Stop fearing customer feedback: implementing a VoC program

CX Network, one of the global leaders in premium content for customer experience professionals, recently announced the winners of the 2021 CX Elite Awards at InMoment’s Experience Forum.

The CX Elite Awards 2021 is a celebration of outstanding CX achievements over the past year.

The awards saw Allianz win Best CX Transformation for its introduction of a global VOC program that saw Allianz move from pure listening to the customer to a fully interactional approach, and put feedback about customer experience at the center of its ongoing activities.

In this exclusive interview, CX Network talks with Simone Correll, head of customer experience at Allianz in reaction to the award win.

CX Network: You successfully achieved CX transformation across a global business. What placed Allianz in such a good position to do so?

Simone Correll: We have a clear, defined agenda when it comes to customer centricity. We strive for making superior customer experience the top priority for all our actions. In this sense, it was essential to have the buy-in from the management and their understanding that further transforming Allianz into a truly customer centric company was only possible by having a global customer experience program.

At the same time it was crucial that placing the customer at the centre of everything we do was part of our culture, which is not only a commitment from top down but also bottom up.  All our stakeholders, including the frontline employees, understand that customer centricity is the only way  we can ensure that systematic issues are tackled consistently, allowing us to optimize our processes and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.

CX Network: As part of your customer transformation, you introduced a VOC program and put customer feedback at the centre of your ongoing activities. What tips would you give to companies looking to implement a similar program?

SC: I would advise them to lose their fear of customer feedback.  In businesses today there tends to be a misconception that we should protect our employees from angry customers, when in reality customer feedback helps drive employee engagement. It helps them realize their performance has a direct impact on the customer experience and allows customer-to-employee recognition for great service, which can directly improve their motivation as they can see how their work makes a difference.

Even in case of bad customer feedback employees have the chance to close the loop with those dissatisfied customers and show them we care about what they say and will try to resolve the issue or at least make sure actions are taken to prevent this issue from happening again.

I would also advise not to focus on the ratings, but rather on what customers have to say about their experience through the different touchpoints. If brands focus on analyzing insights from customers and solving the systematic issues detected, customer satisfaction will come naturally.

CX Network: What advice would you give for overcoming silos created by stubborn legacy technologies? 

SC: I recommend not waiting until the proper local technology is in place. Allianz is in the middle of a business transformation when it comes to our IT master platform globally. It would not have been smart to wait until the business transformation was finished to roll out new CX initiatives, as it is a very long journey in which different departments will have different deadlines for the proper IT to be in place.

Our decision was to start rolling out the voice of the customer program globally, independently of the technological transformation. We synchronized with our business transformation colleagues along the way to ensure the program was seamlessly integrated into the future IT set up. This way, we have been able to globally implement VoC within a wide range of different IT systems, processes and tools across the Allianz entities while ensuring that once the IT roadmap was complete, these systems, process and tools could transition smoothly to the VoC program.

CX Network: What would you say was the most positive impact of your CX transformation?

SC: We have finally understood that as a business we must all pull in the same direction. In the past, customer satisfaction and transactional feedback programs were a market management related topic only. What we achieved with the implementation of VoC is that not only market management but all the different relevant stakeholders in the company are involved and working together in understanding what the most relevant and recurrent customer pain points are. Additionally, all the employees are concerned with customer satisfaction and understand the importance of not only listening but acting on customer feedback.

Read more about the CX Elite Awards and the Experience Forum 2021.