Customer Advocacy
I recently read an interesting report by Forrester in their “Customer Experience Index” series. It was all about the insurance carriers and what their customers think of them. They recommended that insurance carriers should appoint an executive who is dedicated to improve the customers’ experience but what really caught my eye was the endnote that talked about customer advocacy.
Forrester argued that it is not customer satisfaction but customer advocacy that encourages a customer to do more business with a company. They define customer advocacy as doing what is best for the customer even if it is not what’s best for the company’s bottom line. They describe four components of customer advocacy, simplicity, benevolence, transparency and trustworthiness.
To be transparent and simple you need to have clear customer communications. How else can a customer know that you are trying to do what’s best for them?
Interesting stuff. Advocacy is a hard thing to systemize and deliver. If you’re a claims adjuster for an insurance company, your job is to spot signs of potential fraud. You’re not doing so to be a jerk, but because your company’s assets should be used to help people with legitimate losses. So, as a company, you train your staff for hours on how to spot fraud. The agent, whose job it is to get and keep customers, hopefully acts as your advocate in the process, telling the Claims Department that you are an honest soul who hasn’t any motive for fraud. As a company, you train these agents extensively in how to build relationships and sell policies. These conflicting forces are usually below the line of visibility for customers, but the outcome is often a result of one person or another not doing their job. If the adjuster suspects fraud and your agent is sleeping at the wheel, as a customer you are going to feel betrayed. If the agent does what he or she is trained to do, likely the customer will be paid. The more important question is (or should be) how do you know if your people are doing their jobs well? What metrics do you have in place to demonstrate that? And, are you training them to do the right thing in the first place.
Agents need to take a more active role with their customers especially when there is a claim. This is the only time most people interact with their carrier and is the most critical time for the carrier to prove why the customer should not shop. If the agent can’t be involved then why would anyone need them? Just purchase your insurance online and deal with the waiting periods of insurance customer service centers.