RAC

Background

As part of their continuous drive for innovation and best use of technology, the RAC embarked on a project to modernise an on-premise data management system that was no longer fit for purpose for their Legal Services business. The RAC required a modern, scalable, and adaptable system to enable their claims departments to efficiently receive and respond to claims, taking advantage of automation capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics 365 was chosen so the RAC could transition to a cloud-based solution on the Microsoft stack that offered advanced process automation and powerful integration and customisation capabilities to fulfil their requirements.

Initially, the RAC engaged with Chorus to provide consultancy around document templates and management within Dynamics 365, to ensure that the teams could easily create templated policy and claims letters to send to customers. This was a small element of the wider project that had already begun, however, following the success of this consultancy work and the strength of the relationship, Chorus became their strategic project partner.

Working with Chorus

“We had a very clear view of our requirements and goals, however we wanted a partner that we could trust and would work quickly to deliver the remaining project within tight timescales” explains Mark Withers, CIO at the RAC. “Our early engagement with Chorus gave us that confidence. We quickly established an open, collaborative relationship and came to value their expertise which had a positive impact in shaping our thinking.”

Hanna Toremark, Operations Manager at Chorus explains “Following discovery, our early advice was to move away from a big bang approach and to move to an agile approach. We proposed to start by focusing on their internal facing team to reduce project risk and so that we could go through development, test and UAT to resolve any teething issues with one department and apply lessons learned to each incremental phase. By phasing the projects, we could migrate data in stages and enable teams to get up and running much faster than if every team had to wait until the end of the project.”

“We know that a strong partnership is key to a successful CRM, so we embed this into our approach” adds Hanna. “With daily stand-ups from day one, retrospectives after each business unit go-live and centralised communications we were able to work collaboratively and easily together. We also ensured the same senior consultant and project manager throughout the project to ensure consistency, which helped us to build a great relationship.”

Simplifying Dynamics 365

As well as adapting the project delivery to an agile approach, the system itself was reviewed. As the system development had already begun, the team at Chorus undertook a system review to suggest enhancements and outline remaining work to go into the project backlog.

“A functional system needs to be easy for staff to use so that they can quickly perform the actions they need” explains Nick Murdock, the project’s senior CRM consultant from Chorus. “We focused on simplicity; streamlining workflows and business process flows that capture key details during the claims process whilst taking advantage of the features in Dynamics 365. With templated documents pre-built into the system, staff could simply click through a process and many of the manual tasks were automated to save them time. On top of staff experience, another strength of a simplified system is that it is far easier to maintain and support, which benefits the internal teams at RAC.”

“Now our claims departments are benefitting from Dynamics 365 and have the functionality needed to allow them to quickly respond to our customers and continue to deliver high-quality service” concludes Mark. “Having a strong relationship with Chorus has been critical to the success of the project and we have been particularly impressed by their agility and team mentality.”