RAF launches digital solution it believes legal fraternity will ‘hate’

The Road Accident Fund (RAF) has launched a customer relations management (CRM) contact centre solution to enhance service delivery to claimants, which it believes will be “hated” by the legal fraternity.

RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo said on Monday the solution would help the RAF resolve a lot of issues, including claimants frequently asking about their claim, how far it has progressed and, most importantly, how much was paid out.

“I think lawyers are going to hate this. We understand why they will hate this because [it will reveal] if they attempt to take more than they are supposed to take of the claims and if they did not give the party-to-party costs back to the claimant.

“For years, lawyers have been holding and taking these amounts for themselves.

“This is an empowerment tool for our claimants,” he said.

Loggerheads

The RAF and the legal fraternity have been at loggerheads over a number of issues and blaming each other for problems at the fund.

These include long delays before claims are finalised and paid, the high number of RAF claims that are enrolled on high court rolls only for them to be settled on the day the case is to be heard, documents that have not been provided or are missing that prevent claims from being finalised, and allegations that some attorneys take more of the proceeds of claims than they are legally entitled to for their management of the claims process on behalf of claimants.

This led to lawyers from 10 organisations in July this year publishing a joint memorandum about a “crisis” at the RAF.

Read:
Lawyers’ damning memorandum on the Road Accident Fund
Mudslinging mars attorneys’ attempt to address RAF crisis

Deputy Minister of Transport Lisa Mangcu said on Monday the CRM will empower claimants “to take control of the claims process without the need for an attorney or a middle person”.

Mangcu said it will enable the RAF to:

• Centralise all customer interactions regardless of the channel used by the claimants or stakeholders; and
• Measure its performance against customer relationship targets, such as the rate of queries and complaints resolution and the age of unresolved queries and complaints.

Attempts to obtain comment from some of the 10 legal organisations who were signatories to the memorandum published about problems at the RAF were unsuccessful.

Legal council in crisis?

Letsoalo said it would be disingenuous to blame lawyers for causing all the delays in the finalisation of RAF claims.

But he said lawyers were partly to blame when they did not communicate with the RAF or when they did not give the RAF enough information to make an offer to a claimant.

Letsoalo admitted the RAF has its own inefficiencies that it is dealing with, which is why it has launched the integrated claims management system.

However, he lashed out at the Legal Practices Council (LPC), claiming it is in a crisis.

“I get shocked when people say the RAF is in a crisis when the LPC has been given so many matters that they have not dealt with,” he said.

“We have reported 102 law firms to the LPC, but nothing has happened to even one of them.”

Read:
RAF CEO: Crisis? What crisis?
Second Scopa visit to RAF offices highlights more problems

Letsoalo said the RAF has sufficient resources to hold lawyers to account but questions what happens to the ordinary person in the street whose RAF claims money has been siphoned off by their lawyer.

He said self-regulation of the legal fraternity through the LPC is a problem and believes more capacity and power must be given to the Legal Services Ombud.

‘Centre will save the RAF money’

Letsoalo believes the new CRM contact centre will result in the RAF “easily” being able to make an offer to claimants within the 120-day deadline and see a significant reduction in the number of RAF claims enrolled in high courts countrywide.

He said it would also save the RAF money and help repair the fund’s reputational damage.

Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said the launch of the CRM centre solution marks a major milestone in the transformation of the RAF.

She said it will assist the RAF in improving customer experience and transforming the fund into a more customer-centric and efficient organisation through improved processes, better management of turnaround times and general improvement in management of relationships with claimants.

The solution is further anticipated to assist in improving governance and strengthening organisational controls, she said.

Chikunga said it is anticipated that the CRM solution, called Digital Customer Engage, will provide dedicated platforms for interaction with claimants and stakeholders in the following areas:

• Claims management, where claimants will interact with the RAF to lodge claims and follow up claims progress;
• Complaints management, where claimants can register complaints or compliments;
• Litigation and trial management, where claimant representatives will be able to serve summonses, communicate set-down notices and submit court orders;
• Medical management, where claimants will be able to get support in relation to medical appointments, get authorisation for treatment, and receive and make inquiries about medical undertakings;
• Finance, where claimants and suppliers will be able to submit remittances and invoices and follow up on payment statuses, which will further enable effective Request and Not Yet Paid (RNYP) management, ensuring that the RAF and the law firms’ RNYPs are aligned; and
• Pre-claim management, where insured drivers will be able to communicate accident information to the RAF, and emergency medical services and other stakeholders will be able to provide accident and injured information to facilitate the activation of medical case management.

Improved service levels

Chikunga said that since the implementation of the CRM solution on 3 July, the RAF has recorded a total of 78 847 inquiries, with an average resolution rate of 90% across all active customer platforms.

She said the RAF has also successfully tracked and resolved 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,” she said.

“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.”

Chikunga said these improvements reflect the improved proficiency levels of the 300 agents who underwent rigorous training covering key aspects of the claims process.

Read:
RAF appeals ruling that its non-payment of medical aid-covered claims is unlawful
Discovery appeals dismissal of call for RAF to resume medical aid claimant payments
Council for Medical Schemes red flags RAF non-payment
Spat over no-payment directive to medical funds intensifies

She said work is underway to implement phase two of the CRM journey while also preparing to bring in an integrated claims management system over the next few months.

She said this would enable the RAF to settle a significant number of claims within 120 days while reducing legal costs.

“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,” she said.

“Through the adoption and implementation of the CRM solution, we have no doubt that this will yield tangible outcomes in the form of a reversal of the tarnished reputation and bring speedier closure to client claims and queries.”

Listen to this Moneyweb@Midday podcast with Jeremy Maggs:

You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.