A hailstorm fills your phone in ninety minutes
Every insured on your book rings the agency on the same afternoon. Some of yours have damage, some want to know their deductible, and somewhere in your queue is a commercial prospect you've courted since March.
Caller
“We got hit by the hail this afternoon, there's damage to the roof and both cars in the driveway. I've been with you about nine years. What do I do first?”
What happened next
- Identified an existing personal-lines client, policy reference taken
- Read the carrier's claim reporting line and the agency's own wording on order of steps
- Captured: roof plus two vehicles, storm the same afternoon, photographs mentioned
- Routed to the account manager for that book, marked storm-related
Your call volume is a weather report
Your phone is quiet for weeks, then takes a month of calls in an afternoon. Nobody staffs for that afternoon, so your callers hear a busy signal on the day it matters most.
Your clients call you rather than the carrier, which is the whole reason they use an agency at all. They want a person who knows them to say what happens next, and on a storm day that person of yours is on another line.
Meanwhile your new business calls arrive on the same number. Somebody shopping a commercial package after a renewal increase will call two agencies and take whoever picks up, and on the day of a storm that is not you. The call you lose is the one that was worth the most.
GreetKeeper answers all of it at once, tells your claim calls from your quote calls in the first sentence, and routes each to the person or the carrier line that should have it.
A claim and a quote need opposite handling
Getting this split right is the whole design. One path gets your client to the carrier fast; the other captures enough for you to write the business.
| Caller | First move | Where it ends |
|---|---|---|
| Existing client reporting damage or loss | Read the carrier's claim line and your order of steps | Account manager for that book, marked by peril |
| Existing client asking about coverage or a deductible | Nothing quoted, nothing interpreted | Message to the servicing agent, same day |
| Prospect wanting a quote | Captures lines needed, renewal date, current carrier | Producer, with the detail already written down |
| Certificate request | Holder, project and deadline captured | Service team, flagged if the deadline is tight |
| Payment or lapse question | Refers to the carrier's billing line | Never handled on the call |
| Carrier or adjuster calling in | Identified and routed | The handling agent |
What it captures on a quote call
Your producer picking up a lead the next morning wants the same six things, and your caller gives all six in two minutes if asked in the right order.
Personal or commercial, and which lines
Auto, home, umbrella, general liability, workers' comp, a package. That decides which of your producers gets it, and whether you're looking at a fifteen-minute quote or a submission.
The renewal date, which is the real deadline
A prospect renewing in three weeks is live. One renewing in eight months is a note in your calendar, and knowing which you have stops your producers chasing in the wrong order.
Current carrier and what prompted the call
A rate increase, a claim handled badly, a mortgage requirement, or a new purchase. That reason is what your producer opens with, and your caller usually volunteers it freely.
Nothing that looks like advice
No coverage opinions, no premium indications, no comment on whether your caller's current policy is adequate. It says one of your licensed agents will call, and it means it.
What it costs an agency
A small agency runs on Starter at $49 a month for 200 answered calls at 45 cents each after. If you carry a substantial personal-lines book, your storm days blow past that, which is why most agencies your size land on Professional at $149 for 750 calls, then 35 cents.
The overage rate matters more here than in a steady trade. Your volume spikes by weather, and a vendor that hides its overage rate is one you'll find out about after the hailstorm. Ours is on the pricing page.
Nothing on this call is licensed advice
What agency principals ask
Will it tell a client whether something is covered?
Never, and the script is built so it can't. A coverage question becomes a message for the servicing agent with the caller's exact words attached. That's the answer your E&O carrier wants to hear too.
Can it take a first notice of loss?
It captures what happened and reads your carrier's claim reporting line so the client can report it directly. Treat it as a referral and a record, not as a filing.
How does it help on a storm day specifically?
Calls are answered rather than queued behind one line, every one lands as a written record with the peril noted, and your team works a list in the morning instead of guessing who rang. You still have the same number of people.
Does it write into our agency management system?
Applied Epic and AMS360 have no verified write path, so we list them as not connected. Google Calendar and Outlook take a direct write, and HubSpot, Salesforce and Zoho go through Zapier as a lead record. That route is our webhook caught by a Zap, which needs a paid Zapier plan.
Can producers get their own leads directly?
Yes. Route by line of business or by territory, so a commercial inquiry reaches the producer who writes commercial rather than the general queue.
Hear it split a claim from a quote
Your carrier lines, your producers, two minutes.