Ageas is committed to service excellence, and to mark National Customer Service Week (NCSW), Customer Operations Director Caroline King reflects on the technological initiatives Ageas is using to improve the service it offers customers.
Customer service is constantly evolving, and this is very much evident in the insurance industry as well as in customer contact centres across many other sectors.
At Ageas, we are focused on the future of service – which is one of the themes for this year’s NCSW – as well as our day-to-day purpose of being customer driven, for which we are proud to hold the Institute of Customer Service’s ServiceMark accreditation.
From evolving customer needs to technological advancements, I can only imagine how the future technological capabilities will offer us endless opportunities to meet our customers’ needs.
But this technological capability is not something we are waiting for, as we are already using the latest technology to resolve customer queries more efficiently and empathetically.
Deploying speech analytics
In 2020, we began using speech analytics. With more than 50 years of collective contact centre experience, our designated team of analysts were able to develop this technology with a deep understanding of how our customers choose to interact with Ageas.
Taking data from telephony and live chat, we have been able to successfully convert these interactions with our customers into data that enables us to understand clearly why customers are contacting us.
As well as helping us make important system changes, this rich dataset has led to the creation of a dashboard that enables us to identify trends, for example where customers are dissatisfied, and the characteristics of vulnerable customers who may need additional support.
Vulnerability focus
Our Ageas Care Programme is our commitment to better understand customers who are living with characteristics of vulnerability and to improve our support to them in a way that’s appropriate and meets their needs.
This programme has been built from the expertise of our customer experience team, guided by behaviour models, and has given us vulnerability categories that identify behaviours.
For these categories we have developed guidance for our customer teams to help them get the most from each conversation, from gently gathering information to understand a customer’s situation and needs, to approaching the customer to obtain consent to record their special category data vulnerability.
By putting customers at the core of what we do, we have been able to better understand the many different types of vulnerability, which is key to us knowing how we can help each individual customer.
As well as allowing us to understand the customer journey on a much more granular level, we’re able to identify trends across thousands of calls and score them against a range of metrics.
Real-time alerts
Our call handlers are also supported by an additional alert system that is triggered when certain words are used by our customers during an interaction. Used in over 5,000 calls a month this alert provides our handlers with instantaneous support and suggestions for next best steps or actions to take.
Not only does this support those who are living with characteristics of vulnerability, but it also benefits all our customers by providing a positive and seamless conversation to ensure the best possible outcomes.
We believe it is essential that we support our people to support our customers, and the training and toolkits we have developed in our Ageas Care Programme enable us to do this.
The future of service
This is just a snapshot of how we are applying our technical capabilities at Ageas to build on our commitment to brilliant customer service delivery.
Looking ahead, we will never underestimate the importance of human-centric skills and shifting customer needs, and we will continue to invest in cutting-edge technology that helps our people to help our customers.
National Customer Service Week
Organised by the Institute of Customer Service, National Customer Service Week aims to raise awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays in successful business practice and the growth of the UK economy.
More information on National Customer Service Week and how to get involved can be found via The Institute of Customer Service website.