Five Critical Customer Values

Ahead of Digital Claims 2023 on 24th April, we look at customer expectations with Kelly Ward, CEO & Country Manager at AXA Partners UK

 

Transcript

Kelly Ward: So they' (customer expectations) have always been changing it. It's not a recent thing. I think it's an acceleration that's been happening as a result of the environment and digitalisation. So when we put all of that together, the speed and gravitas of the change is what's catching a number of organisations out.

So from our perspective, it's really about understanding how customers are operating and for example  they're changing into family units. This is something I've talked about before, particularly elderly customers now getting younger, more digitally savvy family members to engage with organizations on their behalf. So from our perspective, we've always had five really key anchor points with customers, and I want to talk about is how that's changing with digitalisation.

So, Jeremy, if you can show those five points or I'll go through them.

So historically, what customers are most frustrated about with insurers is really that anxiety point of "I've paid you some money for a long period of time, I'm now ringing you when I need you, and I need that level of confidence" and listening to calls as I do, you can feel the relief with customers when we say to them, you know, "obviously you're covered, you've paid for it. It's in the terms and conditions. So it's it's absolutely fine. And this is what we're going to do".

I think what's now happening is "why aren't you guaranteeing I'm covered?" So "with the digital knowledge that you have and the data you have, I shouldn't have to tell you anything, you should know". And we've worked in areas such as parametric insurance, where you've got unarguable data sources, which means that coverage is the place to be. So that's number one.

Efficiency is really important. "Don't make me do all the work. Come on, take the burden off of me". And what that basically means is "make it digital". Everything else in the world is digital? Why are you forcing me to have to go off this path? So I'll give you one example. I've moved the utility provider recently and I was delighted to get a cheque for the amount that I was owed for £10.84 and it is now sitting on my desk and I'm now thinking about the amount of effort I havce to gio throughto get that £10.84  - actually going into a bank. Why are organisations doing this? We need to change.

The other part is being empathetic, I think, and this is perhaps a really good point for debate. I think you can have a fully digital journey and be totally empathetic. And perhaps that's one for debate. The fact that your digital journey is intuitive and understands what customers want is really how you can be empathetic. You always need to give the ability for people to be able to talk to someone if they want to. But if you go down to the younger generations, as I'm sure a number of you will encounter, even if you want to talk to your children about having dinner, typically it's over text, even though if they're in the next room. So digital is the way to be and it's only going one way.

Taking the burden off me is, is it simple? Which is too busy, so customers are just too busy. So all the work should be done as opposed to us requesting them to do a number of different things in terms of validating the claim.

And then finally, the most important one is even if the top four go wrong, if you deliver on your promise, you can recover it. If you don't deliver on your promise, you're in a really tricky situation.

So we really stand by these five research points. They are backed by customer feedback, but I'd be interested to see opinions as to different takes on it and indeed any others that the people feel are important.