Rick Sjaardema on the growth of Smart Letselschade

“It inspires confidence and that is very important for our clients.”
Rick Sjaardema on the growth of Smart Letselschade

Jouke, Rick and Lisa grew up in the workplace of their parents’ insurance office. A classic office, into which you could still walk for a cup of coffee and insurance. In 2014, the three children started Smart Letselschade together with their father. Two brothers and a sister at the helm, does that not mess things up a bit? Not if you help them sort things out, it appears. Twenty people are now employed at Smart Letselschade. Only this time, the employees go for coffee at the clients.

https://smartletselschade.nl/

Rick Sjaardema: “The personal approach is the strength of our success. We visit each client at home for an “intake interview”. Clients feel that they are being heard and we understand the client’s needs better. That makes for good word-of-mouth advertising.”

Also outside the region

Sjaardema: “Today someone from our office in Leiden is going to Maastricht for an appointment. We shall not see that person back in the office today. That takes a lot of time, but we believe in the personal investment in order to be able to handle the matter properly. It gives confidence, a single point of contact. That is very important for our clients.”

“In 2015, we recruited our first employee and, from there on, we have grown to the 20 employees now.“ Being able to manage the large increase in business and staff is a challenge. Sjaardema: “Good software for managing the firm is essential for us. We store all the files and associated documents digitally and they must be easily searchable.“ And, by everything, Sjaardema really means everything. “We store all e-mails and then we can see at a glance what is going on within a file. Because when a client calls, we wish to have the current state of affairs in front of us immediately.“

The personal approach has meant that Smart Letselschade has grown very quickly and that, in turn, makes managing it even more challenging. Sjaardema: “The bigger we become, the more difficult it is. In 2015, when we were three people, we knew all the files. That personal overview is no longer there, but it still exists digitally. Kleos helps enormously in maintaining the overview. Every Monday, we sit down with the team managers and, thanks to Kleos, we can quickly see how many files each person has ongoing and how many tasks are still open. From that, we can see very well who can take on new intakes. That is ideal.

In March 2018, the young company moved for the third time into new premises. The wish was to use the attic here in two years, but now it is already filled. Sjaardema is cautious. Probably a consequence of his upbringing in risk aversion. But, even here, he cannot help but confirm that they have done excellently. “Yes, that’s right. If we also have that 140 m² happily full, then I dare to say that we have really done very well.”