Online motor insurance firm Geoffrey Insurance Services – part of the
Markerstudy Group of Companies – was named the ‘Best Small Contact Centre’ and ‘Best Insurance Company’ for customer service in the UK at this year’s Customer Service Awards 2017, held last week. Geoffrey was also shortlisted in four categories for social media, calls, live chat and email – an impressive feat.
The firm, which was set up in 2008, it is a division of Zenith Marque Insurance Services – formerly Chaucer – and provides its award-winning customers service via its contact centre in Whitstable, Kent.
Insurance Business caught up with Paul Baxter, head of direct at Markerstudy, to find out how Geoffrey managed to scoop the awards, and get some tips on how the industry should be using new technologies.
Insurance Business: How important is customer service in today’s business environment, and within the insurance space specifically?
Baxter: Companies make money by retaining customers – it’s essential for us and all businesses in the insurance industry and this is often a challenge, particularly with the new regulations on transparency. Despite not being a huge household brand, we have triumphed by providing a more personal service which, in turn, encourages great reviews.
Many customers come to us, a smaller player in a market of giants, after checking review sites and social media. We’ve actively identified ways to engage with our customers better, both inside and outside the contact centre, for instance by being the first in the UK to adopt EngageOne Video technology by Pitney Bowes. We’ll continue to look at new ways to make our customers feel valued. It’s not always easy for insurers to gain feedback, but our customers consistently recognise us publically for giving good service, which is invaluable.
Insurance Business: How is Geoffrey using technologies such as live chat and social media within the business?
Baxter: We use WhosOn for online chat and Sprout Social to manage our social media channels and pay particular attention to our tone of voice and content. Our employees all have special qualities and skills when it comes helping our customers and we want this to come across through these channels as well.
Insurance Business: What are the benefits of these technologies to both the company and to customers? Should more players in the insurance space be utilising these?
Baxter: For us, reliable technology is a critical issue - without it we limit our chances of providing an efficient service. Our target is to respond to social media enquiries within 10 minutes and we meet this objective consistently. We’re always looking at ways to optimise our timeframes for answering online chat and this is another area we’re improving.
We ensure the technology we use complements the service we deliver to our customers, but the ‘human approach’ remains our true competitive advantage.
Insurance Business: What has Geoffrey been focusing on that has helped it to win these awards?
Baxter: We have always made it our policy to put the needs of our customers at the heart of what we do but our people are the reason we win awards time after time. We choose our employees entirely for their ability to help others and give good service and we invest heavily in training them to do a great job, confidently and consistently. Our performance management processes focus wholly on customer service and compliance and not on traditional measures such as average handling time (the length of the average call) which tend to encourage people to do things which are not right for customers. This culture of excellent service and unfailingly doing the right thing, in addition to customer-focussed processes mean that we are being recognised through awards and favourable reviews.
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