Direct Writers vs. Independent Agents

Scenario

As a carrier that does business with over 900 independent agents in six Midwestern states, my company is very interested in anything that adds value to the independent agent model.

To understand what people see as the advantage (as well as what they see are disadvantages) to working with independent agents, I planned a visual collaboration event using the Innovation Games® platform.  I wanted to explore their thoughts and gain fresh insight into the value of the independent agent versus the direct writer.  The game was played by four people and facilitated entirely online.

Creating this visual collaboration event involved the following steps:

1. Defining the specific question/problem that needed to be understood. 
2. Constructing a custom image that supported understanding of the questions and that would form the backdrop for the visual collaboration
3. Uploading the custom image and setting up the game details at www.InnovationGames.com
4. Facilitating the game
5. Processing the results of the game (i.e. what will I do with the results?)

What Question/Problem Needed to Be Understood?

At various stages in the relationship between a policyholder and their agent or carrier, I want to better understand what the value of independent agents are (that represent multiple carriers) versus direct writers (e.g. Progressive, Geico, etc.)  I came up with three different stages that a policyholder might be in during their relationship with their respective agent or carrier.

1. Thinking of Shopping for Insurance
2. Actively Shopping
3. Staying with Current Insurance Agent or Carrier

Constructing an Image

I have a tablet PC and it comes loaded with Microsoft Windows Journal software.  I could have created the image using that but I chose to use PowerPoint because of the ease of creating and resizing shapes.  I can also easily paste in images from the web into PowerPoint to enhance the look of the graphic.  There’s also a fantastic program called Snag-It that I used frequently to capture parts of my screen to enhance visual communication.

Here’s the image I created.  This is my visual collaboration “blank slate” and it would be the foundation for the visual collaboration event that players would eventually interact with by placing informational "items" on top of it.  The blue rounded rectangles represent the three different stages.  The left column is for direct writers and the right column is for independent agents. The arrows at the bottom represent the degree of value of the items to be placed by the players.

 

Uploading the Image and Setting up the Game

On June 18, 2010, I facilitated the game.  I was the Innovation Games® Featured Facilitator on that day so a few days ahead of that date I logged in to www.InnovationGames.com and set up my game.

The system walked me through configuring my game and uploading the custom image. 

 

Facilitation of the Game

On the day of the game, I clicked on the link to go to the game “lobby”.  I was the first one to log in so all I had to do was wait for the players to show up.  Days earlier, the game was advertised on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking sites so all the players I was expecting to come were already signed up and had received notification along with the URL to go to on game day.  As time got closer to the official start of the game, I saw those individuals start to show up in the lobby.  The Innovation Games site is programmed so that you don’t have to refresh your screen.  Their names would appear and they would often say hello in the chat window.  The experience of using the interface is kind of like waiting for someone in a hotel lobby and then when you see them; you walk up to say hello and greet them with a handshake.  The only difference here is that you greet them with a “Hello” in the chat box instead.  (I am excited to see how collaboration technology improves and to see how the programming staff at InnovationGames.com will deliver more functionality.)

Players showed up a few minutes before the game was scheduled to start but before I clicked the button to start the game, there was idle chatting going on amongst the players in the lobby like, “Where are you from?” or “Did you hear that on the news?”  When the time was right, I interrupted their chatting and prepped the players with some information contained in some short snippets of text that I prepared ahead of time that I could just paste into the chat window.  To me, it was kind of like when you have a group of people in a hotel lobby and you have something interesting to say.  If you have a captive audience, the people will all get quiet and listen to what you have to say.  In this case, the players were very polite and stopped their personal chat conversations in the lobby and "listened".  They just read the information that I (as the facilitator) submitted into the chat window every few seconds.  I thought through what I wanted to say ahead of time.  I planned for this as if I were going to speak to a small group of people in a hotel lobby.  It worked pretty well and I’d recommend it to any game facilitator.

Once the game “prep” was over and everyone was ready to start, I clicked the button to start the game.  The screen switched from the game lobby to the screen that showed the image I created.  The players expected this because I told them it was going to happen.  In the beginning, people asked a couple of questions about the image I uploaded.  I was able to answer them pretty easily using chat.  The thought and planning I put into the image ahead of time definitely paid off though because there weren’t many questions.  The image was definitely designed around the problem and not the other way around.  This is a key part of the success of any game. The game lasted for about 45 minutes and there was lively discussion on my topic. 

To summarize the experience, I think I was able to effectively facilitate within the Innovation Games® online framework.  For the most part, I didn’t feel constrained by the system and I think the experience everyone had was pretty good.  I got some experience facilitating and I definitely had a mental breakthrough with visual collaboration.  The best part is that I can totally see how the more I do this, the more great insights I may stumble onto for understanding my specific problems.  I can’t wait to facilitate my next game!

Processing the Results

Here are the results of the game I played.  The image (with all the smiles and frowns) was the “visual” result of the game. In the minds of the players, the smiles and frowns represent the advantages and disadvantages of working with direct writers and independent agents.  As you go further out from the center, a greater degree of advantage or disadvantage is identified.

Even though the game is over, I can go back and view this image for further analysis.  By holding my mouse over the smile or frown I can see the complete text of what the player typed in describing the item they placed.

I haven’t finished my analysis of the results yet but here are some of the key points entered during game play.

• Agents generally insist on face to face meetings (players do not like).
• Agents give you a choice of companies (they like this) while direct writers don’t (they don't like this).
  
• It’s very labor intensive to make changes to their policies with independent agents (don’t like).  With direct writers, it is generally a lot easier and people are able to make changes to their policy online (like).
• People don’t know anyone at the direct writer company (don’t like) and they value the relationship they have with an independent agent (like).

The other part of the result that I got with the game is this Excel spreadsheet that I exported from the InnovationGames.com site.  It contains a complete history of the game play including an entire chat log.  The spreadsheet makes it very easy to sort and filter.

Experience and Follow Up

As a corporate innovator, I gained experience in facilitating the games.  I plan to show these results to my marketing manager to get his input on how we can continue to use this in our organization.  Facilitating a game is not difficult but does require some planning and thought.  You get out of it what you put into it.  I am convinced that if I facilitate enough of these games and get the right people in the room to analyze the results, it will yield a “golden nugget” of information that will give us a deeper understanding of an issue or that we can choose to use to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.

I recommend Innovation Games® to anyone looking for a way to bring a differentiating factor to their organization.