How a Family-Owned Insurance Agency Doubled Productivity Without Expanding Its Team

For nearly 25 years, GFH Insurance Agency in Richmond, Virginia, has established its reputation on personal service. Owners Lori and Gerald Hemphill took pride in being a "customer-oriented agency" that answered every call with a real person. It was their competitive advantage — until it became their biggest operational bottleneck.

The Problem

Over 200 calls flooded the agency every single day. "The phones would just be ringing off the hook," Lori recalls. "You'd get interrupted constantly, and you had to answer. It was affecting everything we were trying to do." An investment was needed: either a high-cost, full-time new hire or a way to handle the volume without sacrificing service quality.

For an agency that had always answered calls with a human voice or traditional answering service, the idea of using AI felt like betraying their core values.

The Turning Point

When Gerald met Francisco from Sonant at a PIA conference, they were skeptical. "We never thought we would have an AI agent answering for us because we consider ourselves a customer-oriented agency," Lori admits.

However, the cost was clear. Comparing the expense of hiring one more employee to trying something different made the choice inevitable. They chose to take the leap with Sonant AI.

The First Impression

The first month was exactly what they feared. Long-time clients pushed back. Some were frustrated. After 25 years of human voices, the change felt jarring.

However, Lori and her team persisted, leading to an unexpected shift in sentiment.

"I can tell you after probably a month or two, we were then getting compliments on the system. It took some getting used to for our clients…now they know what to expect, and everything is going great."

— Lori Hemphill, Owner

The Transformation

The results went far beyond decreasing call volume:

Increased Operational Efficiency

• Sonant collects caller details and emails transcripts to the relevant team member, enabling immediate agent action.
• Sonant takes messages and intelligently routes urgent matters to the right team member.
• Sonant provides callers with general agency, carrier, and policy information, allowing for self-service.
• The team gains the ability to focus on urgent issues and respond at their own pace.
• The team uses Sonant insights to analyze call quality to continually improve the caller experience with AI, routing, and team members.

Improved Work Environment

"Sonant has made our office so much more peaceful to work in. We don't have phones ringing off the hook. We can concentrate on what needs to be done, and we can determine in what order to do it."

— Lori Hemphill, Owner

Accelerated Personal Productivity

The impact on Lori's own work was dramatic:

"Sonant has been able to save me so much time I can do double the work."