“We are concerned about attending to our policyholders’ needs”
Esther Ortego, Customer Services at ASISA’s Offices, in Madrid
Healthcare personnel have been essential in this pandemic, but they could not have carried out their work without the support of many other professionals. Customer services personnel have worked tirelessly during these months to attend all the users’ queries.
Esther Ortego works in Customer Services at ASISA’s offices in Madrid and she recalls that at the beginning of the pandemic “all the offices were closed except for the ones located in the Hospital HLA Universitario Moncloa and in Calle Miguel Àngel, in Madrid. The entire flow of non-urgent consultations was centralised through emails, the website, social media, apps, the Chat Médico – ASISA Live and by the customer services telephone line, leaving the offices just for urgent attention and therefore preventing all unnecessary movement.”
She was one of the volunteers who came forward to work in the offices that remained open. “The human resources were distributed with a team of three people in the office in Miguel Ángel and one in Moncloa. To begin with, rotating shifts were planned and in order to avoid excess exposure, four volunteers came forward for an initial period of 15 days, which in the end was extended until today,” she explains. A team that has been reinforced in recent weeks to attend to the volume of policyholders who have passed through the offices.
For Esther, there were two important challenges to be faced during the State of Alarm. The first was “implanting tele-working, which involved a radical change in the working methods with a forced adaptation in record time and with over 90% of ASISA’s staff working from home.” But also, “to continue offering a fast, accurate and satisfactory personalised service. Showing that, during the worst moments, we were concerned about attending our policyholders’ needs, giving a quality service.”
Difficult days
She explains that the first days were difficult “due to the lack of knowledge about what was about to hit us. Not having the certainty of giving the expected answers generated stress and worry.” But above all, she recalls from those days, specific cases such as “a lady who came to my desk and broke down when she told me that she wanted to remove her husband from the policy. She started to tell me everything that had happened, that her husband had died alone, that she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to him and that her children were abroad. It was impossible not to empathise with her and it is very difficult to explain how I felt at that moment. Sadly, there have been many cases like this, with the death of our regional manager, Vicente Ferrero touching us directly.”
Very tough moments that they overcame thanks to their professionalism and to their colleagues. “We got it all off our chests by telling each other about the hardest experiences of the day and how we had reacted to them so that we could use them as guidelines for similar situations in the future. The support given by Doctor Mayero and the permanent presence of Doctor Muñoz has been very important, particularly helping us with the most conflictive cases.” •
Who she is?
Esther Ortego. She has worked in the Customer Services Department in ASISA’s offices in Madrid since 2018. She was one of the volunteers to attend in person all the policyholders who came to the two offices that remained open in Madrid.
