[Infographic] The Agency's Guide to Understanding an Agency Management System (AMS) vs. Generic Software

What Is the Difference Between Generic & Industry-Specific Software?

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in how agencies and uplines manage their individual health, group benefits, and senior insurance books of business. In this move, companies are switching to software to help them organize their business, create efficiencies with consistent processes, accelerate growth, and stay compliant.

This article and infographic will focus on two major software options and the benefits of using an industry-specific management system over generic software.

When considering your options, it’s essential to understand the types of software available and which might be best for your team. The two types we’ll discuss are:

• Agency management systems (AMS)
• Generic solutions

Share This Image On Your Site

Copy and paste the following code into your website<p><strong>Please include attribution to AgencyBloc.com with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href='https://www.agencybloc.com/ams/customer-and-policy-management/agency-management-system-vs-crm/'><img src='https://resources.agencybloc.com/hubfs/Infographics/understanding-ams-vs-generic-infographic.png' alt='Understanding an Agency Management System (AMS) vs. Generic Software' width='700px' border='0' /></a></p>

What Is an Agency Management System?

AMS: Agency Management System

An AMS is a SaaS (software as a service) technology that health, benefits, and senior insurance agencies and uplines use to organize their book of business and more effectively run their operations.

Example: AgencyBloc’s industry-specific AMS+ solution

Generic Solutions

A generic system is a software (like a generic CRM) designed to help businesses manage their customers and other contacts. They’re built for any company in any industry.

Examples:

• Zoho
• Salesforce
• HubSpot’s CRM

---

Agency Management System vs. CRM

There are three significant ways that an AMS generally suits agencies, GAs, IMO/FMOs, and call centers better than generic software:

• Specificity
• Totality
• Productivity

1. Specificity 

The biggest benefit of an agency management system is that it’s already built for your specific industry niche. A generic system is built to adapt to the needs of many different industries. It may have many capabilities, but a significant effort may be needed to customize the software to fit your company’s needs.

Those customizations (i.e., a commissions processing platform or compliance management tools) can come at a hefty price. Additionally, your team isn’t guaranteed that the customizations will be supported indefinitely. The platform could make an update at any time that could wipe out the changes you made. They can also create a security risk if they aren’t supported or are running on old software, which could leave your team vulnerable to security threats. 

Using tools made for your industry can alleviate these issues. An industry-specific management platform, like AgencyBloc’s Plus Suite, is made for one specific industry. For us, it’s the health, benefits, and senior market insurance space. Our solutions come pre-built with your particular industry niche needs in mind. This reduces your need to build out costly customizations or the need to support them. Instead, it’s all ready to go for your team right away. Explore our suite of industry-specific solutions to learn more.

"As an independent agent with a growing business, AgencyBloc is instrumental. AgencyBloc enables easy entry and organization of client and lead data, includes automated marketing features that will allow for expanded marketing, and provides retention opportunities that are instrumental in meeting my goals! With a robust suite of industry-specific tools, I'm confident AgencyBloc will be able to continue supporting my business as it grows!"
—Lisa K., AskCaroline

2. Totality

An AMS provides many tools beyond contact tracking. It can help you:

• Manage contacts (leads, prospects, clients)
• Manage groups, enrollments, and elections
• Track agents, agencies, and downlines
• Track policies
• Prescription and provider data collection
• Process commissions
• Send mass and targeted communications
• Communicate efficiently with workflow automation
• Manage tasks
• Analyze your business performance
• Run industry-specific reports
• Manage your sales process

The average agency has 11 solutions in its tech stack. Having this many pieces of technology often creates data silos. 

Data is crucial, and sharing data from system to system and team to team is essential. If you run multiple different platforms at once that cannot integrate, you start to silo your data and make it much harder to get a comprehensive view or effectively use your data to achieve your goals. Common data silos include:

• CRM
• Commission software
• Email marketing tool
• Carrier/enrollment websites/software
• Quoting software
• VoIP/call center software
• Sales management/funnel software

Totality also means it’s all centralized and connected. 

An industry-specific management platform, like AgencyBloc, has all of those capabilities in one centralized location, plus they’re tailored to your industry’s specific needs! This allows your teams to streamline processes, create efficiencies, simplify compliance management, and be more productive.

"AgencyBloc has been a game changer for us. Our business has grown as a result of having this system. The more I use it, the more I realize how powerful it is. Now that all my client information is in the CRM, everything I need is at my fingertips. I can save paper documents and attach them to the client record. This is huge for compliance purposes. I can't say enough good things about AgencyBloc. I highly recommend it."
—Aida D., AG Deason Insurance

3. Productivity 

A management platform providing both specificity and totality means your team is more productive. Not only because everyone can cohesively work together but also because the system just makes sense. Using industry-specific software allows your team to streamline the day-to-day operations and focus more on revenue-generating opportunities.

"We moved to AgencyBloc from another platform, and the transition was painless. Can't say there is anything I don't like. We have better client organization, tracking, in-office communication, and processing which has increased productivity greatly. It's super user-friendly and a great platform to keep business organized."
—Nathan A., Hutchison Insurance Services

---

Finding the Right Management Platform for Your Insurance Agency, GA, IMO/FMO, or Call Center

Knowing if it’ll fulfill your needs and help you meet your goals is crucial when looking for an industry-specific management platform. Let’s break these down:

• Wants: The features/capabilities you’d like to have to help you take your business to the next level.
• Needs: The features/capabilities you must have to maintain your current operations.
• Goals: Where you want to go — your needs and wants should work in tandem with your goals. 

Once you have your wants, needs, and goals outlined, then start your search. 

It’s crucial to ask questions to help ensure the system is the right fit for you, your team, and your needs/goals. Here’s a list of features that might be important for your business:

**Varies software to software; check with your provider to see if that feature is available

Another crucial element to consider is the people behind the software. The industry-specific management platform you choose is not only a tool your business will use, but the vendor should also be a true partner.

When looking at vendors, do your due diligence. Use our free Beyond the Product Vendor Research Tool to help you know what to research, what to ask, and where to focus.

“AgencyBloc has streamlined our business. It has operationally helped us in more ways than one. We’ve been able to take our business to the next level and grow because of our partnership with AgencyBloc.”
—Cristin H., The Brokerage, Inc.
 

An Insurance-Specific Management Platform Can Help!

AgencyBloc is the #1 Recommended Insurance Industry Growth Platform serving the health, benefits, and senior insurance space. Our suite of insurance-specific solutions can help your independent insurance agency, GA, IMO/FMO, or call center remain compliant and accelerate growth.

Schedule A Live 1-on-1 Demo

Posted by Sarah Rosonke on Tuesday, January 28, 2025 in Customer & Policy Management

1. data management
2. vendor vetting