Voice of the Customer: Asking, Listening & Loyalty

This article is Part 2 of our 2-Part Series on the importance of measuring customer experience and paying attention to your Net Promoter Score® (NPS). Read Part 1 here.

Insurers spend a lot of resources trying to win their customers’ loyalty. They launch “We miss you!” email campaigns, mail out limited time offers and add new products and services to entice inactive customers to return. While these methods may be somewhat effective, there’s another retention strategy that may be even more important: asking customers about their experience and actually listening to what they have to say.

Customers Want to Be Heard

The internet has given consumers a new voice, and many of them are eager to use it.

Many people turn to social media and online review sites when they have something to say about a company, whether it’s good or bad. A survey from BrightLocal¹ found that 67% of consumers will consider leaving a review after a positive experience and 40% will consider leaving a review after a negative experience.

This means that customers aren’t just influencing the buying decisions of their friends, family and colleagues. They’re also potentially influencing the buying decisions of thousands or millions of strangers.

Other Customers Are Listening – Are You?

Online reviews are becoming more important. BrightLocal¹ found that 77% of consumers always or regularly read reviews when browsing for local businesses, up from 60% in 2020. Additionally, only 3% of people said they would consider using a business with an average rating of two stars or fewer, down from 14% who were willing to give these businesses a chance in 2020.

The problem might be a lack of trust. HubSpot² says that 55% of people don’t trust the companies they buy from as much as they used to, while 81% trust the advice of friends and family members over business advice. Given this lack of trust, online reviews take on a new level of importance.

When consumers go online, they’re looking for a few different things. Salsify³ found that 54% of consumers research information on product quality, while 42% research customer service and 32% research consumer opinion. This means that offering a great product may not be enough. Many customers also want to make sure you’re also delivering a great customer experience.

Experience Impacts Loyalty

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of customer experience.

According to PwC⁴, 17% of U.S. consumers say they’ll walk away from a brand they love after a single bad experience. That means nearly one in five of your most satisfied customers will flee at the first sign of trouble. More than half of U.S. consumers say they will walk away after several bad experiences.

A bad customer experience can be detrimental to your brand, but a good one can work wonders. PwC also found that 65% of U.S. customers say a positive experience is more influential than great advertising.

Customer experience impacts loyalty. Customer experience also impacts reviews, and reviews impact consumer buying decisions. In the end, everything comes back to customer experience.

Would Your Customers Recommend You?

Businesses can ask a lot of questions as they try to determine customer experience and brand loyalty. Was the experience easy? Did the customer find what they needed? Were their goals met?

Indeed, there are so many possible questions that it can be easy to get lost in the resulting data. However, the most important question may also be one of the simplest:

Would your customers recommend your company to someone else?

The Net Promoter Score® is based on this concept⁵. Customers are asked how likely they are, on a scale of 10, to recommend the brand to a friend or colleague. Based on the results, individual consumers can be put into one of three brackets. Promoters are very likely to recommend the brand. Detractors are unhappy customers and could hurt your brand’s reputation. Passive consumers lie in between the two extremes, reasonably satisfied but lacking enthusiasm.

A company’s Net Promoter Score is widely accepted as an essential metric. In a nutshell, it reveals how satisfied customers are with their overall experience and how likely they are to contribute to positive word-of-mouth advertising. In a time when trust in companies is low and user reviews are weighed heavily, this is critical.

In addition to the rating, companies can also ask open-ended questions. This gives consumers a chance to share their opinions. Companies should be listening. Getting negative feedback may be unpleasant, but it’s better than an online review that can be seen by millions. And if the comments are positive, that’s great, but companies should make sure they know exactly what they’re doing right so they can keep doing it. Good or bad, the information gained in these surveys can help insurers make future decisions regarding products and services.

One Inc is Here to Help

At One Inc, we believe in facilitating exceptional experiences for our insurers and their policyholders.  The Auto Club Group achieved a remarkable gain in NPS® when paying claims digitally using One Inc’s ClaimsPay® solution.  Learn how here.

Sources

1. https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
2. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-acquisition-study 
3. https://www.salsify.com/resources/report/content-2022-salsify-consumer-research-the-value-of-building-brand-trust 
4. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/advisory-services/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/pwc-consumer-intelligence-series-customer-experience.pdf
5. https://www.netpromoter.com/know/