Insurance - Engaging customers with an excellent customer experience

Generate positive customer experiences with surveys and test consultations

Insurance companies and building societies operate in markets with changing legal frameworks, weak margins, and declining customer loyalty. Sales activities and customer loyalty measures are therefore becoming increasingly important.

For many years, concertare has been advising insurance companies and building societies on topics such as customer acquisition, customer loyalty, consulting quality, and sales orientation. With an integrated measurement of customer wishes, customer satisfaction, and customer experience, concertare provides information on a local and central level which enables the rapid implementation of optimization measures.

We have carried out projects with a wide range of different tasks, measuring and developing the performance of many thousands of brokers, advisors, and customer contact staff.

Projects carried out:

Test consultations
Surveys of the sales organization
Customer surveys
Process analyses

PROJECT GOALS AND SERVICES FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES

Increasing customer satisfaction through better quality of advice in contact with insured persons and home savings customers, greater service orientation, and customer-centric programs
Review and further development of contact quality at all customer interfaces and touchpoints along the customer journey in customer care
Test consultations on products and services of various degrees of complexity (motor vehicle, life, home contents, occupational disability, legal protection, home savings, taking out loans, etc.)
Conducting audits and test consultations to verify compliance with internal company standards, especially in the areas of consulting, sales, marketing, service, and compliance
Conducting audits and test consultations to verify compliance with legal standards (e.g., maintaining consulting protocols or consulting obligations)
Increasing the contract signing rate through targeted development of customer service staff in terms of their advisory and sales skills
Determination of training needs for insurance brokers, customer advisors, service employees
Verification of training success through training success monitoring programs
Observation of the competition and generation of benchmark data, including all relevant institutes in the insurance industry
Studies on special topics such as video consulting

Projects (Extract)

INSTRUMENTS FOR IMPROVING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP IN insurance companies

As part of our mystery research and survey projects in the insurance sector, a variety of survey instruments were used to collect a wide range of data on quality in customer contact. The most important methods used are:

Surveys using mystery research methods (mystery shopping, test consulting, silent monitoring, quality analysis of recorded conversations)
Customer surveys, employee surveys, partner surveys, e.g., of sales and retail partners
Process analyses, for example, of the processing of potential customer inquiries and leads, the follow-up of consulting contacts, compliance with legal requirements or internal bank standards.

MYSTERY RESEARCH / MYSTERY SHOPPING FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES

Mystery shopping is used by insurers to measure and develop all customer contact channels, in particular through test consultations, test calls, test emails, observations, and audits.

A special feature of these mystery research procedures is that in many cases these instruments are used not only for measurement, but also for individual and continuous employee development of the customer advisors. They enable individual bank consultants or insurance brokers to reflect on their consulting behavior from the customer's point of view and thus continuously improve their service orientation and consulting quality. Our test customers (mystery shoppers) are specially trained for consulting tests of insurance and financial products, such as home loan and savings contracts, and evaluate all elements relevant to the quality of customer contact on the basis of a questionnaire previously agreed with you as the customer, and can thus provide objective feedback on the conversational situation experienced.

Particularly in industries with products and services that require explanation, mystery shopping can be used to test criteria that cannot be assessed in a pure customer survey. This applies, for example, to all internal standards that are not even known to normal insurance or building society customers. These internal standards are communicated to trained mystery shoppers, who are then given thorough training to enable them to assess whether these standards have been met. This also makes it possible to check statutory advisory requirements.

Another important aspect of testing is the recording of a holistic customer experience for all sub-aspects of the customer journey. This can include, for example, the initiation phase, in which test calls (mystery calls) or test emails (mystery mails) are used to measure and develop topics such as an initial inquiry, e.g., for home savings loans, life or disability insurance, or the annual approach to change car insurance, a request for information, or an appointment. The next step is a visit to the insurance broker or consultant. Depending on the procedure, which is of course individually adapted to your objectives, aspects of the branch (findability, parking situation, presentation of financial products, cleanliness and order, etc.) as well as employee-related aspects (greeting, needs analysis, quality of advice, behavior, etc.) are tested. The so-called follow-up can also be checked: the testers wait to see whether the broker or customer advisor actively and promptly follows up on the advisory contact made or the conversation held.

CUSTOMER SURVEYS AND EMPLOYEE SURVEYS AT INSURANCE COMPANIES

In addition to mystery research methods such as test consultations, concertare has been conducting surveys of all kinds for clients in the insurance sector for many years. As one of the classic instruments of market research, we mainly implement customer surveys. The most frequently used type is the customer satisfaction survey among insurance customers. In many cases, however, an expectations survey is also carried out.

Customer surveys can be periodic or related to a transaction. In periodic surveys, a representative sample is usually surveyed once a year on various topics. The survey design is usually very comprehensive and places greater time demands on the customer.

Transactional surveys relate to a transaction and are conducted very close to the time of the transaction. They are usually very short and can be answered by the customer in a few seconds. Due to the continuous and timely execution, control data with a very high quality is obtained over time.
Employee surveys are a proven instrument for determining the satisfaction and potential of insurance and bank employees. We usually combine this first step with advice based on the analysis on how the insurance company or bank can develop its employees in a targeted manner and thus ensure higher consulting quality, service orientation, and ultimately high customer satisfaction.

IMPROVED QUALITY OF ADVICE LEADS TO GREATER CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

The objective of the projects in the implementation of mystery shopping in the insurance sector can be very different. Basically, the following orientations can be distinguished, which can be served either individually or in combination:

Projects for the development of the employees: With regard to a better customer orientation, more quality in the consulting contact, increase of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, new customer acquisition and customer recovery as well as the follow-up rate. Such projects are usually initiated by the sales department.

Projects to develop training needs or measure training success: The aim of these projects is to review and adapt training concepts, training content, and coaching measures. Clients of such projects in the area of training are usually the Training or Personnel Development / Human Resources department.

Projects to determine lost sales and lost contracts: Here, we test the extent to which brokers or customer advisors are exploiting the potential for cross-selling and upselling, for example, by also offering insurance products for private customers to an existing business customer.

Process tests: Here, existing or newly introduced processes are tested for efficiency, security, and customer perception.

Usability tests: Here, web-based applications and the homepage are checked for user-friendliness, customer perception, and process optimization.

Special projects: For example, to check the extent to which compliance requirements are implemented in the execution of defined business processes.

BENCHMARK STUDIES FOR INSURANCES

Benchmark studies are an effective means of comparing the company with its competitors at various levels. This can cover various areas, such as needs analysis and interviewing, the approach to certain topics (online consulting, consulting regarding accident and occupational disability insurance, etc.). Such examinations usually involve a large number of tests and are correspondingly costly.

concertare regularly conducts corresponding benchmark tests on all relevant insurance companies and building societies in the German market, in which the performance of the market participants is measured in a comparable manner. This data is available to all insurers and bank/financial service providers, who can use it to compare themselves with any other market participants.

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR INSURANCE COMPANIES, BANKS AND HOME LOAN SOCIETIES

Current studies, trends, and practical examples on the topics of mystery shopping, test consulting, and customer relationship management in the insurance and banking sector and the financial services industry can also be found in our Infocenter as well as on the concertare blog.