There are two things you can guarantee when you leave an insurance job or start a new one. You will be frustrated with the lack of documentation at your new agency and the team you left behind will be frustrated with your documentation at your past job. Yes that’s right, almost no one is a documentation rockstar. Part of this is fueled by unclear processes and procedures inside agencies, part is due to working in a fast paced environment and lastly, many agencies don’t have a great way to hold people accountable for great documentation. So if you want to excel, document everything – document every email, call, text and signed document in the management system. Don’t think you are innocent to this problem. We are all human and make mistakes.
You need to document every call in the management system while on the call so it can be date and time stamped. This means we need to get rid of paper notes. You can document right in the management system or keep an email window open and copy and paste your notes. Before you get on to your next call you need to add the note in for the one you just hung up on. If you have ever been deposed you know it’s less than fun. If you have been then you probably are a ninja at documentation!
Every agency needs a clearly written process on what to log and how to do it accurately. Provide the team examples of the good, the bad and the ugly. I always think of it as anyone could do my job if I won the lottery at lunch. If you look at a note and you would have to come back and explain it, then clean it up!
Every agency works at a fast pace, so what we know in advance we can prepare for. Being too busy is not an excuse for not documenting details in the management system. Improper documentation means you have to do two things: 1) You have to work at ways to be even more organized and 2) Focus on breaking inefficient habits. We all can be more efficient if we try, but that is the key. We have to try.
If you are an agency owner reading this, you may be ready to go on a documentation binge. You will need to start running activity reports in your management system. This will show who is doing what and how many activities each person is logging. So if one person has 25 and another has 100, either someone is logging too much or someone is not logging nearly enough. You can also see the notes on most activity reports so you can use that to help coach someone to improve.
So document, document, document! Everyone will think highly of you!
