For many people, making phone calls creates anxiety, and no one likes being on hold. But for Definity’s Richard Morel and Kimberly Provost, putting themselves “on the line” for our customers is all in a day’s work. The best part? They wouldn’t have it any other way.
Richard, an auto Claims Representative at Definity’s Family Insurance in BC, has assisted thousands of customers in his 15 years with the company. From fender-benders to total write-offs, he takes pride in being a kind of ‘reverser of misfortune,’ helping waylaid customers get their vehicles — and lives — back to normal.
Occasionally, some of the everyday logistics of his job are affected by the pandemic’s lingering after-effects, including supply chain issues and longer wait times for vendor services. But Richard is adept at dealing with obstacles, employing his experience, creative thinking, tenacity, and communication skills to get things done. On a recent claim, he had to make use of all four.
“My customer had suffered a heart attack while driving, and his car needed to be taken to a repair facility due to the resulting single-vehicle crash,” Richard recalls. “He was dealing with his health and recovery and was particularly stressed because, coming out of COVID-19, it's been challenging to find body shops that will accept a vehicle that's not drivable.”
Still, Richard was unphased. “I started with a list of shops from our certified network that indicates whether they accept tows or not. Unfortunately, not all had their intake status up to date.” Daunted neither by this hiccup — nor geography, for that matter — Richard worked his way through the extensive list, finally locating a shop in Vancouver that was able to accommodate his Port Coquitlam-based customer.
“It took an hour and a half,” he remembers, “so I would get back to my customer periodically, letting him know, ‘I’m still calling out, still looking out for you,’ and eventually found the shop, made arrangements to get the vehicle towed over, and got everything confirmed,” Richard says with a smile. “And he was so happy after that level of service. He was, I’m sure, not expecting it, because he had tried on his own and couldn’t find anything. Now, all of his stress was gone.”
Richard says this is just one of the reasons he loves his job. “It’s great to see how much of an impact we can make. Sometimes it’s the small things, like you may think it’s a long call, but that call made someone’s life, made their day, made their month, and they left very happy. That is the worthwhile part.”
Over on the other side of the country, Richard’s colleague, Kimberly Provost, would concur. As a Senior Customer Service Representative in Sonnet’s Toronto office, she too understands the impact that being empathetic and proactive can have.
Kimberly’s recent “above-and-beyond” moment also began with a call — this one from a customer whose father had passed away without a named executor in his will. The individual was trying to cancel their deceased family member’s insurance, but needed to be appointed by the Ministry to do so.
Kimberly thought, “I wouldn’t want to be doing this while grieving either,” so she went out of her way to find all of the steps for appointment from the Ministry and stayed on the line with the customer to explain the process and made sure he knew where to go and understood the next steps. It was important to her that the predicament be resolved, all so that the family didn’t have one more thing on their list during the grieving process.
“These are always highly charged and emotional situations for both our customers and our team,” Kimberly says. “But it’s a real honour to be able to step in and make someone’s life easier, especially at a time when they really need it.”
Being administrative acrobats is something all our frontline team members take in stride. Richard sums up his ‘why’ this way: “It may sound a bit corny, but the most rewarding part of my job is really the ‘helping people’ part, making sure that they’re coming away from a traumatic experience knowing that they’re taken care of.”
We don’t think that’s corny at all.
After an unexpected accident or loss, our customers have enough on their plates. Definity’s nationwide team of Claims and Customer Service representatives go above and beyond to help their customers get back to normal as quickly as possible. See how Definity’s Richard Morel took matters into his own hands to resolve his customer’s concerns and deliver peace of mind.