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Leaning in on technology to compete in a modern age

Ostiguy & Gendron was one of the first brokerages in Canada to become digital by implementing Applied Epic®, Applied CSR24®, and Applied Mobile® to offer their customers self-service, and their employees access to critical information from anywhere. As the brokerage continues to scale with locations across Quebec, Manitoba, and Ontario, they’ve expanded their vision to further digitize the brokerage with Indio, Applied WebRater, Applied Analytics®, and Applied Marketing Automation™.

 
With Applied Marketing Automation, we spend more time on campaign strategy and less time on content creation, which is value-added.

Jean Philippe Martineau

President
 
 

Establishing a technology strategy

“Our strategy is simple,” says Jean Philippe Martineau, president of Ostiguy & Gendron. "There are three themes in our strategy that we want employees to focus on. First is customer experience. How do we develop technology or integrate technology with the customer experience in mind? Second, how do we make it easier for our employees to use technology to do their day-to-day work? And the third is data. How do we use data to make effective business decisions?"

Enhancing the customer experience

"What I like about Indio is how it will help us attain better, more efficient conversations that enhance the customer experience," says Jean Philippe Martineau. "If we send the client a partially completed application form in Indio, for example, we only need to point out the questions that need an answer. That means the 15 minutes originally planned to discuss new risks and coverage can be extended to 45 minutes or more. That's what we want and how we retain clients."

Before implementing Applied Marketing Automation, Ostiguy & Gendron tried to develop content internally and by outsourcing content writers. This produced undesirable results that affected their customer experience. Jean Philippe Martineau said, "When we came across Applied Marketing Automation, that was a weight off our shoulders because we didn’t need to concentrate as much on creating content. We could pick and choose the content we wanted and then modify it to give it the consistency we were looking for. So now we’re creating various marketing campaigns with tailored audiences, making the customer experience much more valuable.”

 
 

Using technology as an employee retention tool

Duplication of work, inefficient processes and antiquated technology are a few reasons why the next generation isn’t considering a career in the broker channel. According to Jean Philippe Martineau, their strategy to make it easier for employees to use technology to do their day-to-day work is the most important strategy. He says, "We use technology as a retention tool. If we can make Ostiguy & Gendron a great place to work with innovative technology that’s easy and fun to use, they'll stay. Or if they leave, they'll come back because we have a solid technology strategy in place."

Using analytics to make data-driven decisions

As Ostiguy & Gendron expanded their operations and became more digital, the quantity of data collected also grew. For the management team, especially new managers, the ability to interpret data to identify new opportunities, streamline operations, increase sales, support company growth, and help the brokerage gain a competitive edge became a top priority.

“In the past, spreadsheets were sufficient to get the job done. But as the business grew, spreadsheets alone were not enough for making data-driven decisions,” said Jean Philippe Martineau. "Applied Analytics provided an easy, quick way to use dashboards for the simple things we needed, and access to visualizations generated in real time allowed us to be agile and change course if necessary."

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