CASE STUDY INSHARED We all benefit Why a Virtual Assistant from CX Company is good for InShared and its customers
InShared Results An online general insurance company with a uniquely customer focused business proposition. Only 20% of InShared s premium income is used to fund its business operations, the remaining 80%, designated as our customers money, is used to pay claims. Any money left over is returned to customers who have made no claims in that year. Today, this unique proposition has made InShared the Netherlands premium online provider. Country Netherlands Challenge To support InShared s 100% online business proposition with an exceptional, differentiating customer experience, while keeping operating costs low and supporting new business growth. Solution Fleur, an online Virtual Assistant from CX Company that works across InShared s website and email communications to deliver information, answer customer questions and support buying decisions. Handling around 10,000 customer enquiries per month 56% of all non-claims customer contact 20% reduction in billing queries by email Answering around 60% of customers questions generated by mass communication emails (premium announcements, etc) 95% answer accuracy Reducing cost of sale Contributing to An NPS score of +7 the highest in the Dutch insurance market Overall customer satisfaction scores of 77% highest in the industry The maintenance of InShared s cost ratio at below 20% of premium income A customer churn rate of 20% well below industry average Awards In addition to multiple awards for its insurance products, InShared has been recognised with: Financial Marketing Award 2010, from Dutch marketing journal, NIMA Innovation in Financial Services Award 2010, Accenture Service Innovation Award 2011, from the Netherlands, National Centre For Innovation, Excer Nominated for Customer Performance Award 2012, Customer Insights Centre of Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
CASE STUDY INSHARED 3 When InShared launched in 2009 it declared that its business practices would mark a return to the core principles of insurance; a communal pooling of resources to share risk and provide recompense for misfortune.
4 CX Company It committed to communicate clearly and to be scrupulously fair and transparent in its dealings with its community of customers. The response has been positive; InShared has enjoyed double digit growth year-on-year, culminating in a 40% increase its customer base in 2013. InShared also understood consumers growing preference for conducting their financial affairs online. From the start, it has used digital channels to provide customer service and to sell. This digital first approach appeals to customers and supports the highly efficient business model that allows InShared to return premium income to customers. InShared takes only 20% of premium income to run its business, using the remaining 80% to pay claims. Any money left over is returned to non-claiming customers at the end of the year. As Marco Ganzevles, InShared s Customer Satisfaction Manager, explains, this financial resolve drives a constant focus on efficiency. Our customers understand that, by operating a lean online business model, we are using
CASE STUDY INSHARED 5 their money responsibly and maximising their returns they have a vested interest in our efficiency! For some businesses efficiency translates into compromise when it comes to customer service. Not so for InShared. The company insists that efficient service resolving customer issues on first contact and proactively providing information even before a question is asked is both excellent service and good business sense. Differently and better For that reason, InShared introduced a Virtual Assistant from CX Company to its website in April 2012. We surveyed the market for online self-service solution providers and CX Company topped the list for technology and price, says Marco. More importantly though, they share our entrepreneurial culture and our appetite to do things differently and better. InShared understood that its ambition to allow customers to find answers to all of their questions online presented a practical challenge. It would mean having literally hundreds of website pages, which would be confusing and impractical for the customer, says Marco. CX Company helped us see that, with a Virtual Assistant, we could keep our website simple, but also make it resourceful. Today, InShared s Virtual Assistant, Fleur, has a knowledgebase of over 22,000 potential responses to customer enquiries. No website could be that flexible, Marco concludes. The positive response to Fleur from InShared s customers was both immediate and sustained, says Marco. In the first year Fleur handled around 6,700 enquiries a month. Today that figure stands at over 10,000 around 56% of all InShared s non-claims customer contact. This growth has come from relentless refinements made to the Fleur s library of responses. When we started we used insights from our email customer service operation as a starting point for our work with CX Company to build Fleur s knowledgebase in advance of Go Live, says Marco. Since then, we have Fleur is able to answer our customers worked tirelessly in partnership with CX Company, to monitor Fleur s performance, refine her responses and extend the range of questions she can answer. Given that effort it should come as no surprise that customer satisfaction with Fleur s performance stands has risen steadily and she is now the highest performing Virtual Assistant in CX Company s portfolio. This is only one aspect of InShared s extremely high customer satisfaction performance. Overall Customer Satisfaction with InShared s performance, independently measured and benchmarked, is the highest in the Dutch insurance market at 77%. Similarly its NPS score of +7 is significantly higher than the insurance industry average, and its customer churn rate of 20% is well below the industry average. Managing demand The intelligent analysis that CX Company applies to customers use of Fleur has allowed InShared not just to respond appropriately to questions, but to negate the need for many questions to be asked. On each page of the website Fleur proactively displays responses to three FAQs which change depending on where the customer is on the site and what they are trying to do. This means that Fleur is able to answer our customers questions even before they are asked, says Marco. In a more recent development, Fleur has also appeared on informational emails sent to clients. For example, in October 2012 Fleur, along with a series of relevant FAQ s started to appear on the monthly
6 CX Company billing invoices sent to customers. Billing queries received in the contact centre dropped 20% compared to the previous year. Later in 2012 InShared had to send a fairly complex email to customers checking details of their no-claims history. We expected the email to give rise to a large volume of enquiries so we applied Fleur in this case too, says Marco. We sent an initial test email to 200 customers and received only 80 enquiries (40%), much lower than we forecast. After further refinements, the percentage fell to 30%. Overall Fleur answered more than 7,000 questions on this topic. There is no question in Marco s mind that Fleur has made a significant contribution to reducing emails volumes and reducing its cost to serve. Think of it this way, he says. Around 10,000 customers use Fleur each month. If even one in four of those sent an email instead, we would receive 2,500 extra emails a month an increase of over 20%. InShared s commitment to run its business and draw its profit from only 20% of premium income makes these financial gains particularly valuable. The average operating cost ratio for an insurance business is far higher than ours, says Marco. We believe that, in time, and by refining our self-service performance, we can improve further still. Supporting sales In 2013 CX Company suggested that, as well as streamlining customer service, Fleur could support sales, adding value on both sides of the balance sheet. In June 2013 Fleur was introduced to the online applications process for scooter insurance, followed later in the year by car and home insurance. Early indications are positive. Around 10% of people address questions to Fleur or use her frequently asked questions during the sales process. Usage is highest at the crucial moment when they receive a quote eight percent of people who reach this stage then make use of Fleur. This indicates to me that Fleur is helping us to close deals more cost effectively. Looking to the future Marco and CX Company are already considering new developments for Fleur. Customer response to Fleur has been so positive that customers are keen to ask her personal questions about their policies and claims, says Marco. So, we are planning to integrate Fleur to our CRM system and database. She will have a 360 view of our customers and their business with us and be able to offer personalised responses based on that knowledge. Marco even anticipates that Fleur will be able to address questions regarding the highly sensitive claims process, such is his confidence in her ability. CX Company continues to stretch our imagination about the possible advances of online self-service, concludes Marco. Their ability to turn innovative technology into practical customer solutions lends powerful support to our business.
CASE STUDY INSHARED 7 High customer satisfaction 2013 77% Overall 81% Clarity of information 79% Completeness of information 83% Clarity of website 76% Price 79% Completeness of website CX Company share our entrepreneurial culture and our appetite for doing things differently and better. Marco Ganzevles, Customer Satisfaction Manager, InShared
Find out how CX Company can maximise the benefits of online self-service for your business. contact@cxcompany.com www.cxcompany.nl