Hundreds of Safeco agents have already taken advantage of Bricks & Clicks™ SiteBuilder Program and reaped the rewards, including Mac Ischanov and Dmitriy Lazarev, principals of All Spectrum Insurance Brokers.

Ischanov and Lazarev already had a website, but they weren't happy with it.

“It only acted as a brochure out there,” says Ischanov. “The site didn’t have true functionality and was…outdated by the time it was finally published.”

Ischanov and Lazarev decided the time had come to up their website game after attending a Bricks & Clicks seminar on SiteBuilder. The SiteBuilder program offers two vendors, Avelient and Banyan Theory. Ischanov and Lazarev were pleased with the website packages available on the LightRail platform from Banyan Theory so they decided to work with them.

Before	After

Safeco Agent Magazine recently spoke with Ischanov to find out about the process of redesigning their website. We’ll let him tell you about the process in his own words:

Agent Magazine: Did you think it was going to be a lot of work? Did it end up being a lot of work?
Mac Ischanov: We did think it was going to be a lot of work and require a lot of our time. In our case, it ended up being extremely smooth and efficient. The Banyan Theory team took charge of the project and completed with minimal involvement on our part.

AM: How long did it take for Banyan Theory to build your website?
MI: You won’t believe it – our website was delivered in less than 30 days! The Banyan Theory people were amazing; from start to finish, with all the changes and all of our fussing (we are quite picky sometimes). We did commit to the process internally; we really wanted to make the change and get to the next level.

AM: Did you add on any additional features to your package?
MI: Yes. E-Sign, Syndicated Content, Twitter feed, links to Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, live chat, mobile website, blog, claim and payment info websites, all the quote request forms, newsletters, policy service and certificate request forms.

AM: Have you found value to the features you selected?
MI: I am not a very expressive person and I don’t get excited easily, but I’ll say “Absolutely!” with an exclamation point! We heavily use the LightMail electronic signature process and we love all the functionality and extra efficiency that the new features bring.

AM: Have you seen any results from your website yet?
MI: Definitely! The traffic is way up. Our customers are going to our site to request certificates and fill out service requests. We are already seeing leads from our site! The very first one we received was a package account. The commissions on this policy alone are going to fund our website creation budget and most of the marketing budget this year!

AM: Do you have any recommendations for agents who are considering SiteBuilder?
MI: Don’t wait to move to the next step. The Banyan Theory people are engineers who speak human language! They take care of everything, and I mean everything! They have developed a top-notch platform and are able to offer products to small agencies like ourselves at a very big cost savings. We knew exactly what we were going to get, we didn’t have to depend on the flow of “creative juices” of some web-designer. Definitely go with these guys, we can’t say enough good things about them! It’s been a long time since I’ve been so passionate about a service, especially technology related, but SiteBuilder and Banyan Theory not only promise, they also over-deliver!

Ready to take the next step with your web presence? Sign in to Safeco Now^® to learn more about SiteBuilder today!