Laree Daniel

Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer,
Assurant Health

She's been the senior vice president and chief administration officer of Assurant Health for less than two years, but that doesn't mean Laree Daniel hasn't already left her mark on the company's customers. Daniel has focused on building employee involvement, meeting individual customers' needs, and streamlining processes to increase first-contact resolution.

Daniel oversees the call center agents, including everything from quality assurance to training. She values the efforts those front-line members of her company make on a daily basis and the insight they provide to management. They are given a direct role in improving processes when changes are made.

"One of the things I strongly believe in is that your best ideas come from those who are talking to the customers, dealing with their issues, and interacting with them on a daily basis," Daniel says. When she became senior VP and CAO in 2005, Daniel led a touchpoint mapping project to find out where the customer experience could be improved. She used that insight to rework processes and create a customer-centric attitude in the organization.

To ensure active agent participation, Daniel uses a program called "Don's Dollars," named after CEO Don Hamm. Agents who receive a perfect evaluation score during a month are given privileges ranging from breakfasts served by supervisors to casual days. "If you have motivated, happy employees who are engaged in what they do, that creates happy and engaged customers," she says.

She also takes a direct role in the process, often serving as a secret shopper by calling in and speaking to her agents. Experiencing the process from the standpoint of a customer lets her identify where to make improvements. Daniel focuses on behaviors, both of customers and agents, to improve service. "We try to identify behaviors that can be conducive to good service," she says. "In our quality reviews we try to identify very specific instances or situations we can use as examples of what to do."

Daniel's "one and done" policy is one result of that. Daniel identified ways agents can satisfy a customer's concerns in the first call, leading to less time spent on hold and greater satisfaction. Her hands-on philosophy and continuous process improvements have impacted customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty. And she leads by example.

"I believe everybody wants to do the right thing," Daniel says. "We may not always know what that is or how to do it, but my job is to bring out the best in people by doing the right thing myself."

— Jeremy Nedelk