched to the customer and policy, and sent to the person with room.
- Drafting: certificates and ID cards are drafted from your records, each value showing its source.
- The clock: every request type has a due time, and at-risk and overdue work is flagged before anyone asks.
- The record: every step is kept, with who did what and when.
- Personal mail: dropped before anyone sees it, rather than read by whoever opens the inbox.
What stays with your people
Judgment. A licensed person approves where you decide it matters, and the person who prepared the work can never approve it. Your team still works the carrier portals and makes policy changes in the AMS, still talks to customers about coverage, and still handles the requests that do not fit any pattern. If you want hands as well as software, a back-office team can take overflow.
What changes for the team
The work that disappears is the work people like least: reading the inbox, retyping, chasing. The work that remains is the work that needs experience. In practice, the biggest change is often visibility: everyone can see what is waiting, for whom, and how long it has left, so the desk stops relying on memory and the owner stops relying on complaints.
There is also new work. Someone has to own the rules: request types, due times, who approves what. Someone has to review what the software hands to a person and tune the rules when it hands over too much. Plan for that time in the first month.
A week in the life, before and after
Before: Monday starts with two people reading the weekend's email. By ten, they have a list on paper. Certificates are done in the order someone noticed them. An endorsement request waits because the account manager is out, and nobody else knows it is there. On Thursday a customer calls about an ID card they asked for on Monday. On Friday the owner asks how the week went and gets an impression, not a number.
After: the weekend's email is already sorted on Monday morning, each request with an owner and a due time. Certificates and ID cards are waiting as drafts with their sources shown; the team checks and approves them. The endorsement waiting on the absent account manager shows as at risk on Wednesday, and someone else picks it up. On Friday the owner opens a dashboard: requests by type, turnaround, what went late and why.
When by hand is fine
If your desk handles only a few requests a day and nothing slips, software may not pay for itself yet. The same is true if most of your requests are complex coverage questions rather than routine service. The honest way to find out is to measure your own week rather than rely on anyone's average.
How to measure your own week
Write these numbers down before you decide; they are the baseline any option has to beat. If you start with Shlix IBS, your first month measures the same things on your real requests, so you can compare like with like.
- Count the requests that arrive in the service inbox each day, by type.
- Note how long a typical certificate, ID card and endorsement takes from email to sent.
- Count how many were late, or needed a second look.
- Note how long the team spends reading and sorting before any work starts.
- Put your own hourly cost against the time.
Starting without disrupting the desk
The safest way to change is in stages. First, let the software read and sort the inbox while your team keeps working exactly as before, so you can compare its sorting with theirs. Next, let it draft certificates and ID cards while customer email stays switched off, and have the team check every draft. Only then let approved work go out, one request type at a time. At every stage, your team can still see and do everything by hand, and you can stop at the end of any month if it is not working for you.
Questions to ask before you switch
- What happens when the software is not sure? Does it guess or ask?
- Who approves, and can the preparer approve their own work?
- What does it connect to today, and what is only on the roadmap?
- Where does customer data go, and is it used to train models?
- Can we stop at the end of any month?
Measure your service desk week
Count
- Requests per day, by type
- Requests that went late
- Requests that needed rework
Time
- Certificate: email to sent
- ID card: email to sent
- Endorsement: email to carrier
- Reading and sorting per day
Decide
- Which steps are mechanical
- Which steps need judgment
- Your hourly cost
- Compare against your baseline
Download this checklist as a PDF (one page, free, no sign-up).
Common mistakes and what they cost
Each of these is a common route to an errors-and-omissions (E&O) problem. None of it is legal advice; follow your carriers' rules and your agency's procedures.
- Comparing against an industry average. Your request mix and your systems are your own; a decision based on someone else's numbers can go wrong in either direction.
- Automating judgment as well as routine. Coverage decisions made by software are an E&O exposure the agency keeps.
- No owner for the rules. Due times and approvals drift, and the software ends up handing everything back to people.
Questions
Will automation replace our service staff?+
It replaces tasks, not judgment. Most agencies use the time to handle growth without hiring, or to move experienced people to account work.
How long before we know whether it works?+
A month on your real requests is usually enough to see the numbers: how many tasks were completed, how many needed a person, and the turnaround.
Can we test it on our own data before paying?+
We do not run unpaid tests on customer data, because that means sharing your customers' information before you have decided to trust us. We show everything on sample data first, then start monthly.