Keynote address delivered by the Minister of Transport, Ms Sindiswe Chikunga (MP) at the occasion of the implementation of the Customer Relationship Management Solution of the Road Accident Fund held at Midrand at 08h00
Programme Director
Deputy Minister of Transport, Mr Lisa Mangcu
Director General, Adv. James Mlawu
Deputy Director General: Roads, Mr Christopher Hlabisa
Chairperson of the Road Accident Fund and Members of the RAF Board
CEO of the RAF, Mr Collins Letsoalo
Officials from both the DoT and the RAF present
Distinguished Guests
Let me take this moment to thank the Road Accident Fund for the invitation to this important launch of the Customer Relationship Management Solution, which is certainly a very important step in the repositioning of the RAF.
It is significant that the formal announcement of both the CRM solution and the attendant Customer Centre being launched today takes place during the October Transport Month Campaign, at a time when we showcase our achievements which contribute towards the realisation of a better life for all our people.
Our service delivery mandate across all modes requires a customer-centric approach to ensure responsiveness to the needs of our people. The hard work RAF has placed in transforming its operating model, places the interest of the beneficiary at the centre of its operations. Today’s launch is a culmination of this process and marks a major milestone in the RAF transformation.
Programme Director,
The RAF started this transformation journey in 2020. Central to this important task is the implementation of key strategic initiatives aimed at turning around the operations of the Fund. The transformation journey is anchored on the 2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan which outlines key organisational initiatives needed to turn the fund around.
The Road Accident Fund has experienced fundamental challenges over the years. These hampered the RAF’s ability to effectively deliver on its constitutional mandate of administering claims for those who are victims or affected by crashes on our roads. The fragmented claiming process, siloed operations, unintegrated ICT systems, and an unfavourable organisational culture, amongst other things, contributed to the current organisational challenges.
The Customer Satisfaction Surveys conducted over the years highlighted key problems experienced by the claimants with respect to the service they have been receiving from the Fund. These include but not limited to the following:
- Non-responsiveness to claimants’ queries across the claims value chain.
- High rate of repeat calls.
- Lack of a central place to handle queries effectively and efficiently.
- Limited systems and tools to optimally manage Call Centre operations.
With a staff complement in excess of 3000 employees and more than 25 physical and digital platforms, it became cumbersome to track documentation, queries and complaints received and the status of each document.
The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiative is a strategic response to these challenges. In developing its 2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan, it became clear that the RAF required a solution to address the stakeholder pain-points: from a people, process, and technology perspective.
The RAF therefore needed a solution that could centralise and optimise all enquiries handling, acting as a central point of key claimant interactions, and further provide a holistic view of the organization’s interactions with claimants and other stakeholders at large.
For the RAF, Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy for improving service delivery. This is done by focusing on customer needs and creating an attentive relationship with its stakeholders. It involves a personalized and interactive approach for the entire claimant lifecycle.
CRM is a holistic approach to managing customer relationships through its ability to combine people, processes and technology to understand and serve RAF’s customers. Furthermore, CRM provides analysis of customer data and behavior patterns which can improve business decisions to improve customer value.
Through CRM, the RAF will be able to centralise all customer interactions, regardless of the channel used by the Claimant or stakeholder. CRM will enable the RAF to measure its performance against customer relationship targets, such as the rate of query and complaints resolution and the age of unresolved queries and complaints.
The underlying goal is to develop trust between the RAF and claimants, to a point where they reach out to the Fund instead of allowing themselves to be exploited by middlemen.
The CRM solution intends to centralise and optimise all enquiries handling and acting as a central point for all key information and documentation related to claims and legal administration, thereby generally improving the customer experience.
In line with the strategy, operating and servicing model, the CRM solution will contribute towards improved RAF service delivery, as the solution aims to enhance the customer experience and improve the management of operational service levels, and subsequently improve the customer satisfaction index.
The CRM solution will assist the RAF in the quest to improve customer experience and transform the RAF into a more customer-centric and efficient organisation through improved processes, better management of turn-around times and general improvement in management of relationships with claimants.
The solution is further anticipated to assist with the improvement of governance and the strengthening of organizational controls.
The RAF envisaged a Contact Centre that would have dedicated customer platforms to provide tailored services to Claimants. During the deliberations of which customer platforms would be prioritized and driven through the CRM Solution, the RAF considered the outcomes of the RAF Customer Satisfaction
Survey which highlighted key drivers of customer dissatisfaction such as failure to follow up or provide feedback, complaints which were not fully resolved satisfactorily and a general lack of understanding of RAF claims processes.
Ladies and gentlemen;
RAF Customer Satisfaction Survey further identified effective resolution of queries and communication as areas which required the most improvement by the RAF, as these recorded the lowest satisfaction scores.
A strategic partner, specializing in omni-channel CRM solutions, data management and analytics was engaged by the RAF to assist in implementing a CRM Solution and related services.
It is anticipated that the CRM Solution, called Digital Customer Engage (DCE), will provide dedicated platforms for interaction with claimants and stakeholders in the following various areas:
i. Claims Management – where claimants will interact with the RAF to lodge claims and follow up claims progress.
ii. Complaints Management – where claimants can register complaints or compliments
iii. Litigation and Trial Management – where claimant representative will be able to serve summonses, communicate set down notices and submit court orders.
iv. Medical Management - where claimants will be able to get support in relation to medical appointments, get authorization for treatment, and receive and make enquiries in relation to medical undertakings.
v. Finance – where claimants and suppliers will be able to submit remittances and invoices and follow up on payment statuses. This will further enable effective Request and Not Yet Paid (RNYP) management, ensuring that the RAF and the Law Firm’s RNYPs are aligned.
vi. Pre-Claim Management – where insured drivers will be able to communicate accident information to the RAF. Where EMS and other stakeholders will be able to provide accident and injured information to facilitate the activation of Medical Case Management.
The RAF understands that its claimants should be managed as an important asset. CRM is a solution that the RAF has implemented to understand its claimant groups and respond quickly – and at times, instantly – to shifting claimant needs.
The RAF will have a single profile of all these Claimant interactions, regardless of whether the interactions took place telephonically, by email, physically, or on social media, for each Claimant. This will ensure continuity in our conversations with our Claimants throughout the claim lifecycle.
CRM Technology will allow the RAF to collect and manage large amounts of Claimant data and carry out strategies based on that information. Through CRM, the RAF will be able to manage its resources more effectively, eliminating duplication of effort and improving internal communication in a way that adds value to Claimants across the claims value chain. Through the CRM Solution and the insights that will be gained, the RAF will be able to drive targeted marketing campaigns according to the needs of each claimant segment.
Programme Director;
Through the CRM Solution, 300 young, previously disadvantaged people were employed during the first quarter of this financial year (2023/2024). This enables the fund to contribute towards skills development for the youth so that they are best placed to access opportunities.
The RAF will also facilitate skills development, ensuring the youth access to available employment opportunities across the sector.
Since the implementation of the CRM solution on 3 July 2023, the RAF has recorded a total of 78,847 enquiries, with an average resolution rate of 90% across all active customer platforms.
Additionally, the RAF has been able to successfully track and resolve over 90% of queries and complaints received. The RAF has improved its service levels, which currently stand at 99,93%. This is the rate at which calls received are answered within 20 seconds.
The fund has noted a steady decline in the rate of repeat callers - a key indicator that queries and complaints are being resolved successfully and claimants are receiving the information and assistance they require.
The above-mentioned improvements are reflective of the improved proficiency levels of the 300 agents who went through a rigorous training intervention which covers key aspects of our claims process as an organisation.
Work is underway to implement Phase Two of the CRM journey, whilst also preparing to bring in an integrated claims management system over the next few months. This will enable the fund to settle a significant number of claims within 120 days whilst also reducing legal costs.
The claimants have been and will continue to be the lifeblood of the Road Accident Fund, and the Fund has declared 2023, as the year of the claimant.
As part of the overall efforts to improve to the service to the claimants, work is underway to activate a “Buzz Us” Campaign wherein claimants who get disconnected for whatever reasons (i.e. limited airtime, network failure etc.) are able to request a “Call Me Back” request.
In addition, RAF has also launched a new customer care number (087 820 1 111) as well as the new centralised email account (customerservices@raf.co.za) to signal the break from the past.
Distinguished Guests,
In conclusion, it is clear that the RAF has truly broken away from some of the inefficiencies that have characterised its operational model, resulting in immense dissatisfaction among its claimant clientele. Through the adoption and implementation of the CRM Solution, we have no doubt that this will yield tangible outcomes in the form of reversal of the tarnished reputation and bring speedier closure to client claims and queries. This is indeed a great stride towards a more efficient organisation that appreciates its mandate as rendering an invaluable service to the people. We will continue to exercise our oversight role to ensure that the gains of the intervention we are launching today will be built on and deliver a responsive RAF that executes its mandate with diligence at all times.
I thank you.
