The Allianz Australia Group was one of the first companies to pilot Allianz's Customer Focus Initiative and introduce the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customers' willingness to recommend Allianz. An interview with Managing Director Terry Towell.
Allianz Australia Insurance Group
Sydney, Feb 13, 2007
Does the customer focus initiative improve the bottom line?
Towell: In Australia, where approximately 80 percent of the market is shared between a few players, quality service and innovative solutions to customer and business partner needs are increasingly becoming the deciding factors in gaining new business and retaining customers.
Although we are in the early stages, we’re definitely seeing correlations between retention, growth rates, and NPS results in our broker channel. In the past twelve months, we won some significant accounts that would have been beyond our reach previously. We’re now much more focused on delivering customer solutions.
Towell: "Employees are the face of the company to our customers"
Has the company been able to measure any benefits?
Towell: We’re finding that sales people with positive NPS scores also achieve higher premium and retention rates. NPS is proving to be a tool that helps our sales force to evaluate their individual performance and to identify where improvements need to happen. It also helps us better tailor training for our claims staff and we’ve seen an increase in customer compliments as one outcome.
From a qualitative perspective, NPS is providing us with a rich bank of customer feedback. This helps us to better pinpoint specific improvements needed, and also flags emerging issues.
What has the response from employees been?
Towell: They have welcomed the company’s intensified focus on what we call the "Allianz Experience" – our aim is to deliver a consistent and positive customer experience every time, so that we build customer loyalty.
Customers and business partners have noticed the improvement and reflected this in better NPS scores and more business coming our way. Employees, rather than management, are the company's human face seen by its customers.
How is Allianz Australia Group building the cultural mindset needed to create a customer-focused organization?
Towell: Communication and leadership by example are key to creating a customer-centric mindset. For example, the customer message is incorporated into recruitment, induction, training, and top-down and bottom-up communication channels. Every employee has a customer service metric in their job accountabilities.
It is also important to acknowledge superior customer service efforts. We do this via local recognition programs, sharing positive news on our intranet and through our Customer Compliments Database.
What are the next challenges on your customer service agenda?
Towell: Embedding customer service into the DNA of the company – both processes and people. We’ve made a strong start.
These days I receive many more complimentary letters from customers. That’s a great sign that the Allianz Australia Group is on the right path towards service excellence, and it’s my mission to ensure that we get there.
This article was first published in the employee magazine "Allianz Journal".