Ageas Insurance has been awarded The Institute of Customer Service’s ServiceMark Accreditation, an independent and national benchmark of an organisation’s achievement in customer service and its commitment to upholding those standards.
Ageas, one of the UK’s largest car and home insurers, underwent an extensive customer survey and assessment of employee engagement with customer service to achieve the accreditation.
The Institute’s assessors noted in particular that Ageas had “built a wonderful culture where people are recruited for the right attitude, trained for the required skills and then, most importantly, trusted to deliver their best.”
The Institute surveyed almost 500 of the Ageas’s customers, as well as more than 1,600 of its employees, to score the company’s approach to customer service and compared to the UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI), Ageas scored higher than the insurance industry average and the national average across all company types.
Ageas scored 84.8 in its Business Benchmarking assessment, which takes into account customer feedback. The UKCSI January 2021 shows the insurance industry average is 78.4 and UK all sector average is 76.8.
Caroline King, Customer Operations Director at Ageas UK, said:
Going through this rigorous process and achieving the ServiceMark is a fantastic accolade in itself; to do this during such challenging times, when our people are servicing customers from their homes, is even more impressive. It shows that, regardless of the circumstances, we are continuing to deliver the right experience to our customers, driving our customer ambition to deliver great value all the time and brilliant service where it matters. Being ServiceMark accredited offers our customers the reassurance that they’ll receive exactly this when they insure with Ageas whether they find us through a broker partner or directly.
Charlotte Davies, who works as Customer Care Manager at Ageas and was part of the team which led on the accreditation process, added:
Achieving the ServiceMark Accreditation makes me feel incredibly proud to work for Ageas and be part of an organisation that really does care for its people and its customers. The journey we have been on to achieve the accreditation is testament to all of my colleagues - their hard work, commitment and passion to deliver the best experience for all of our customers!
Jo Causon, CEO of The Institute of Customer Service, commented:
We have reached a point where organisations are waking up to the need to be more responsive to increasingly assertive and confident customers. By gaining SeviceMark accreditation, Ageas has demonstrated a commitment to continuously improve the level of service they provide.
Ageas’ success in achieving the accreditation comes as it recently unveiled its new four-year strategy for the UK business.
Among the plans are significant investment in technologies which will improve the customer experience, as well as training to help its ‘podium people’ provide even more brilliant service to customers where it matters.