When asked the same thing, a group of adjusters will mention conducting interviews, taking statements, reviewing estimates, looking for exclusions, setting up IMEs, handling mail, reviewing cases for subrogation opportunities, looking for fraud, determining negligence and liability, and so on.

As a final example, a group of claims supervisors and managers will say things like review requests for authority, answer questions, handle complaint calls, review statements, give direction to adjusters, conduct performance reviews and monthly reports, among other tasks.

In all three of these cases, these employees are asked to consider another take on things. The only thing they needed to write down was, ”provide customer service.” Think about it for a second. They are essentially in the customer service business. This is 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't make anything. Do we fix houses? Do we mend people's wounds? No. We arrange for those things to happen, but that is the customer service piece. Sometimes we tell people we aren't going to pay them anything, and tell them why. That is still the customer service piece.

Yet, when asked to describe their jobs, most claims professionals do not even mention the words “customer service.” Does that mean something?

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

In class, claims adjusters are told that their job is to provide customer service. All of those other things they do are just tasks that are important in order to accomplish your job, but they are in the customer service business. The most important thing to start with 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 your responsibility.

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

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

In all three cases, the employees are going to be held back because they see their job as a list of their tasks rather than being a provider of customer service. Is it really important?

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 is your job? What do you do?”

He replies, “Oh, my job? It's to lift up the flaps, to turn left, 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 to there.

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

The very best claims organizations are those where all of the employees define their jobs in terms of customer service first, and then they give you a list of their tasks second. They will say things like, “I provide customer service by taking their loss report,” “I provide customer service by writing estimates,” and “I provide customer service by explaining coverages.”

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 the funniest I can remember. It starts off as a blank screen, and all you can hear is the ticking of a clock. The scene opens with a man sitting at a reception desk while a female customer stands facing him. The man who is behind the reception desk is reading a magazine, casually flipping through it, completely ignoring the woman standing right in front of him. Sure enough, it is one minute to nine o'clock.

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

I show this movie in my claims customer service class. When I have the opportunity to discuss this with students, I will ask them if he is a good employee. The response always is that he is not.

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

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

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

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

So, is this a good employee? That's unknown. However, if those were his job objectives, he is doing his job. True, he is not doing much more, but that is OK. This receptionist probably thinks he is an excellent employee. As a matter of fact, every three months when this guy sits down with his supervisor, his supervisor says, “Well, you were never late, and you never left early. You never took more than an hour for lunch. You always smile when you look at the 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 he is. They say things like, “Oh, you're so much better than the last guy. He was always late and you're never late.” This person is getting nothing but positive feedback, so to say he is a bad employee is not fair. What this person needs is training, so he knows his job is bigger than his individual responsibilities. His job is to provide cus­tomer service, and most of us need to understand that.

“That's not my job.”

One of the hallmarks of great claims employees is that they understand what business they are in. Even if they don't work with the general public, they still have customers, be it their boss or co-workers, or other departments in their company. Who knows? The point is that they have customers, and they must understand that even though their tasks or our responsibilities might be listed out in detail, their overall job is to provide customer service to whoever the customer may be. Great claims professionals are the ones who always do whatever it takes to make sure they provide excellent customer service.

I was at a conference once, speaking on customer service, when I realized I had forgotten to purchase some of the candy bars I like to hand out during my speech. I usually 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 desk and told a bellman I was about to perform my speech but I had forgotten to purchase some candy bars. I asked him if there was any way I could give him some money so he could run across the street and maybe purchase some candy bars and bring them to me. I was quite surprised when he said, “You know, I'm only supposed to carry the 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 his job. He did not perceive himself as being in the customer service business. If you ask this person what his job is, he will probably tell you his job is to take the luggage out of the car, put it on the cart, take the cart to the front desk, and wait for the customer to check in, take the cart up to their room, and unload it. He might say that sometimes his job is to take luggage from a room and put it into a car. He might tell you his job is to put tags on luggage so it does not get confused with others. He might tell you a whole variety of other things.

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

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

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

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

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

Providing Outstanding Service

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

Another example: I was listening to a phone call in an insurance office when a claims employee received a call from Tiffany, an agent. 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 she did)? Why did this employee not take this loss report? Was she stupid? No, I talked to this girl. She was a pretty smart woman. Was she lazy? No, she was working until 6 p.m. that night. So why didn't she take this loss report from this agent? I asked her. You know what she said? “It's not my job.”

You see, she is not in the customer service business as far as she knows. She thinks she is in the “handle a claim once it has been reported” business. She made a decision that was completely consistent with what she thinks her job is. Had she thought she was involved in the customer service business, she would have taken this loss report and handled the issue. She would have saved time for herself, or whoever else would have handled this claim, and impressed a customer in the meantime.

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

Next time, we will look at the fifth criteria for great claims organizations. That is, the people who are charged with the responsibility of providing customer service—almost everyone—understand exactly what customer service is.