Customer Champion of the Year - Insurer
This category is designed to recognise projects that have resulted in measurable improvements to the end-customer experience, in any business line.
Entrants may have introduced new technology into processes to put the customer at the heart of what they do, given customers fast, accurate ways to report claims, or invested in customer education to support their decision-making. Entrants were expected to demonstrate their outstanding commitment to the end-customer.
All the finalists are listed below. Use the links to find out more from the entrants who have answered our series of Q&As.
Ageas Insurance
Aviva
Direct Commercial Limited
iFarm Underwriting
Markel UK
Zurich Insurance
Ageas Insurance
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
We have highlighted the positive results of our customer focused transformation programme ‘The Ageas Way’ that has been successfully introduced across all our customer contact centres. The initiative, which has a customer driven purpose and is designed to understand customer demand, improve efficiency and empower our contact centre consultants, focuses on ensuring individual customer needs are the core focus of every interaction. It’s our purpose to make insurance easy and put customers at the heart of everything we do and it’s this clarity and key principles that has further enhanced the customer experience.
Ageas Insurance Sales and Service Team
Can you share data or testimonials to back up your bid to win?
Customers are really feeling the impact of our enhanced service. One said “I was pleased with the very positive way in which all aspects have been covered. I was particularly impressed with the 'Customer Care' attitude which I received. It was a real pleasure to deal with people who you felt were there to be of assistance.” 94% of our employees also believe the programme has made a positive difference to their role. Lower levels of employee absence (3%) and attrition (27%) reflect this.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
‘The Ageas Way’ initiative has helped us achieve one of the lowest complaint volumes in the insurance sector. By aligning our people to the common goal of making insurance easy, ‘The Ageas Way’ has evolved from a solution, to being successfully embedded as second nature in everything we do. This has consistently allowed us to deliver excellent customer service and increased employee engagement. During the last 12 months, we have seen record engagement scores for our people and industry leading customers scores, including Net Promoter, Net Ease and First Contact Resolution.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
If we win, it would be fantastic recognition for all our people across the business for the great things they do for our customers. We would celebrate by praising our colleagues and sending out special thanks to all our people for their unified effort, dedication and commitment to making insurance easy. We would be extremely proud to be recognised for our hard work and determination to provide a positive experience for our customers.
Markel UK
What key achievement did your entry highlight?
With millions of livelihoods under threat during lockdown and benefits slow to materialise, supporting our customers to stay in business was very much top of mind.
We looked to settle valid claims quickly. And when claims were not so clear-cut, or even invalid, we still appointed loss adjusters because we knew they would provide valuable advice.
At the same time, our 100+ in-house tax and legal specialists were working to support brokers and SMEs. Our highly targeted 200+ specialist legal and tax guides and telephone advice were provided for free to over 800,000 businesses.
What sets your firm apart from the other shortlisted contenders?
Our ‘settle-first’ approach to claims has stood us (and our customers) in good stead over the years, and really showed its worth during the lockdown.
Having so many tax experts, solicitors and barristers available in-house through Markel Law and Markel Tax to support our customers gave us another big advantage. The guidance these teams delivered provided tremendous value at a really tough time for many.
Markel’s legal specialists provided phone-based legal advice 24/7 to over 89,000 UK companies and its tax team helped UK SMEs claim over £10m+ of tax credits during the lockdown period, generating valuable cash flow.
How will you celebrate if you are the victor?
Our broker partners and policyholders have certainly learnt, more so this year than ever, that they should Expect More from Markel. In this instance, ‘celebration’ might not be the right word as our entry relates to a lifechanging experience that our customers have unfortunately had to endure. However, we would recognise it as an endorsement of all the support we gave our customers and constant drive to do more for them. That is an achievement we’d certainly shout about!