Create Consistent, Enjoyable Experiences Across the Customer Life-Cycle

CHICAGO - June 21, 2013 - PRLog -- Customer experience has evolved from an overlooked commodity, into the greatest means of brand differentiation. With the reach of digital forums and review platforms of this digital age (LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter comments), consumers have the ability to comment and share their customer experiences with the masses. A well-executed customer experience has the potential to bring in new customers and establish or reaffirm loyalty and advocacy.

Rob Maar, Assistant Vice President, Customer Care and Retention at AIG spoke to marcus evans before the forthcoming Customer Experience 2013 Conference, August 13-14, 2013 in Chicago, IL. Below, he discusses how to create a consistent, meaningful and rewarding customer experience program.

What is the relationship between customer experience and retention within the customer lifecycle at AIG?

Rob Maar: Within the Consumer Lines Direct Marketing group, we acquire customers through affinity marketing and in the direct-to-consumer space. Although there are some variations in acquisition strategy for these segments, a commonality is that there is a direct link between retention and experience at each touch point of the life cycle. Consistency of message and action throughout the customer lifecycle is the key. It begins at the marketing strategy level and continues through the acquisition process.  Once onboard, customers should enjoy that consistency of message and action in the post-sale welcome calls and through interactions during billing, claims and general service. This consistency must span across all processes, procedures and messaging throughout all customer contact channels.  

What tools are you using to understand how customers are feeling across multiple touchpoints?  

RM: We deploy multiple tools for the Direct Marketing customer base. The majority of our customer transactions take place via the phone channel. Our customers have the option to opt into a customer satisfaction survey prior to speaking with an agent.   These surveys are monitored and a system is in place to send alerts immediately when any customer expresses dissatisfaction in the survey. We are then able to speak with that customer to understand what opportunities we have to improve the experience.  We also have software that recognizes and flags customers who are contacting our service center on multiple occasions within a specified timeframe. Once recognized, these customers can be routed to a senior agent or supervisor to ensure resolution. These interactions are then reviewed by management to “close the loop” and see if there may be an opportunity to change a process to improve the experience for the broader customer base.

We also have a tight focus on quality assurance. Customer interactions are monitored at each interaction (initial sale, general service, claims filing, etc). These calls are not only reviewed by the QA Manager and call center operations team, but also by the marketing and product teams so they can hear the voice of the customer firsthand and utilize that direct feedback in their areas.

How are new media channels, like Facebook and Twitter enhancing your customer experiences?

RM: This is an area of focus for the Direct Marketing team as we continue to build our direct-to-consumer business line in the U.S. We are currently working with tools like Radian6 that monitor comments related to our specific products or brands across the major social media sites as well as in blogs and online articles. Data is tracked and trended and disseminated across our Direct Marketing team.

We are continuing to build out this platform with the ultimate goal of interacting with our consumers online.

What are the benefits of brand advocates, and how is AIG working to achieve them?

RM: We see an advocate as a champion of our brand who understands the value of your product. We believe that there is no better advertising for our products than a satisfied consumer. To that end, we strive to offer products that truly benefit our customers and provide honest value to them. We have multiple means of understanding if a customer is an advocate or a detractor. There are processes in place to reach out to these customers to understand why they land in each population. We have teams in place to provide a more personal level of assistance to identified detractors in order to resolve any issue they have encountered. A good example of this would be assisting a customer who is filing a claim for the first time.  With the number forms and amount of documentation required to complete this, it can seem highly complex to someone unfamiliar with the process. However, by taking the time to personalize our service and ensure the customer’s understanding of these requirements, we have come a long way to make that customer a brand advocate.

What suggestions would you give to companies trying to instill a customer-centric attitude within their company culture?

RM: First, remember that the customer is everyone’s business. It is imperative to have every team within the business hear direct customer feedback. This can be achieved in a number of ways:
1. Have your operations team conduct “lunch-and-learn” sessions and play recoded customer interactions.
2. Set up department visits to the contact centers and have round table discussions with your agents. The agents are the most direct line to your customers, and can best express the successes and opportunities of your business.  
3. Break down silos across the organization; share the data.  

We are fortunate to have many tools and ways to analyze customer behaviors and trends. It needs to be shared so every group within your business can work together and take ownership in providing the optimal customer experience.

With more than 20 years of call center operations experience, Rob Maar is currently the Assistant Vice President of customer service for US Consumer Direct Marketing at AIG. Rob began his career in the dynamic environment of the burgeoning technology sector of the 1990s. He built and supported service solutions for such brands including barnesandnoble.com, ZanyBrainy.com and Dickssportingoods.com.