Column Dirk Clement

A vision for the future and client satisfaction

It has been more than five years since CED took its first steps in the Belgian market. This was also immediately the start of further internationalization, something our organization always strives for when it regards our mission, vision and future perspective for further growth.

Besides internationalization, as a market leader in the BeLux, we also want in close collaboration with our clients to further develop the market for loss adjustment and claims management in Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. We achieve this through professionalization and innovation of our service.

I believe that insurers and other captives will proceed to further outsource activities when they are convinced of the efficiency and quality of our people and services. Of course CED would never be able to offer such an excellent service if it did not have the best professionals at its disposal.

So we talk a lot about this
Employees, clients, those suffering damages, partners and competitors learn about what CED stands for and it’s vision for the future, via various channels. I still have an absolute preference for verbal communication; it is more direct, warmer and allows a real conversation or discussion. But given the digital era that our sector is also immersed in, a lot of communication takes place in writing.

Of course our written communication takes place with the best intentions and for the right reasons: legally correct, the reader decides when it best suits him/her to read; you can weigh up your choice of words as a writer and yes, you can do it at any given moment of the day, without the reader being able to or needing to react immediately. With one click the letter rolls out of the printer or flashes over the worldwide web. If I have to do it anyway, then I prefer to send my written correspondence, in the 21st century, via e-mail. As far as I am concerned, an email account can become a fixed part of your address.

But do our clients and end clients feel the same about this?

Do we listen sufficiently?

Every year, we process, in Belgium and Luxembourg, approximately 120,000 assignments. It should come as no surprise that as a player with the largest scale we do this in the best possible way. However, It can always happen that the management of a file does not go entirely according to the wishes of a party involved. This dissatisfaction sometimes turns into a complaint. Internal research reveals that in 90% of cases, the complaint can be blamed entirely on insufficient or incomplete communication.  And in spite of the fact that the complaints percentage of CED Belgium amounts to less than 1 percent (and therefore 99% of the interventions are running well to very well), I still feel that this is far too much.

 

Listening well to the needs of the (end) client and saying what we do and doing what we say are essential for optimum and clear communication. Communication is therefore the necessary basis for insight and mutual understanding.

But do we know exactly what the need of our clients is?

Measurement is knowledge
In order to be able to answer the question above, feedback from our (end) clients is a very important source. That is why we will soon begin a large scale client-satisfaction survey among our clients and end clients. CED strives to offer its clients optimum service and will continuously map the satisfaction, wishes and expectations of its clients and end clients in order to improve its service concepts and to further optimize the internal processes.

Also with regard to client satisfaction CED has the ambition to be the best both in Belgium and beyond!