An Experienced Claims Manager With a Lot of Heart
Who comes first: employees or customers? When posed this classic business question, Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher had an easy answer: employees. “If employees are treated right, they treat the outside world right,” Kelleher explained. As Kelleher knows well, employee-customer relations are a cycle — one that fuels recurring business. Engaged employees deliver service that converts to sales, a fact backed up by a Gallup report. Gallup cited a 20 percent increase in sales as a result of this process. Even as you’re courting leads, you can’t ignore your existing customers. Likewise, even (and especially) as you grow, you have to nurture your employees. The cost of losing either is too high. In the holiday rush, it’s important to not lose sight of your priorities. Get them hooked on your service. Have you ever asked a client why they return to your business? Do you think it’s because they can’t find your product or service anywhere else? Probably not. Think about the last time you returned to a restaurant. Was it because it’s the only place in town that makes amazingThai food? Maybe, but it’s more likely that you enjoyed the welcoming host, attentive waiter, and positive experience you had there. Starbucks is a great example. Even with thick competition, they deliver consistent service and quality products to customers, whether in Oregon or London. And they do this by providing competitive wages and benefits to their employees along with training and learning opportunities. Employees who are knowledgeable and excited about what they are offering pass their enthusiasm on to customers. Own up to mistakes. Even the best businesses make mistakes. When it happens, own up to it. There’s probably been a time when you put in your order at a restaurant, only to receive the wrong thing. How did the business handle it? Did they admit their mistake and offer you a newmeal? How a business treats customers when things don’t go smoothly is a good indication of how they’ll handle adversity in general, and that reaction starts with employees. Set the precedent for employees that a mistake is their opportunity to go above and beyond. A transparent environment will make employees feel more comfortable, which will make customers excited, rather than apprehensive, to engage with your business again. Why Nurturing Employees and Customers Is the Key to Retention The Chicken or the Egg?
At Risk Services/Insurica, we understand that few things are as important to the claims process as the first contact with our insured or the claimant. In this initial stage, it’s our job to not only explain how the process will unfold but to work closely with our clients to steer them through what’s often an extremely difficult time. That’s why we’re grateful to have our claims manager, Pam Pasierb, filling such a vital role and providing expert guidance and boundless kindness to the people we serve year after year. While Pam’s been at Risk Services/Insurica for 13 years, she’s been in the insurance field for decades — since “day one out of high school,” as she puts it. When working with clients, Pam combines her extensive experience with an innately compassionate approach to put them at ease. “I try to explain things as clearly as possible,” she says. “They may be going through a tough time, so it’s important to me that I calm them down and help them not to worry.” Whether she’s managing claims or handling high-profile personal lines of business, Pam knows that deep down “clients want us to take care of it,” she says. “And that’s what we do — we take care of it. It’s why so many of our clients and I are on a first-name basis and why they’ve learned to trust me over the years.” Outside of the office, Pam and her husband spend a lot of time traveling to visit their three children, who are scattered across the United States. Pam says, “We have a son in El Paso who just got out of the Army, a daughter in North Dakota pursuing her Ph.D. in communications, and another daughter working as a forensic scientist for the government.” This Christmas, they’ll each make the trip over to Arkansas for a holiday reunion. She says, “We feel truly blessed to have them in our lives and to have the opportunity to actually see them fairly often!” We’re confident that many of our clients couldn’t possibly imagine the Risk Services/Insurica family without Pam — we certainly can’t! We wish her and her family a merry Christmas and look forward to working with her for many more years to come.
2 • www.insurica.com • Specialized Insurance Programs for Specialized Industries.
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