Innovating to meet customer expectations: OMI
Johannesburg - When governments across the world locked down their countries to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, normal economic life as we know it was severely disrupted. All industries including the insurance industry scrambled to put measures in place to ensure that they could serve their customers remotely while also rolling out new products to meet new customer expectations.
Old Mutual Insure was amongst the first out the blocks, adapting to the new realities.
This is borne out – in detail - by the results of 2020 South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi). The SAcsi is an independent national benchmark of customer satisfaction regarding the quality of products and services available to household consumers in South Africa. 2020 SAcsi results show that Old Mutual Insure achieved industry-leading scores, coming first in the intermediated insurance category and joint second overall.
For the first time ever, the short-term insurance results overtook the banking sector’s SAcsi scores, making the country’s short-term insurance industry the leader in customer satisfaction within the broader financial services sector.
Partnering with brokers to lead customer satisfaction
Antonia Oakes Head of Customer Experience at Old Mutual Insure was particularly pleased by her company’s industry-leading performance on the key metrics that matter most to customers.
Oakes noted that, “our strong performance on Handling Complaints was largely driven by perceptions of speed of service. We also did well on Perceived Value, which measures customer views and perceptions of price combined with quality – or value for money. Old Mutual Insure also did very well on Customer Expectations, showing the effectiveness of the high levels of digital and remote delivery that we developed and deployed during the COVID-19 epidemic.”
These industry-leading scores could not have happened without the key support of our brokers and intermediaries who consistently delivered high standards of service during a challenging year for the country’s short-term insurance sector.
Value for money in uncertain times
During this very price-sensitive time, Old Mutual Insure received industry-leading scores around perceptions of value from cash-strapped customers. Oakes believes that SAcsi numbers show that Old Mutual Insure’s, “broad range of customer relief measures - from premium relief to new products and services that take new customer realities into account - have not gone unnoticed in the market.”
Oakes notes that without the appetite for disruption, the imagination to pivot, and just plain hard work from Old Mutual Insure’s intermediary ecosystem, “we could not have innovated and delivered products to match the high standard of service required by clients during these very challenging times.”
“Thank you to our broker network and our valued customers who’ve shown so much faith in us over the last year of intense disruption,” concluded Oakes.
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