Multi-million pound savings, reductions in average claim times and a significant increase in customer renewals were achieved through our work with an international insurance company.

The company asked us to improve customer service, eliminate waste and increase capacity in its motor claims business. Our challenge included absorbing a 50 per cent growth rate within current staffing levels.

Our approach

Our team identified three root causes that were preventing the company achieving its goals:

Not understanding customer demands

Staff were targeted on the number of calls they answered rather than those they resolved. They did not transfer calls to the correct department to resolve customer issues. This resulted in call quality suffering, poor customer satisfaction and a high call back rate from customers. More than 75 per cent of incomming calls were avoidable and abandonment rates from customers were high.

System too complex

Communication between teams was poor and too complicated. Time and resources were being wasted logging and tracking work as teams were not coordinated. This created a lack of trust between staff from different teams and low morale within the workforce.

Ineffective targets

The company’s appraisal and bonus scheme meant staff were focused on hitting internal targets instead of focusing on customer needs. Claims were passed between multiple departments resulting in claim times for customers taking up to a year on average to settle. In 93 per cent of cases the handler would not be able to validate if a customer’s claim was covered due to missing or incorrect information.

Our solution

After presenting these findings to the company it was clear we needed to establish a model that looked at the end-to-end performance from the customer persepctive. Once our consultants had produced a model to clarify this we began the task of redesigning the company’s processes and systems. Customer satisfaction was the main drive of the changes introduced, alongside a clear need to utilise staff knowledge more effectively.

The results

Through understanding the company’s operations and redesigning them to put the customer first teams across the business began achieving outstanding results:

• The number of days to settle a claim fell from 328 days to 25
• Days to pay a total loss claim fell from 39 days to one
• Validation claim rates from the initial contact grew from 12 per cent to 94 per cent
• Complaints dropped from an average of 25 per week to zero
• More than 3,900 calls were eliminated per week – resulting in the removal of the front office
• Staff were retrained for more technical roles to absorb growth
• More than £2million was saved through the prevention of incorrect litigation
• Debt recovery from third party insurers improved by 67 per cent

The future

Himsworth Consultancy saved millions of pounds for the insurance company and improved efficiency across the motor claims business. This included a new approach to renewals which resulted in £7million in additional revenue. Staff feedback demonstrated a boost to morale and greater job satisfaction for staff who could clearly see the results of their work. Staff now have complete ownership of their customers throughout the process and understood their role was to deliver outstanding service to customers and not to just focus on targets.