The insurance industry often ranks at the bottom of customer satisfaction studies. Insurance companies typically interact with people who are going through difficult times, which increases the challenge of creating an exceptional customer experience. Those insurers that get it right have the potential to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives and help their organizations save money, increase revenue, and grow market share.

Four insurance companies have done just that, with the power of customer insights. By leveraging the voice of their customers, they were able to craft modern digital experiences, launch innovative products and services, and lower the cost and timeline of making decisions.  

For these reasons, Alida’s annual Delta Awards program —which celebrates the accomplishments of companies with best-in-class customer experience, Voice of Customer, and customer research programs— named them to our most recent class of Innovators.

These are their stories (insert drum roll here):

Sun Life U.S. taps into broker and employer communities to accelerate digital transformation

Sun Life needed to transform their digital experience to stay competitive and had to ensure their strategy would hit the mark out of the gate. Fast, iterative feedback from their customers would help them make sure new digital products and services are easy to use and quickly deliver the answers that consumers, brokers, and employers need to be successful.  

Sun Life now engages two online communities —one for insurance brokers and one for employers who select and manage benefits on behalf of their employees. The Digital Innovation team uses their feedback to build and evolve capabilities and offerings that improve connectivity and the overall experience of Sun Life’s clients.

For example, Sun Life discovered Human Resources professionals were overwhelmed with the task of educating employees about their benefits. Sun Life acted on this feedback and built a co-brandable website to help employers answer questions quickly and provide benefits information with confidence.

By leveraging their engaged communities, Sun Life has also been able to replace an annual survey program on insurance market trends, saving $200,000 and delivering results faster. In addition, Sun Life’s insight communities now give brokers and employers the opportunity to learn how their peers manage challenges, get helpful advice, and understand the changing insurance market, so they can better service their clients and employees. 

Employers and brokers love being part of the communities, rating their satisfaction 9/10, because they can see that their opinions directly inform Sun Life’s decisions. 

AIA Singapore slashes feedback response time by 33% with an always-on customer community

A  leading insurance company in Singapore, AIA aims to place customers at the heart of their decision-making to provide compelling products and services that drive growth. 

To achieve this, AIA Singapore had to gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ evolving needs, preferences, and motivations. The company was wary of tailored engagements with research companies as they didn’t deliver meaningful insights in time to impact their decisions.

AIA opted for creating a customer community to gather feedback, slashing response time by one third. They conduct targeted and ad-hoc surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with community members. The strategy has helped AIA Singapore optimize marketing campaigns, test product design, and better understand brand perception.

 Insular Life is using community feedback to transform the company culture into customer-centric

Insular Life (InLife) wasn’t a household name, in spite of a long history in the Philippine insurance industry. They worried they were out of touch with customers’ needs and didn’t fully understand their motivations or expectations. 

To align customer goals with the InLife brand, the insurance company launched the “Purpose before Profit” initiative in 2019. This five-year roadmap provides customers with value beyond functional and economic goals and transforms the company culture into a customer-centric mindset.

To make the plan work, InLife had to embed the customer voice in the decision-making process. 

With that goal in mind, the company chose to rely on their digital community to obtain in-depth feedback and engage in two-way conversations with customers. InLife has used the community for persona development and to map the customer journey. The data analytics and innovation team is analyzing the insights and sharing the results with their stakeholders, uncovering correlations between customer feedback and operational data to inform their decisions.

In addition, InLife ensures information regarding changes and improvements is shared back to the community so members feel listened to and know that the business is acting on their feedback.

The results are measurable. Customer Lifetime Value, adoption, and NPS scores have increased and customer churn has fallen. InLife has reduced research costs and increased operational efficiency.