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Susan Castaneda, Director of Compliance for The Hartford, served as an engaging and spirited speaker as she took Exchange participants through The Hartford’s consumer affairs experience. Eminently qualified to speak to the group, Castaneda has been with The Harford 16 years and, since 1994, has handled regulator complaints in some fashion. The Hartford: Two teamsBecause The Hartford does business in all 50 states, a variety of consumer affairs models have been tried. Currently, the 22 consumer affairs associates are divided into two groups, providing for regional specialization across the country. Although large, this number keeps The Hartford close to their customer and helps capture exact data of what’s going on in the consumer pulse. At The Hartford, consumer affairs professionals respond to regulators, handle executive complaints (complaints that have been escalated to an executive level), attorney inquiries, and proactively address crucial issues (such as credit scoring) before they become a consumer problem. What they doThe teams handle roughly 10,000 complaints each year, 5,000 of which are written complaints. All consumers are responded to within a specific timeframe, even if the call is simply to acknowledge the complaint and offer a timeframe for resolution. All consumers are offered the option of a letter to confirm the conversation—although it was noted that fewer than 50 percent of all consumers take The Hartford up on this offer.Regulators, of course, are contacted within the requested time frame. How they do itCastaneda pointed out that the protocol is innovative, but the basics remain the same. She has her consumer affairs professionals review complaint files with the specific standards in place. On average, her staff spends more than three hours to research all aspects of each issue or complaint. Managers in this unit spend 70 percent of their day coaching and are required to thoroughly review a minimum of 10 files each month—from soup to nuts. Castaneda herself keeps tabs on the re-contact rate between her staff and the DOIs (defined as how often regulators had to contact The Hartford to get a complete response). She uses this as a touch point indicating how well her staff members are doing their jobs. In general, consumer affairs professionals at The Hartford are required to:
In addition, customer communication from her team must be:
Interestingly, Castaneda points out that the hard part is to make sure the response makes sense—not blindly follow adherence to rules. She noted that inspiring people to be motivated by doing what’s right by the customer rather than by rules and procedures, is one of the most interesting, and challenging, elements of her job. After a full and careful review, her staff is required to look at the root cause of the complaint. By encouraging professionals to think beyond their day-to-day job, they can identify trends and disconnects so proactive outreach can occur. To assist in this effort, The Hartford uses a specific Oracle database to comply with NAIC standards and help identify root causes. With tracking comes distinct accountability. At The Hartford, each consumer affairs professional is charged with the responsibility of proposing recommendations that will improve company processes. This mindset of rapid response, anticipating issues and all-level accountability has been established within the last few years. The Hartford professionals adhere to a seven-day response time, but work to get to most complaints (especially escalations) even quicker. They’ve found that this rapid-response mandate has served the consumer well. In all honesty, it’s also served the company by keeping customers happy and retained. ResultsIt was noted that The Hartford approach to Consume Affairs is expensive, but it’s paying off:
Consumer affairs’ sphere of influenceCastaneda believes the sphere of consumer affairs influence is growing and will continue to grow. Appropriately, she believes that consumer affairs professionals should be proactive in touching and influencing all parts of the company. She cited several examples of how and where consumer affairs professionals can keep business units informed of process issues, anticipate product development disconnects or provide research on how the marketplace and consumers react to specific changes. In short, consumer affairs can provide best practices via the consumer, thereby giving the consumers a voice. In addition, she’s knows that consumer affairs professionals form customer-centric relationships with regulators, enabling faster problem-solving for the benefit of the consumer. Click here to view entire Power Point presentation.
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