Thomas C. Routson, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Arch Insurance Group participated in an engaging interview with Loyalty360 to discuss his company’s views on customer loyalty, customer experience, and customer engagement.
How do you engage your customers in an attempt to build loyalty and brand advocacy?
We are always engaging with our customers. It is a key part of our strategy to meet with representatives of companies who are considering us for their insurance programs, as well as periodically with those companies we insure to determine that we are meeting or exceeding their expectations.
What does Customer Experience mean at Arch Insurance Group??
In our segments, “customer” can have many meanings. Our products are sold to various businesses including other insurance companies. As a commercial specialty insurance carrier who sells to companies through independent brokers who also may represent our competitors during the sales transaction (policy purchase), we strive to assure that our products help our insured customers to properly manage their risks.
Who is the Champion of Customer Experience at Arch Insurance Group?
We don’t have an executive position with that title. We rely on our Arch “Principles” to empower all of our staff to assure they deliver a positive customer experience. Our core “principles” are:
Selectively pursue diverse specialty markets where we can apply our knowledge and expertise;
Maintain flexibility and responsiveness to allow us to take advantage of market opportunities when they arise; and
Maintain a disciplined underwriting approach to enable us to select risks and price them appropriately in all phases of the insurance cycle.
How do you measure the efficacy of your CX program?
In the type of insurances we provide, we are often sharing a place with our competitors on building the levels of insurance capacity required by large commercial customers to adequately protect their assets. The most favored measurement is the percentage of business we retain as we go through each renewal cycle. Depending on line-of-business, the typical retention rates are 80% to 90%, which for our types of business, indicate a high degree of satisfaction. We also track other elements like growth rates with our brokers—who are also one of the customer types we work with.
Do you have a loyalty program or any loyalty/customer engagement initiatives?
We do have a program called “Client Executive” in which we identify certain customers in which we write a portion of their insurance, but where other lines of insurance written by our company are also interested in writing their lines of insurance for this customer. If a customer is selected for the Client Executive program, we have a higher frequency of meeting with them and introduce them to more product lines they may be interested in. We also assign the key contact, usually the Risk Manager, one of our executives to be of personal service for questions, claims issues, and other matters in a form of “higher priority” service.
From a customer loyalty perspective, what are you most proud of at Arch Insurance Group?
I think if you look at the rather short history of Arch—which is just over 12 years old—you will see a company that is very customer-centric in its philosophy and that has led to us becoming a successful organization within our specific market segments.