Text Messaging Featured Article

Texting technology is making huge strides in business these days, arming agents and companies with unique new tools. The latest to benefit is the insurance industry, where independent agents are being pushed into the driver's seat with the use of smart mobile technology. Senior Market Sales (SMS), the national insurance marketing organization, takes the credit.

In a clever twist, SMS the company is taking advantage of SMS (short message service) the technology. The company’s latest technology innovation enables independent insurance agents to show consumers numerous carriers’ prices for Medicare Supplement healthcare plans using their smartphones, and also allow them to compare different carriers' prices at the same time.

“This technology makes obtaining and comparing Med Supp price quotes extremely easy because agents don’t have to even download an app,” said Sam Halpern, director of Internet marketing at SMS. He added, “They just text ‘GoSMS’ to 54283 one time to start quoting.”

By using another SMS innovation - the “Mobile Web Calculator” - a mobile-optimized website, agents can enter more information about their clients. The calculator can be accessed by either typing       mobile.GoSMS.io in their phone's browser or by texting “mobile” to 54283.

Texting the client’s zip code, age and gender to the GoSMS! number allows agents to see the rates of all the SMS-supported insurance carriers. For more information about any particular set of plans, they need to text the number that appears with that carrier's name. The other plans offered by that carrier are then displayed.

SMS’s text-based quoting platform is one of the first of its kind by an insurance marketing organization, and also one of the first to provide a comparison of carriers' prices.

However, in order to access this service, agents must contract with SMS. Once that's done, agents can add the “GoSMS!” icon to their smartphone desktop, and agents using the quotes-by-text technology can add “54283” to their contacts.

These innovations help achieve many things: consumers now have more choices than before, and insurance agents have more opportunities to sell. Agents also appear efficient in the eyes of demanding and tech savvy consumers.