Customizable Statuses

In a recent survey, agents indicated that they would like the ability to determine their own statuses inside of AgencyIQ, so that the system would more naturally fit within their sales process. To accommodate that very popular request, we have now added the ability for either the Agency Owner or an Agency Manager to customize the labels, ordering and number of statuses each Line of Business can be assigned to throughout the sales process. We have kept as defaults the same labels we have always offered, but you can now create, name and order the statuses however you would like. Follow the instructions below to customize your statuses within AgencyIQ!

To customize the statuses for your agency, go into your agency’s settings by clicking the “my agency” link in the upper right of any screen.  Click over to the “Lists” tab, and locate the new tab “LOB Statuses” on the far right of the second row.  The system will present you with a list of your current statuses, which should be the system defaults at this point.

Customizable Statuses Edit Screen

There are four columns, “Status”, “Status Class”, “Lines” and “Action”.  The “Status” column contains the labels of the currently defined statuses.  This is what you and your users will see in the status area on leads, in reports and other areas of the application.  Simply click on the label to change the wording to match terminology you are most comfortable with.

The second column, “Status Class”, defines how this status will behave in your workflow.  There are three options, “Prospect”, “Client”, and “Cancelled”.  Mark those statuses that relate to your lead workflow as “Prospect”.  Once a lead moves into the policy phase, a status with the “Client” class would be chosen.  This will make the policy section on the lead screen appear, and will make the overall status of the contact go from “Prospect” to “Client”.  Classify as “Cancelled” any statuses you wish to have representing dead opportunities.

The third column will show you a summary of the number of LOBs you currently have in that status.  Note that you can’t delete any status that currently has lines associated with it.  Once all LOBs are moved out of a particular status (reducing the count to zero), you will be able to remove that status permanently.

The final column, “Action”, allows you to drag the individual statuses around to set your workflow order, or delete any statuses that have no LOBs assigned to them.  The order of the statuses on this screen is important: it will dictate the order of all status representations in the system.  In addition, the top-most status is the “default” status for all new leads manually created or otherwise entering the system.  Drag the individual rows around until the order is how you want it.

In addition to changing the labels and ordering of the seven default statuses provided in the system, you can add your own by clicking the “add” link at the top of the list, just to the right of “Status” in the first column.  A new blank status will appear at the bottom of your list, and you can type a new label for it and assign it to a status class.  Drag it to the appropriate location in your ordering, and you’re done.  If you add a status and decide you didn’t want to do that, simply click the “delete” link on the right of that status’s row, which will appear as you hover your mouse over the action area.

Once you have everything as you would like it, make sure to click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom to lock your settings in.  Nothing changes until you save your settings, and the updated statuses will become available immediately throughout the rest of your agency once you do.

Improvements to the Action Drop-down

In addition to giving agencies the ability to customize their statuses, we have simplified the workflow around using those statuses.  Previously, there was a rather rigorous workflow around how Lines had their status applied to them.  For example, if a Auto lead was in the “Active Lead” status, you were only allowed to move it to “New Policy”, “Inactive Lead”, or “Cancelled”.  Once moving to an “Inactive Lead” status, you couldn’t move directly to an “Active Policy”, without first reactivating the lead and then selling the policy.  This proved somewhat cumbersome for users to understand, so we have removed those restrictions, giving you the freedom to select what status you want to assign to your lines at any time.

To accomplish this, we have updated the “Action” drop-down at the top of all lead screens:

Customized Statuses Action Drop-down

Notice how the information is grouped: “Change status to…”, “assign lead to…” and “Unassign” are the major options, and the agency-specific statuses and users are indented under these headings for easy location.  All statuses defined for the agency are listed, in the order defined in the agency settings, except the status currently assigned to the lead.  Simply select the status you want to change the lead to and click “Update”.

Contact Info Box Colors

Contact Info Box

In the past, the Contact Info Box, in the upper right-hand corner of all contact and lead screens, was a blue box that contained a summary of the pertinent information about that prospect or client.  Information such as phone numbers, email address, and a list of any Lines of Business for that contact visible here, simply by moving your mouse over the box.

We have extended this functionality to change colors based on contact status.  When the contact is still a Prospect, the box will remain blue as it has in the past.  Once a policy is created for the contact, however, it will now turn green.  This allows for you to know at a glance whether you are working with a potential customer, or a Client with existing business with your agency.  A simple change, yes, but one I think will be very handy!

In addition to coloring the box (within the lines, of course!), we’ve streamlined the information within, including icons for LOBs, and displaying the contact’s “opt-out” status near their email address.

More coming soon

We’ve got many more enhancements and improvements coming over the next several weeks.  Stay tuned, and let us know what you think!