An Interview with Scott Wiedemann
Scott Wiedemann heads up a family-owned agency in Yukon, Oklahoma. The second of three generations in the business, he has grown Wiedemann Insurance Agency, Inc. over its 30+ year history by adhering to the firm belief that relationships are key – relationships with clients, companies and business partners like SIS. Partner XE is the agency’s third management system.
SIS: You used two agency management systems prior to coming to Partner XE. Why did you switch?
SW: The biggest thing is that I did not feel they were user friendly at all. We did not get any training; we just were thrown into the fire on our own, so to speak. Because we were never comfortable, we never used either system much.
SIS: How did you research your most recent replacement system, and what were you looking for?
SW: I did most of my research online, then talked to the companies. The biggest thing we were looking for was ease of use because, as we knew too well, if it wasn’t easy, for myself or someone else in the office to use, we would not use it. Obviously we wanted to go paperless. And we wanted something where we could attach documents, photos, etc. Those were the three primary things.
SIS: Adopting one agency management system is a significant step for an agency…Wiedemann Insurance Agency has done it three times! What was the process like with Partner XE?
SW: Since it is an easier system to use, the training we got in the beginning was a great start for us, and we’ve just gone with it from there. There have been a few things I’ve needed to follow up on with the service department, but I feel the folks there have been very responsive. Everything I asked about – everything I was looking for – was answered. Ultimately that’s the service that I was looking for.
SIS: Could you share your philosophy on how to build your business?
SW: We service our clients. We don’t just write or sell policies. We really know most of our clients, and we do virtually all of the service work. A lot of agencies these days transfer that to the respective insurance companies. That can mean less work for the agencies, but you lose touch if you’re not touching base with your clients regularly.
Then, we believe in the old things – we try to treat people right and give them value for what we do. We realize people can buy policies online or at the 800 telephone number or from any number of agents, but we hope we set ourselves apart.
As a result, the majority of our new business comes from referrals. We don’t do much in yellow pages, TV or radio or those things. Word of mouth has been good to us so far.
SIS: I understand yours is a Master agency. What does that mean?
SW: I’m an independent agency; I own my business, but I’ve also joined forces with a group of other agents in the Oklahoma Agents Alliance. By joining that group, we remain independent but the benefit is that our partner insurance companies – the companies we have in common – allow us to consolidate our premium volume. That way we are looked at as one large agency.
SIS: How many agencies are in the group?
SW: Around 75 at this time, spread across the state. What’s a little bit funny is that a few months after we researched agency management systems and started with Partner XE, SIS partnered with OAA to offer Partner XE to other agencies within the group. That was kind of ironic to me…
SIS: When you speak to your colleagues, especially the members of the OAA, do you find that you have common needs and issues?
SW: I think we have a great deal in common. Of course with a group of this size there are agencies with all sizes of operations and in business varying amounts of time – some are start-ups and some have been around a long time, like we have. We each have our own challenges and issues, but because we are in the same business, and because we are all in Oklahoma, I feel we have a lot in common.
SIS: Based on your unique experience with three agency management systems, what advice would you give your colleagues about choosing one for their operation?
SW: For sure, for a newer agency or one that’s been around a while – small, medium and even for large agencies as well – I think Partner XE is a good choice, primarily because it’s easy to use. It’s been a really good fit for us.
SIS: Besides ease of use, are there other features you have found particularly helpful?
SW: Probably the primary thing we use, over and over again, many times a day, is the Doc Box (document box). It makes attaching files very easy. We use that consistently, and really like how it is integrated with Outlook. That was a nice innovation because we use faxes and email a lot, and it makes it easy to attach faxes/email to a client. Same with photos and documents.
SIS: Could you sum up your experience with SIS and Partner XE?
SW: Here, several months into the relationship with SIS and using Partner XE, I really feel like this is a partnership. I feel as though I got all my questions answered in the beginning when we were deciding whether to go with XE.
We have had a few minor issues, which have all been addressed. We do most of our communication with SIS by email, and we get a nice, timely response from the folks up there. And the attention we get is still the same today as it was in the beginning, which is not often the case. Sometimes you can be taken for granted, but that’s not true with SIS.
I don’t know that we are using it to its fullest capability even yet, but our primary concern was, since we write with several different insurance companies, we wanted one location where we could download our policies into rather than having to get into each company’s website individually. When you have a large number of clients, it’s sometimes hard to remember what client is with what company, so we wanted to be able to consolidate all of our clients into one place. Partner XE has definitely done that for us. Then, to be able to attach faxes, emails, photos and whatnot to have more of a paperless environment, it’s done that for us and that’s been really helpful. And having Partner XE integrated with Outlook, I really like that, too.
Overall, we are very happy with the system and hopefully we will have a nice long relationship.
