Evolving With The Times
PHOTO/EDD COTE
D. Francis Murphy Insurance Agency • 50 Main St., Hudson -- Pictured, from left to right, are: Michael D. Murphy, president; Dennis F. Murphy III, treasurer; Dennis F. Murphy Jr. (seated), CEO; and Laurie Marinelli, personal insurance manager.
(Family Business Awards Honoree | Category: 75-199 full-time employees)
The D. Francis Murphy Insurance Agency is exactly the same as it was in 1937, and also completely different.
Gone are the rows of file cabinets. What was once a paper-based business is now largely automated.
The firm took an early lead in bringing in computers for accounting and billing in the 1970s and adding a centralized phone system when that technology became available. Modernizing the phone system made it easier to connect agents with customers, increasing efficiency and service.
CEO Dennis Murphy Jr. joined his dad’s firm in 1960. At that time, he remembers, all the auto insurance policies expired the same day, at the end of the year. He and his wife sat around the kitchen table stamping registrations by hand. He also made sales calls with his wife and daughters; on a good day, the sales team was rewarded with ice cream.
It has been a long time since that kitchen table. The firm now has 74 full-time employees, seven locations, and a much broader range of insurance products for both personal and business protection.
And more family members have joined the company. Dennis Jr.’s wife Julie now works part time, overseeing facilities management and corporate giving. Daughters Kate Murphy and Sarah Murphy Travis develop and execute the agency’s branding and marketing. Sons Michael Murphy and Dennis Murphy III joined the firm in the 1990s; Michael is now president of Murphy Insurance and Dennis III is treasurer.
HELPING THE INDUSTRY
In the 1990s, Murphy Insurance helped pioneer a major quality initiative, participating in a 1993 study about insurance industry best practices. The study was conducted by, among others, the Westinghouse Productivity and Quality Center. Published in 1993 and updated by industry consultants Hales & Associates each year since, The Best Practices of the Leading Independent Insurance Agents in the United States established nine proven best practices that serve as benchmarks for a formal 10-step Continuous Quality Improvement process.
Dennis Jr. emphasizes that an effective quality initiative requires much more than automation. Applying best practices means real work — thinking through each business process, understanding how it can be improved and making changes. He cites General Motors as a firm that tried to solve its quality problems through automation alone, without a formal quality initiative; the result, he says: “They made bad cars faster.”
Murphy is serious about quality improvements that serve the customer. After participating in the Best Practices study, the firm worked hard to apply the lessons learned about those practices. When the Massachusetts Association of Insurance Agents created a quality program in 1998, Murphy Insurance was the first to win its Five Star Award of Distinction.
FIVE-STAR AWARD WINNER
The Five Star award is given to an independent insurance agency that successfully completes a “fitness review” that examines customer focus, management/leadership excellence, human resource excellence, process & product excellence, and future success.
The award depends on ongoing fitness reviews; this year Murphy received its re-certification. It’s one of only 28 insurance companies that hold the honor.
What hasn’t changed over the years is Murphy’s primary focus: the customer. The Murphys beam with pride when they report that they still have customers who have been doing business with them since the days of their grandfather. “Our challenge is to maintain that legacy that’s been built up over last 70-plus years,” says president Michael Murphy. “That’s a huge responsibility. We consider it an absolute obligation.”
As Michael’s dad, Dennis Jr., puts it, “We have 14,000 customer advocates.They’re the ones who build the business for us. If they say something positive to someone else, it goes a long ways to help you grow.”
Today there are new ways of making life easier for the customer. “Later this morning, I’m going to visit a customer,” says Michael, “and instead of taking 15 pages of paper, I’ll take my iPad ... I can access the whole file for the past eight years.”
“Customers are still looking for the same thing,” Michael points out. “Information, guidance, and expertise. Whether it’s delivered in paper, as it used to be, or delivered as an image, as it probably is today, it’s still about the relationship.”
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