GAB Robins’ executive team admits the company has an obsession—it is relentless in its efforts to please clients. This major provider of property, casualty, and workers compensation claims services across the globe instills an ardent philosophy in its 4,000 employees: giving customers no less than 100%.

“We measure how we’re doing, and obviously we look at financial metrics like revenues, profits, and cash flow—but what’s much more important is making sure our customers are satisfied,” said Jun Tsusaka, chairman of the Parsippany, NJ-based company’s global operations. “We look stringently at audit scores, which is a reflection of our quality level and customer retention, and then we look at our new customer acquisition.”

These three factors, according to the chairman, are constantly monitored to make sure $421-million GAB Robins is doing a good job for its customers. “As long as our customers are happy, we can do anything with this organization,” Tsusaka said.

All held accountable
Many initiatives are undertaken to ensure all clients are pleased. Because GAB Robins handles as many as 1.7 million claims annually in 52 countries, its 4,000 global employees have to be as efficient as possible with handling accounts and customer service. Everyone in the organization takes equal responsibility for client satisfaction, said the president of GAB Robins’ insurance company services division, Rob Meyers. In other words, one client doesn’t belong to an individual—that client belongs to everyone in the company.
“If there’s not a passion to take care of a client seeking our services, quality will suffer, and accounts will be jeopardized,” he said. “Client management starts at a grassroots level, and we’re a claim-by-claim type of organization. Every claim is an opportunity for us to gain positive experiences with our clients.”

A good example of how GAB Robins exhibits its customer passion was demonstrated recently in the company’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf region of the US. Client response was critical and the hundreds of adjusters GAB Robins deployed were focused on timely and quality claims handling.

Customer focus is also the core principle of the company’s account management teams. GAB has two groups: senior account managers and internal account managers. Its senior account managers aid large clients with more complex demands and spend quality time on site, analyzing their data and making recommendations for program changes to improve outcomes. The internal management team works with smaller and medium-sized clients, handling renewals, service issues, client questions, and reports.

To position itself closer to its customers, the company provides access to many of its educational programs at its professional development center, which fills clients in on GAB operations, risk management, and industry trends, among others. “This further ties our clients in to GAB,” said Paul Bode, president of GAB’s risk management services division. “We have invested heavily in relationship building and account management strategies.”

Custom service
Those aren’t the only major investments the 120-year-old company has made. GAB has devoted more than $60 million in technology to create a state-of-the-art, web-based claims management and reporting system called ACIS. According to Meyers, ACIS is a key differentiator. “This is a proprietary platform developed by GAB Robins specifically designed to meet the needs of our customers. Many of our competitors buy a canned product. We developed and own the code to our ACIS product, which allows us to be more flexible for our clients,” he explained.

The system is unique because it provides data to anyone involved in an account relationship, from client to adjustor, and it operates in real time. “With the wide range of clients we have, from self insurers to program managers to carriers, their expectations and needs can vary, and we have the flexibility to modify our platform to be client specific,” Meyers said.

In addition to ACIS, the company offers two web-based products for its customers, MyGABR.com and ClienTelligent. These products enable clients to view their account activity, photos and documentation, and run reports on a real-time basis. “We’re constantly looking at ways to use technology and our ACIS platform to be more timely in getting information to our clients, to differentiate ourselves from competitors, and to be able to customize our relationships with clients,” Meyers said.

The company remains optimistic about solidifying its position as an even stronger leader in its industry. GAB has a global reach and is the second largest loss-adjusting firm globally. According to Meyers, this puts GAB everywhere clients need it to be. “This is extraordinary for a business like ours. The industry knows our name,” he said.

Said Bode: “The reason for our optimism is that we’re operating in a fairly mature market. We have a number of competitors both nationally and regionally, but there’s a lot of room to grow. We’re taking the right steps to continue to distinguish ourselves as the undisputed leader in our marketplace. Markets harden and soften, and industry changes come and go, but we continue to weather those storms, so our optimism about our future remains intact.”