This story is the third in a series that highlights new developments in the agency management system space. Keep an eye on IAmagazine.com and upcoming editions of the News & Views e-newsletter for more.

How can you improve workflows? How can you improve the ease of running your commissions at the end of every month? How about merging policies and contracts?

Those questions are the driving force behind QQSolutions’ technological development and innovation—and agents are reaping the benefits through the company’s agency management system, QQCatalyst.

“What separates us is how we determine our roadmap,” says Mark Malis, president & founder of QQSolutions. “We have built-in feedback tools inside our products where our clients can tell us what they think great enhancements would be, or great new features would be. That plays a huge part in our product management team’s direction and vision for where to take the platform.”

Malis says that vision centers on a “trifecta” of features a small agency needs to grow: rounding out current clients, improving retention rates and generating more referrals. “Everything we do, we do it wearing the hat of an agent,” Malis says.

2015: What’s New?

TEXTING. In recent years, QQ received feedback from agents that insureds like to communicate via text messaging. But “agency owners were concerned that from an E&O perspective, these communications were not being recorded,” Malis says.

In response, QQ developed texting functionality through Catalyst that provides an agency with its own text number matched to its agency’s area code. “Any inbound or outbound message sent from within the agency management system will be captured and recorded within Catalyst,” Malis explains. “The agents that use it love it, and we’ve now enhanced it to include picture messaging.”

MARKETING AUTOMATION. In 2015, QQ also made it easier for agency owners and their producers to stay in touch with their clients with the release of scheduled emails, “where you can, for example, automatically have a Happy Birthday email sent to any of your insureds, or it can expand into cross-selling as well,” Malis says. “It reduces the workload on a producer’s shoulders and allows them to focus their time on really growing their agency.”

NEW MOBILE APP. Although QQ Catalyst is a cloud-based platform and producers can access it using a mobile device, QQ “felt a mobile app that was optimized to be used and worked on while on the road would be really beneficial to our clients,” Malis explains.

Now available for iOS and Android, QQ’s new mobile app “allows producers who are out on the road to stay in communication with their agency management system and to be able to access all their records,” Malis says.

2016: What’s Next?

EMAIL INTEGRATION. In 2016, QQ maintains focus on agency E&O concerns with a new email integration module. “What’s important for agents from an E&O perspective is to be able to record all kinds of communication with their customers”—including email, Malis says.

QQ’s new tool will integrate with your agency’s current email provider to “automatically record all your inbound and outbound messages from an E&O perspective, and it will identify and allow you to assign those to your contacts inside Catalyst,” Malis explains. “So it’ll detect the email address and automatically assign that email for you if you want, or you can just manually assign whichever ones you feel are relevant.”

SCHEDULED REPORTING. This “powerful automation tool” will give agencies a snapshot of what’s happening within the agency, based on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule pre-set by the agency principal. “Agents can customize any kind of report or request any of our existing pre-made reports to be sent to them or any member of their team on any schedule they desire,” Malis says.

For example, a principal may want to send reports to all their producers showing every account coming up in the next 90 days as renewable to encourage them to make sure they retain at least 90% of their business. “Automating all this for the agency owner and for the producers allows them to focus their time on growing the agency and bringing in new insureds,” Malis says.

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.