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CIECA CSI Committee

 

For the last year and a half, CIECA’s CSI committee has been meeting to develop and standardize the Customer Survey Indexing process, questions and responses. Soon the format will be released to the public. So how did it come to pass? What impact will this have on the industry?

 

First let’s start at the beginning. Around the year 2000, one insurance carrier requested that CSI be a component to gauge the performance of their Direct Repair Partner shops. Many insurance companies followed suit by mandating the same thing from their DRP shops. This action led to the rise of the independent survey company. Each CSI provider had and still has different questions, scoring, methodologies and the baselines were all different. This issue was brought to CIECA and it was ripe for standardization. However, this marked a change for CIECA. Prior to this committee, CIECA was focused on partners exchanging data. This was the first time CIECA was asked to standardize a process. Instead of focusing only on the data piece, CIECA focused on the process piece. This was important because, without it, the major issues would not have been addressed or fixed.

 

What issues were addressed exactly? It is well established that CSI scoring is a major component to the exchange of information among the customer, insurer, shop, glass and rental company. Everything gets tracked from the first notice of loss on though the estimate, repair order and so on. Prior to the standard, each insurer required the shop to purchase and use a different CSI provider. This mandate forced shops with different DRP’s to purchase and use multiple CSI vendors, resulting in a multiplication of costs to satisfy the CSI requirement. The big three estimating systems are starting to become standardized and they will be able utilize the CSI standard at some point in the future. The CSI component will now dovetail into the BMS migration. Shops will soon be able to choose just one CSI company, theoretically, as the questions and answers will be the same and will therefore satisfy all insurers CSI requirement.

 

The major CSI companies were not thrilled with this changeover at first. Rather than sell their service to one insurance company who will mandate that their shops have to purchase it to keep their DRP status, the shop now becomes the customer. This forces the CSI companies to get more competitive and service levels will increase and product offerings will increase as a result. The value of CIECA is that it speaks for all partners. The pain points will go away as adoption takes place because if you standardize communication, scoring, platform and incorporate into your technology, your business will become more efficient and more profitable.

 

This CSI standardization process, generated excellent participation, received excellent engagement, and the committee is ready to put a bow on it and make it public.