Ageas Engagement Hub – Personalising the customer experience

Ageas is one of the UK’s most trusted insurance providers and is constantly looking to improve its customer experience.

Like most insurers, opportunities to talk to customers are limited – perhaps only once a year.

Additionally, with the rise of online consolidators such as MoneySupermarket and GoCompare, and customers engaging across multiple channels in the same journey, it is more important than ever to create seamless customer experiences and get the right messages, to the right customers, right now.  Without it, Ageas were missing out on vital opportunities to properly engage with customers.

Customer expectations are high:

“Greet me like you know me – no matter how I contact you”
“Speak to me like you value me”
“Be up to date and help me with what I need”

This means that:

• Every customer at every touchpoint needs to receive a personalised customer experience based on their unique characteristics
• Every Ageas team member and every webpage needs to be empowered to make relevant real-time decisions for each customer

R-cubed were tasked with helping to make this innovation a reality and a true first for the Insurance sector.

“I have worked on the phones at Rias (an Ageas brand) for 5 years and I think this is the best tool that we’ve ever been given” Inbound Sales Team Member

The Approach

With thousands of policy sales every year across multiple channels, it was clear that the Ageas data held vast potential.  However, like so many companies, the customer data was held across separate systems, dramatically limiting its usefulness.  Ageas were looking for a faster, smarter way of using the data at critical touchpoints to allow intelligent customer conversations. R-cubed were already experienced in connecting multi-channel data, and together with the Ageas data team, they set about designing the conduits for passing the data to the relevant touchpoints – creating a blueprint of the ‘Engagement Hub’. The Ageas Engagement Hub is a bespoke solution which combines R-cubed’s technology, marketing expertise and ’best in class’ analysis:

• R-cubed’s technology would collect the multi-channel data into a Single Customer View and deliver it to the relevant touchpoints for real-time decisions and personalised dialogue
• The team’s combined expertise and detailed analysis would determine the right message to the right person at the right time – across the website and at the call centre

• A Real-time Plug In
• Customer Insight and Predictive Modelling
• A Call Centre App

• The Engagement Hub provided a platform to personalise the website with online messages to customers based on everything they already know about the customer.
• The team were careful to choose the most appropriate areas to personalise:
  • Add-on products were ordered based by the most relevant to the customer determined by the ‘Engagement Hub’ propensity to buy – with the most relevant moved to the top of the page.
  • Messages were made more relevant by tailoring the content to the customer e.g. “your Ford Focus insurance quote”
  • Copy was personalised based on customers’ circumstances and needs, e.g. “if you were to breakdown, how would you get to work” for those who had selected commuting
  • Emails or calls could also be triggered to customers who abandoned their browsing – encouraging re-engagement

The Results

Ageas is now at the forefront of the UK insurance industry when it comes to blending real–time on-line data with off-line data and using propensity models to improve and personalise customer journeys and service.

The Engagement Hub ensures that every customer at every touchpoint receives insightful and personalised customer engagement, and that every Ageas team member or every webpage is empowered to make relevant real-time decisions for each customer.

This has led to significant business and customer benefits.  The initial tests have shown:

• ROI of 198% through real-time personalisation on the online Motor Quote and Buy journey
• 40% increase in sales rate from incomplete motor quotes through our follow-up approach. When customers abandon a quote without completion, the system re-engages them by triggering an email reminder or making an outbound call
• 20% uplift in add-on revenue per policy
• Data capture rates of up to 30% by integrating Best Next Action messages into Call Centre Application – enabling us to market to customers later, removing costs from the business and allowing online customers to self-serve
• 20% uplift in portal registration through integration with the adviser app – allowing customers to receive documents electronically, which makes it more convenient for them and saves Ageas £’s per policy on printing and fulfillment costs

The feedback from the teams was overwhelmingly positive:

“I have worked on the phones at Rias for 5 years and I think this is the best tool that we’ve ever been given” – Inbound Sales Team member

“The engagement hub is a great tool, informing advisors about the customer as soon as they call in. It contributes to making the customer journey as smooth as possible. Simple things like collecting clients details are already pre-populated and we can we see the exact direct mail our customers have received and therefore what prompted them to call. You can also see if they have any live policies with us so we can give our customers any discount they are entitled too.”  – Inbound Home Sales Team member

As a result of the feedback and numbers from the initial tests, the Engagement Hub was rapidly rolled out from the Acquisition Teams to the wider Customer Service Teams and across all the Ageas brands.

The Business Challenge

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