Zurich rated one of the best brands for customer service after soaring up UK customer satisfaction rankings

Published by the Institute of Customer Service, the UKCSI rates customer satisfaction across 13 sectors, incorporating the views of 10,000 consumers on 247 brands.

The provider was also ranked 1^st in the insurance sector for ethical business behaviours and connecting with consumers, and 5^th and 7^th respectively across all companies.

Zurich’s increase was driven, in large part, by its successful 99% claims paid brand campaign. Working with McCann Enterprise and Universal McCann, they created a simple yet highly impactful message highlighting the insurer’s commitment to doing the right thing for customers.

The budget was not substantial when compared to some of the big insurance spenders, but through smart targeting the campaign clearly reached the right consumers and drove Zurich’s score in the Emotional Connection and Ethics dimensions.

Its score of 83.2, which saw it gain eight points from 2018, places it above the 77.7 national average. This comes at a time when the overall index continued to decline.

The index takes into account more than 25 different customer measures, including staff professionalism, the quality and efficiency of the service, trust and transparency, the actual customer experience, complaint handling and ethics.

According to the UKCSI, Zurich improved across a range of areas including product, service quality, price, billing and ease of dealing with the organisation. It was also boosted by high scores for its ethical standards and emotional connection with consumers.

“As a largely broker-led business, and one where direct contact with customers is still relatively limited compared to other top-performing brands in the survey, the role of customer perception cannot be under-estimated. Our campaign on paying claims, boosted recently with investment in brand communication, has helped drive a number of metrics in the survey, from service reliability–which is the number one driver of satisfaction – to more emotional customer priorities such as making customers feel reassured and keeping our promises. It is also particularly pleasing that we are ranked 4 and 7 for Ethics and Emotional Connection respectively, which were a focus of our brand campaign,” said Tracy Waxman, Zurich’s Head of Marketing Communications.

“We’ve achieved this performance in such a short space of time by highlighting our claims record and being consistent in the way that we have communicated our commitment to doing the right thing for our customers. Investing in our brand and establishing a powerful and confident voice in the market place has paid dividends.”

Stephen Meade, CEO of McCann Enterprise, said: “Ultimately, this enormous 176 place leap is a testament to the power of investing in your brand. We are very proud of this campaign, which emphasises Zurich’s proven ability to pay out 99% of UK claims and is underpinned by a cultural truth whereby Zurich leads by its actions rather than words. This is even more impressive given the intermediated environment Zurich operates in, where the customer is often one step removed from the brand. This achievement has been born of a six-year relationship and we look forward to continuing building upon this success over the coming years.”

What’s behind Zurich’s improvement in UK customer service rankings?

Zurich climbed 176 places in the latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index published by the Institute of Customer Service. The index found Zurich improved across a range of measures including product, service quality, price, billing and ease of dealing with the organisation.

It also scored highly for ethical standards and emotional connection with consumers. Here’s a selection of just five initiatives that have contributed to Zurich’s rise up the rankings.

1. Zurich paid out 99% of all UK claims during 2017 with payments worth over £1.7 billion – and invested in a major brand campaign to highlight its claims record and commitment to doing the right thing.
2. Zurich has revamped its complaints handling process and developed a systematic approach to using Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to improve service, including Close the Loop calls, where senior leaders ring customers to discuss positive and negative feedback they have given.
3. The insurer undertook a number of initiatives to improve customer service including improving communications, using technology to improve routine servicing and claims handling, and improving complaints handling procedures.
4. The insurer rolled out vulnerable customer training to more than 1,000 frontline staff, set up a Vulnerable Customer and Dementia Friends Champions, and became the first UK insurer to launch SignLive, a serviceenabling customers with impaired hearing to contact the company using a video interpreter.
5. Through the Zurich Community Trust and Zurich employee fundraising, more than £1.5m was donated to UK and overseas charities in 2018 with staff giving 4,100 days of volunteering. Through its Youth Skills Programme, Zurich and its employees also supported 1,900 school pupils in the UK on improving financial and risk literacy and with skills and careers advice.

Source: McCann Enterprise

  Customer Satisfaction Index, Customer Service, Institute of Customer Service, insurance, Marketing, McCann Enterprise, Satisfaction Rankings, UK, UKCSI, UM, Universal McCann, Zurich