Team Spotlight: Matt Cronican
This month the Field Pros Direct Team Spotlight gets shined on our Director of Customer Success, Matt Cronican for his two-year anniversary. For those of you who are new here, this series is a Q&A style-blog that will introduce you to our team on a deeper level. We highlight a different team member on their anniversary to ask them questions ranging from professional to personal.
Customer Success is a huge part of Field Pros core values, making Matt’s job incredibly important. He does a great job empowering carriers and adjuster success, as you will see throughout the interview. Matt’s problem-solving mindset and dedication to his job influenced a lot of the conversation - and we even discovered a great fun fact at the end!
What is your role at Field Pros Direct? What does your day-to-day look like?
As the Director of Customer Success, my role is to ensure that our client’s guidelines and processes are implemented properly. The client guidelines range from how to assign claims, how to review claims and beyond. Based on their guidelines I will create training programs and processes and make sure any changes to these guidelines are clearly communicated. I also work closely with the team and clients throughout the onboarding process.
Each day looks very different and changes often - especially during CAT season. This is why, for me, it's important to plan what items need to get done and give myself flexibility to handle the unexpected. Each morning starts with running reports on claims received and file statuses. This way I can make sure that our open inventory is being addressed and I can monitor capacity. In preparation for CAT season I’m hosting a lot of training calls for reviewers and adjusters to make sure that everyone is up-to-date. We all know how during CAT season the schedule goes out the window and you have little room to adjust.
Do you have any tips for keeping your team organized during CAT season?
I think it boils down to communication, trust and expectations. Before and during CAT it’s important to set clear expectations so that everyone knows who is responsible for what. More importantly, creating a team of people you trust. When I assign something to one of our team members, there is no question in my mind whether or not it will be completed. Frequent communication is paramount. During a CAT there’s no room for slipping up, so I make sure that I communicate with the team daily (or multiple times a day) during a CAT to answer any questions or offer assistance.
Over the past year, what was your most rewarding experience?
There are a number of projects that I’ve been a part of this past year and am proud to be a part of. First off, our team has strategically doubled in size over the past year. We want to be a success story for our clients, so hiring talent from inside and outside of the industry helps us deliver on our promise. It’s been exciting to be along for the ride.
Another one is the completion of phase 1 of our field application that we’ve rolled out to our adjusters. I work closely with our adjuster network, so I hear first-hand when they are having a problem. Once we rolled the app out, we saw that it reduces turnaround times and unnecessary phone calls and emails. It was fun and rewarding to work on a product that actually helped them.
My most recent one was our Virtual Adjusting platform. On top of helping build out the program I stayed heavily involved in monitoring it’s progress after launching. I remember getting a call from a client after we completed our first virtual claim telling me how great this was. That’s the best reward - knowing that your hard work made an impact.
What is your favorite benefit or feature of the Field Pros Direct solution?
Our team and customer service. I know that’s broad and vague, but I’ve never worked with a more creative group that’s easy to communicate with. Everyday I know what is expected of me and what’s expected of others. More importantly, I know that I can ask for help if I need it. The fact that the team will gladly accept tasks when I need help, knowing that I would do the same for them really gives me peace of mind.
Over the past year, what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
Speak up! I wasn’t always one to speak up if I wasn’t the subject matter expert in the area. I’ve now realized that if I have an opinion about something, the team encourages me to let it be known. We all are SME’s of different areas of business and likely have overlapping knowledge. I may be the go-to person for a specific topic, but another team member may have insights that could trigger me to think about the topic differently.
Another is to ask for help if you need it. The last thing you want is something to get missed because you didn’t want to ask for help. Asking for help is encouraged and when I’m not as busy, I offer my help. It’s a two-way street. Plus, when I help it generally teaches me something new. You never know when you’re going to learn something that can be applied to your role.
In 3 words, how would you describe Field Pros Direct?
Intelligent, Collaborative and Supportive.
We have brought together a lot of skill sets from different industries to be successful in anything we embark on. I’m surrounded by people with tremendous knowledge in business operations, finance, HR, programming and more. And, as I mentioned earlier, no matter what the skill set or job title is - everyone is here to support one another.
What is something that people may not know about you?
People probably don’t know how much I like to design and engineer things during my off time. This may be to my detriment, but I love finding different ways to solve problems I find. Recently I’ve gotten into 3D printing. During my free time I’m at home with a compass, calculator and graph paper thinking about what type of useful thing I can design and print. It’s challenging and has made me relearn things like trigonometry and geometry. It’s in my nature to solve problems. By designing and printing solutions, it makes me approach and solve problems differently and helps me see the big picture which I can translate into other areas of my life.
What is the most recent “cool” thing you’ve designed and/ 3D printed?
I’m a truck guy. I’m on my 3rd truck and frequently go camping with friends in Western North Carolina every year. One thing I find myself doing is changing up the way I sleep when I camp. I may go from a tent, to a hammock, to sleeping in the truck. No one way is ever perfect. One day I decided to use the dimensions of my truck bed to print brackets that mount to the bed rails. Using these brackets I was able to put together custom tent poles that fit into them, giving me a quick and secure way to sleep without having to carry a lot of extra gear.
You can find more about Matt Cronican at www.fieldprosdirect.com/meet-the-team or connect with him on Linkedin.
Interested in hearing more about Matt’s 3D adventures or asking Matt a question? Leave us a comment below!