Why the Gap Exists in the First Place

Property & Casualty policyholders often judge an agency by moments that seem routine to the agents answering their phone calls.

A recent CX20 study of more than 3,000 executives and consumers shows the danger of assuming everything feels fine: 80 percent of insurance leaders say their service is excellent, yet only 24 percent of customers agree ¹. 

That mismatch does not stay hidden for long; it erodes renewal rates and referrals ².

The research highlighted 20 separate experience breakdowns between agencies and their customers ³. Here’s the five that matter most to P&C ⁴:

• Perception: Leaders feel on track while policyholders feel friction.
• Communication: Customers find updates inconsistent.
• Service: 55 percent of leaders point to unclear or incomplete measurement as a reason their customer experience efforts fall short.
• Feedback: Insight is gathered but rarely acted on, which damages credibility.
• Personalization: The majority of businesses still deliver generic, one-size-fits-all journeys.

When agencies close those gaps, they see direct returns. Sixty-seven percent of customers spend more with firms that handle customer experience correctly, the majority are happy to pay a premium for better service, and 85 percent reconsider loyalty after repeated missteps ⁵.

Independent Agencies Carry Extra Risk

Local and regional agencies compete in closer quarters than national brands. One annoyed commercial client can influence dozens of future accounts in the same industry association or chamber of commerce. Yet thorough oversight of customer interactions takes time, with no certain return on that time, so those spot checks for quality often go undone. 

The traditional approach to address this issue is to hire a dedicated Operations Manager, a role with an advertised salary between $70k and $130k plus benefits ⁶. Job descriptions list everything from QA on recorded calls to employee coaching and compliance monitoring ⁷.

That single hire often shoulders financial tasks, licensing paperwork, employee onboarding, process documentation, data reporting, and customer-service escalation. Not to mention often while managing their own book of business. 

The variety of skills needed drives the salary range, stretches onboarding timelines, and still leaves owners wondering if every client touchpoint met their standards.

Visibility, Not Effort, is the Missing Ingredient

Most teams work hard, but what they lack is visibility into which clients feel ignored or which processes slip on busy weeks. The CX20 report underlines that investment in technology alone does not guarantee progress: 63% of executives admit digital spending has yet to shift customer sentiment ⁸. Effort without feedback repeats the same mistakes.

Agencies typically face four obstacles:

1. Scattered data in voice, email, post-its and AMS records makes trends hard to spot.
2. Manual review queues limit managers to a few calls each month.
3. No risk-based prioritization means fires burn unnoticed until a cancellation notice arrives.
4. Delegation anxiety keeps owners too close to tasks they hired people to handle, becoming an obstacle to growth.

Introducing Magellan: Your Operations Manager-in-a-Box

Magellan was built by insurance professionals to replace locally saved spreadsheets and manual spot checks with live operational intelligence. It performs much of the grunt-work tracking reporting tasks that an Operations Manager would otherwise have to perform, freeing the Operations Manager up to do some of the higher value responsibilities on their plate.  If you agency doesn’t have an Operations Manager, Magellan does the same level of tracking and reporting that allows agency owners better insight into their service operations without adding payroll or HR overhead.  Magellan provides the functionality of an operations director at a fraction of the cost.

How Magellan Closes the Five CX Gaps

Magellan is the Operations Manager-in-a-Box that protects client relationships first, then makes your team more effective. By closing the five most damaging customer experience gaps, agencies gain real-time visibility, stronger retention signals, and workflows that scale without adding headcount.

Perception Gap: Hidden Dissatisfaction Between Touchpoints - Magellan transcribes and scores every recorded interaction for sentiment. Accounts showing early frustration rise to a real-time, ranked watch list inside Magellan. Owners see which policies are drifting toward churn before their renewal comes up, then assign follow-ups with a click.

Communication Gap: Missed or Inconsistent Follow-Ups - Unresolved issues and missed follow-ups damage client relationships and trust. Magellan integrates with your AMS or CRM and tracks 100% of recorded customer interactions. This ensures details don’t slip through the cracks, minimizing your E&O exposure.

Service Gap: Uneven Execution Across the Team - Standardized scorecards give managers an objective way to coach across offices and shifts. Coaching happens while calls are still fresh, which improves first-call resolution and reduces the small service errors that turn into lost renewals.

Feedback Gap: Information Collected but not Used - Leaders can see whether coaching or process changes are working by watching those signals shift over time, without juggling systems.

Personalization Gap: One-Size-Fits-All Outreach - Magellan tags conversation topics such as claims or billing issues, quoting activity, or coverage changes. Each account builds a living profile, so outreach is timely and specific to what that client has actually discussed, not a generic blast.

A Practical Comparison

A Day in the Life of a Magellan-Powered Agency

9:00 a.m. – The owner sees four highlighted policies on the dashboard. One commercial fleet client sounded frustrated about renewal paperwork. Two personal lines households requested billing clarifications. A new prospect mentioned a competitor’s quote.

9:15 a.m. – Account managers open each flagged call, read the AI-generated summary, and schedule callbacks or endorsement reviews.

10:30 a.m. – A supervisor reviews performance reports that show which agents skipped the documented claim-intro script. Short coaching sessions follow on the same day, not weeks later.

4:45 p.m. – The owner exports a retention report, satisfied that no open promises spill into tomorrow. The office closes with confidence that priorities were handled.

Financial Payoff

An agency processing 800 client calls per month can spend dozens of staff hours on manual auditing. If Magellan reduces that time by only ten minutes per call through prioritised review and automated summaries, the monthly labour saving equals roughly 133 staff hours. At an average loaded wage of $35 per hour⁹, that is $4,655 rescued for higher-value work, not counting the premium retained when dissatisfied clients stay.

What about churned customers that would have walked out the door?  The lifetime value of a given Personal Lines relationship is $1k and a Commercial Lines relationship is $4k, wouldn’t you want to know if that customer was eyeing the exit door?

What about the opportunity cost of acquiring a new customer just to fill up the “leaky bucket” vs. growing your book of business?

What about the lost Enterprise Value to your business because of your lower retention rate due to indifferent customer service?

Compare those numbers to an Operations Manager’s salary and the software subscription pays for itself long before year-end.

Conclusion

The CX20 findings insist on better perception, clearer communication, consistent service, visible feedback loops, and personalized journeys. Independent agencies often try to meet those demands by layering additional staff¹⁰. Magellan proves there is another route: crystal-clear signals delivered inside tools you already rely on.

When leaders see what customers feel, they react quickly and grow on purpose instead of reacting to lost accounts. Magellan turns hidden conversations into decision-ready guidance, by tying directly into your current VoIP and AMS systems, giving your team the time they need to focus on customer relationships.

Interested in measuring your own experience gap? Try Magellan for free and view your first sentiment report in under an hour!

Citations

1. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting
2. Garrett, M. (2023, September). The Impact of Digital Claims on Customer Satisfaction. J.D. Power. https://www.cieca.com/Presentations/CONNEX%202023/JDPower_ClaimsPresentation%20-%20CEICA_091123.pdf
3. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting
4. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting
5. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting
6. Glassdoor. (2025). Insurance Operations Manager Salaries. Glassdoor. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/insurance-operations-manager-salary-SRCH_KO0%2C28.htm
7. CLIMB. (2025, July 15). What Does an Insurance Agency Manager Do? CLIMB. https://climbtheladder.com/insurance-agency-manager/
8. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting
9. Glassdoor. (2025). Insurance Operations Manager Salaries. Glassdoor. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/insurance-operations-manager-salary-SRCH_KO0%2C28.htm
10. Amdocs (2025, June 10). New Research from Amdocs Finds 80% of Business Leaders Believe They’re Meeting Customer Expectations—Only 24% of Consumers Agree. Amdocs. https://www.amdocs.com/press-release/new-research-amdocs-finds-80-business-leaders-believe-theyre-meeting