Innovating to meet customer expectations during the COVID-19 disruption

When governments across the world locked down their countries to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, normal economic life as we know was severely disrupted. All industries including the insurance industry scrambled to put mechanisms in place to ensure that they could service their customers while working remotely and to roll out new products to meet new customer expectations. Old Mutual Insure was among the first in the insurance industry out of the blocks in adapting to the new realities and this is borne out by the 2020 South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi), an independent national benchmark of customer satisfaction regarding the quality of products and services available to household consumers in South Africa. The 2020 SAcsi shows that the company 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 be leader in 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. She said, “We performed particularly strong on the key metrics of Handling of Complaints. This 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, i.e. value for money. Old Mutual Insure also did very well in the ‘Customer Expectations’ score, reflecting well on our high levels of digital and remote delivery 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.  

Offering value for money during uncertain times 

During this time when customers are extremely price sensitive, Old Mutual Insure received industry-leading scores around perceptions of value from cash-strapped customers. According to Oakes, this shows 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 concluded, “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 expectations, during these very challenging times. Thank you to our broker network and our valued customers who’ve shown so much faith in us.”