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As Spark’s Product Lead, I talk to brokers — a lot.
My job is to understand your biggest pain points and translate them into technology that improves broker productivity.
And if there’s one thing everyone’s talking about, it’s how this AEP is going to be different.
It’s the perfect storm: sweeping CMS changes, carriers revisiting the economics of their businesses, members scrambling to understand potential loss of benefits — all during an election year.
That’s why we’re excited to launch the Essential AEP Toolbox, which is everything a broker like you needs for an AEP as historic as this.
Let's dive in.
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Current Clients
Let's start with your existing book.
How do agents quickly identify which clients need their time and attention?
The answer? Spark's new Automated AEP Survey.
We’ve revamped our questionnaire with targeted questions about whether existing clients’ needs have changed. To ensure they see it, it’s sent both digitally and physically in the mail.
The survey language reassures clients that you are evaluating whether their current plan is still the best fit for their needs — and if it’s not, you’ll reach out.
Once clients have completed the survey, we’ll flag the changes directly on their contact pages. When you schedule meetings, instantly flip through their contact cards to see their new needs!
To take advantage of Spark's automations, you must have:
- Completed your marketing profile;
- Uploaded your Book of Business to the platform;
- Opted into our client retention program
Once you’ve done so, we’ll take the first step in managing your existing book for you. Learn more about all of our automated programs.
How do agents take care of existing customers while making time to meet new ones?
Spark Client Services can help with that!
Our team can help resolve agents’ clients’ issues on their behalf. Customers love Client Services — they have an industry-leading 96% customer satisfaction score.
See a demo of how it works here.
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New Leads
With your current clients taken care of, use these tools as you meet and engage new leads.
How can agents better promote their services?
Spark just released AEP Marketing Materials: new flyers, business cards, mailers, and social media posts — oh my!
Print them, download them, post them, and get your name out there.
Why you'll love it:
- Assets are free and available on demand!
- Need customization? Make the changes you need on Canva — just remember to send it to us for a compliance check!
How can agents spend less time inputting lead data?
Use our Lead Intake Form to create a link to a personalized, branded Permission to Contact (PTC) form and Needs Assessment. Leads use it to fill out a PTC but also all relevant Medicare information, allowing agents to have all of the information they need.
Why you’ll love it:
- Skip ahead to sending an SOA and quoting plans.
- Prefer to ask less upfront?
Use our Zapier integration to publish a referral link to your social media sites or other ads that create new contacts with their contact information. - Prefer to have your admin do it for you?
Use our User Management system to add teammates to your account, define permissions, and set access levels.
- Prefer to ask less upfront?
How do agents act on a large prospect list that's missing key data?
We updated our Needs Assessment to be easier to use and include new types of data, such as a contact's chronic condition.
- Prefer to do it all in person?
Our new, streamlined Add Contact flow enables you to quickly add data you might need on a potential client — whether you’re in a meeting or on the phone.
With so many meetings, how do agents track and manage SOAs?
We're excited to launch Bulk SOAs, which enable you to send an SOA to a subset of your contacts (e.g., new leads from your most recent event) or to all of them to get ahead and have that required compliance coverage for the next 12 months.
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Analyze Performance
Now that you have the latest tools to retain clients and win leads, it’s time to track growth, and ensure you’re on pace to hit your goals.
How do agents know whether submitted applications translate to production?
Our AEP Dashboard Refresh provides agents with more user friendly experience and actionable insights, alongside our new Sunfire application reporting.
Plus — with our new Agent Production Report, see the status of your applications as they turn into enrollments! Our automation parses the carrier production reports, so while our processing can happen quickly, you might still see delays because of individual carrier processing.
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Got all of that? We know, it’s a lot — the Spark team is here to help!
We have live training, documentation, and a friendly support team (plus Sparky the chatbot!) to answer any questions you have about these new features. Check out our upcoming webinars and sign up using the links below:
- Needs Assessment 2.0 streamline your data collection
- AEP Client Retention Survey: Retention Strategies
- AEP Toolbox: Optimizing Spark this AEP
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A parting note: as always, we want your feedback!
Spark is the only FMO that starts the process of building technology by listening to agents. Everything we create is in service of Spark’s mission: to empower brokers to grow by transforming how you do business.
We hope you’re as excited to use these tools as we are to launch them!
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