The Journey from Hi Marley Customer to Colleague: Q&A With CSM Angela Mitchell

Built by people who know and love insurance, Hi Marley continues to strengthen its team with experienced insurance professionals. Take Angela Mitchell, for instance, a Customer Success Manager at Hi Marley. Before joining Hi Marley, Angela spent 14 years at a New England-based P&C insurer in various customer service, claims and management roles.

As a former Hi Marley customer, Angela witnessed first-hand the platform’s impact on her organization. We sat down with her to learn more about her journey from Hi Marley customer to colleague and how she leverages her carrier experience as a Customer Success Manager today.

Q: You were on the team that helped implement Hi Marley at your carrier. How did you roll out the platform and encourage adoption?

The big thing that helped us increase engagement and adoption of Hi Marley was helping claims adjusters realize that adding Hi Marley to their workflow would revolutionize how they could process a claim. It’s a solution that eliminates pain points and helps move claims along faster.

For the rollout, we started with the power users—the adjusters who were already great at desk management and willing to try something new. Once they were comfortable with Hi Marley, we rolled it out to the larger user base. This phased approach allowed the power users who already went through the learning curve to serve as a resource to their peers; they could offer advice, support and best practices while also demonstrating how the platform made their day-to-day jobs easier. Organically, it worked really well.

Q: Thinking back to the initial rollout, what Hi Marley features made an immediate impact for adjusters?

If I had to narrow it down to the top three features, I’d say:

• Translation—Prior to Hi Marley, we had to outsource our language services, which was clunky, especially for phone calls. Hi Marley’s translation feature was huge. It eliminated so much of the back-and-forth and phone tag that often accompanies cases requiring translation support. It allowed us to meet the customers where they want to be and make insurance lovable by communicating with them in their preferred language.
• Scheduled messages—Most adjusters work on a diary system. At the start of the claim, there are already set actions that must happen at specific intervals throughout the claim lifecycle. Our adjusters could easily leverage Hi Marley’s scheduled messages to get ahead of these tasks and eliminate certain phone calls and follow-ups, all while making the customer feel cared for.
• Texting Photos— Texting photos, videos and other media files also had immediate, measurable impact. I can’t tell you the number of times I needed a form from a policyholder, but they struggled to figure out how to scan and then attach it to an email or forgot to mail a physical form. The ability to snap a photo and text it within the claim conversation is something almost everyone is familiar with and comfortable doing, and it saves so much time.

In addition to claim reps getting value from Hi Marley, our managers also benefited from the insights the platform offers. Hi Marley makes it so easy for managers to get a pulse on their teams. Even for carriers that aren’t super immersed in analytics, Hi Marley offers a snapshot of activities and benchmarks, and quantifies productivity; that insight is beyond helpful for coaching and mentoring.

Q: You’ve mentioned how much you loved working in insurance on the carrier side. What made you take the leap and join Hi Marley?

It was scary to make such a big change. If you asked me two years ago, I would have said I’d be at my former insurance company until I retired. I was really happy and had no plans to go anywhere.

I also have enormous respect for claims adjusters; it’s a difficult job. And I love insurance and wanted to continue improving the policyholder experience while finding ways to make adjusters’ roles easier. However, as a manager, dealing with escalated claims or triaging a claim that went awry made it challenging to find the time to focus on high-level problem-solving.

I got to the point where I felt like I wasn’t fixing the problem from where I sat. I needed to get outside of it and try to approach it in a different way. I wanted to be more proactive and less reactive. And that’s exactly what Hi Marley is doing; the company proactively solves issues for carriers, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Q: How does your carrier background help you as a customer success manager?

Insurance is such a specialized industry, and when you’re in that world, it seems like no one understands your day-to-day struggles. With my customers, it’s helpful that I’ve walked their path and can relate to their experiences, which builds trust. I know what adjusters care about, managers’ concerns, and what causes stress in their respective roles.

I’ve worked with many vendors throughout my career, and my interactions with Hi Marley’s customer success team always stood out because they consistently went above and beyond. CSMs at Hi Marley are invested in their customer success approach and strive to ensure a positive experience. They’re engaged and champions for their customers and want to support and help them in any way possible. When I was on the customer side, I felt that my CSMs truly understood my carrier’s unique needs and wanted to work with me to solve my teams’ problems. So, I’m excited to be on this side of the table, leveraging my background to dive in and address my customers’ pain points.