In part one, I mentioned that the first standard of great customerservice companies is that they know why they are great, the secondis that they know where they stand, and the third is that they knowwhere they are going. Now, let's move onto standard No. 4.

They Can Accurately Describe Their Jobs

In classes about great claims customer service, I always startoff with an exercise, regardless of who is in attendance, by askingstudents to give me some examples of things they do during the dayin their job.

A group of loss report takers will say things like answer thephones, set appointments, explain coverages, transfer calls toadjusters, review policy inception dates, keep logs, review holdingtime reports, verify loss facts, and ask policyholdersquestions.

When asked the same thing, a group of adjusters will mention conducting interviews, takingstatements, reviewing estimates, looking for exclusions, setting upIMEs, handling mail, reviewing cases for subrogation opportunities,looking for fraud, determining negligence and liability, and soon.

As a final example, a group of claims supervisors and managerswill say things like review requests for authority, answerquestions, handle complaint calls, review statements, givedirection to adjusters, conduct performance reviews and monthlyreports, among other tasks.

In all three of these cases, these employees are asked toconsider another take on things. The only thing they needed towrite down was, ”provide customer service.” Think about it for asecond. They are essentially in the customer service business. Thisis what they do. This is all they do.

Focusing on the Client

Claims is a customer service business. We don't build anything. We don'tmake anything. Do we fix houses? Do we mend people's wounds? No. Wearrange for those things to happen, but that is the customerservice piece. Sometimes we tell people we aren't going to pay themanything, and tell them why. That is still the customer servicepiece.

Yet, when asked to describe their jobs, mostclaims professionals do not even mention the words “customerservice.” Does that mean something?

Well, it can, because the most effective claims organizationsare those where the employees describe their jobs in terms ofcustomer service, not a list of prescribed tasks.

In class, claims adjusters are told that their job is to providecustomer service. All of those other things they do are just tasksthat are important in order to accomplish your job, but they are inthe customer service business. The most important thing to startwith is to describe yourself in terms of being in that business,not that it is part of your job. Customer service is your job. It's yourresponsibility.

For those loss report takers, it is the same issue. Yes, theyhave to do all of those tasks, but their job is to provide customerservice by doing all of the things that they listed in that set oftasks.

The employees of supervisors and managers are in the customerservice business, which puts these leaders in the business as well.Regardless of their daily tasks, they essentially provide customerservice.

In all three cases, the employees are going to be held backbecause they see their job as a list of their tasks rather thanbeing a provider of customer service. Is it reallyimportant?

Knowing Your Responsibilities

Imagine Melvin, a pilot for a commercial airline. He is asked,“Melvin, what's your job? As a commercial airline pilot, what isyour job? What do you do?”

He replies, “Oh, my job? It's to lift up the flaps, to turnleft, turn right, put down the landing gear, talk on the intercom,pressurize the cabin, tell the flight attendants to sit down…” and he goes on and on. Is he describing his job? No.What's his job? To fly the plane. To fly the plane from here tothere.

What are all those things he is talking about? Just tasks … juststuff. They are things he has to do in order to accomplish his job.His job is much more complicated, much more sophisticated, and muchmore important than a list of his tasks.

The very best claims organizations are those where all of theemployees define their jobs in terms of customer servicefirst, and then they give you a list of their taskssecond. They will say things like, “I provide customer service bytaking their loss report,” “I provide customer service by writingestimates,” and “I provide customer service by explainingcoverages.”

Is it really all that important or is this just semantics?

Being a Good Employee

The opening scene of the movie “Clockwatchers” is one of thefunniest I can remember. It starts off as a blank screen, and allyou can hear is the ticking of a clock. The scene opens with a mansitting at a reception desk while a female customer stands facinghim. The man who is behind the reception desk is reading amagazine, casually flipping through it, completely ignoring thewoman standing right in front of him. Sure enough, it is one minuteto nine o'clock.

The man casually flips through the magazine until the clockfinally strikes nine. He puts away the maga­zine, folds his hands,looks up at the woman in front of him, smiles, and asks, “Can Ihelp you?”

I show this movie in my claims customer service class. When Ihave the opportunity to discuss this with students, I will ask themif he is a good employee. The response always is that he isnot.

Students will say he ignored the customer or that he should havehelped her. But if you don't know what his job is, how can you passjudgment upon him? The response is usually that it doesn't matterwhat his job is, and that he still should have helped thatperson.

Of course most people will admit that not only have they heardsomeone say that something “is not their job,” but they have saidthat themselves. Nobody likes doing anything that's not their job.This man probably should have helped that customer, but we don'tknow what his job is.

What if when he was hired, his manager sat down with him anddescribed his job in detail. The last person this manager hired wasalways late and always left early, he missed some days from work,wouldn't smile at cus­tomers, and wouldn't ask how he could helpthem. So this manager, in order to make sure that this new employeedoes an excellent job, gave him a set of job objectives.

The first job objective is that he would always be at work atnine o'clock. He started at nine o'clock and he should never belate. The second objective was to never leave early. The officeshut down at five o'clock, and he was never to walk off even aminute early. Third, he had an hour for lunch and he was never tobe late or be gone for more than an hour. Fourth, when he was togreet a customer, he was always to smile and look at the customerand ask, “How may I help you?” This manager made this person's jobresponsibilities very clear.

So, is this a good employee? That's unknown. However, if thosewere his job objectives, he is doing his job. True, he is not doingmuch more, but that is OK. Thisreceptionist probably thinks he is an excellent employee. As a matter of fact, every three monthswhen this guy sits down with his supervisor, his supervisor says,“Well, you were never late, and you never left early. You nevertook more than an hour for lunch. You always smile when you look atthe customer; you always ask how you can help them. You are great;you did all your job objec­tives. Here's your raise.”

On top of that, his co­workers come by and tell him how great heis. They say things like, “Oh, you're so much better than the lastguy. He was always late and you're never late.” This person isgetting nothing but positive feedback, so to say he is a bademployee is not fair. What this person needs is training, so heknows his job is bigger than his individual responsibilities. Hisjob is to provide cus­tomer service, and most of us need tounderstand that.

“That's not my job.”

One of the hallmarks of great claims employees is that theyunderstand what business they are in. Even if they don't work withthe general public, they still have customers, be it their boss orco-workers, or other departments in their company. Who knows? Thepoint is that they have customers, and they must understand thateven though their tasks or our responsibilities might be listed outin detail, their overall job is to provide customer service towhoever the customer may be. Great claims professionals are theones who always do whatever it takes to make sure they provide excellentcustomer service.

I was at a conference once, speakingon customer service, when I realized I had forgotten to purchasesome of the candy bars I like to hand out during my speech. Iusually hand them to people who give me any kind of answer at all;I don't even care if it is correct. I went over to the bell deskand told a bellman I was about to perform my speech but I hadforgotten to purchase some candy bars. I asked him if there was anyway I could give him some money so he could run across the streetand maybe purchase some candy bars and bring them to me. I wasquite surprised when he said, “You know, I'm only supposed to carrythe baggage in and out of the hotel.”

I knew what he was saying. In his own words he was saying,“That's not my job.” He didn't want to do it because it wasn't hisjob. He did not perceive himself as being in the customer servicebusiness. If you ask this person what his job is, he will probablytell you his job is to take the luggage out of the car, put it onthe cart, take the cart to the front desk, and wait for thecustomer to check in, take the cart up to their room, and unloadit. He might say that sometimes his job is to take luggage from aroom and put it into a car. He might tell you his job is to puttags on luggage so it does not get confused with others. He mighttell you a whole variety of other things.

What this person probably will not tell you is that his job isto provide customer service. He does not know that is his job; hethinks his job is to load luggage. When I asked him to do somethingto please a customer, his response was very consistent with what hebelieves his job is.

After getting frustrated with that, I happened to be walking bythe front desk and I gave the person there kind of an odd look thatshowed my frustration. He asked if he could help, and I asked him(without telling him what had just happened to me), if there wasany way I could get some help in get­ting some candy bars purchasedfor my presentation. He took the $10 out of my hand and said, “I'llbring them in as soon as I can.”

I went to give my presentation, and about 10 minutes after I began, in walkedthis gentleman, with a bag of candy bars and my change. He handedme the bag, but before he left, I stopped him and pulled him up tothe front of the room in front of the 150 supervisors and managerspresent. Since I was speaking on customer service, I thought thiswas appropriate.

I pointed out to the crowd the two scenarios I had encountered.Why did this happen? Very simple, the second person did not knowthat his job was to check people in. He did not know that his jobwas to sign time cards. He didn't know that his job was to makesure the beds were made before checking people in. This front deskperson understood he was in the customer service business, andbecause of this, he helped the customer do something that theyneeded done. His job was customer service and that is what heprovided.

The bellman did not know his job was customer service, and thatis why he didn't help. That is probably one of the most importantdividing lines that there is between whether an employee will be agreat claims employee or just a good employee. Great claimsprofessionals understand that they are in the customer servicebusiness. They need to provide customer service, and theyunderstand that that means to do things outside of their job dutiesand descriptions.

Providing Outstanding Service

Claims employees who hold themselves back by always trying todetermine if something is “their job” usually falter and arefrustrated by sometimes being forced to do something that theydon't perceive they should be doing, and it will only hurt them.They miss the opportunities to impress other people with howdedicated they are, and they place barriers in front of themselvesin realizing their potential, simply because they don't want to beinconsistent with what they perceive their job is. Great claimsemployees do not have this problem and are willing to do thingsconsistent with that impression.

Another example: I was listening to a phone call in an insuranceoffice when a claims employee received a call from Tiffany, anagent. The conversation went like this:

Is this employee providing outstanding customer serv­ice? No.What should she be doing, if she knows how and she can (which shedid)? Why did this employee not take this lossreport? Was she stupid? No, I talked to this girl. She was a prettysmart woman. Was she lazy? No, she was working until 6 p.m. thatnight. So why didn't she take this loss report from this agent? Iasked her. You know what she said? “It's not my job.”

You see, she is not in the customer service business as far asshe knows. She thinks she is in the “handle a claim once it hasbeen reported” business. She made a decision that was completelyconsistent with what she thinks her job is. Had she thought she wasinvolved in the customer service business, she would have takenthis loss report and handled the issue. She would have saved timefor herself, or whoever else would have handled this claim, andimpressed a customer in the meantime.

Employees must change their focus from what they thought theydid as their job, listing the tasks that they do, to describingtheir job correctly, which is providing customer service.

Next time, we will look at the fifth criteria for great claimsorganizations. That is, the people who are charged with theresponsibility of providing customer service—almosteveryone—understand exactly what customer service is.