Systems Thinking at Aviva

Whats it all about?

Over the last three years, weve been changing the way we look after our customers. Weve been creating a culture that puts the customer at the heart of everything we do, putting ourselves in their shoes to ensure were providing the best possible service. Much of this cultural change has been led by the people who know our customers best - those at the front line of the organisation. We call it Systems Thinking.

A cultural change led by the people who know our customers best.
What have we been doing?
Our customer service teams have been looking at our interactions with our customers and looking at what matters to them most at these moments. We mapped out our processes (sometimes just using simple post-it note flowcharts stuck on the meeting room wall) and identified where we could remove complexity. Although it was the customer facing teams who led the change, it has been a true one Aviva effort. Our risk, legal, compliance and IT departments have all been involved to ensure our approach revolves around customer needs rather than internal processes.

Systems Thinking is now working across a number of areas in the UK. We started in the pensions area and since then we have rolled it out to many customer areas including protection, bonds, annuities, health and general insurance. And weve removed targets. Were not driven by deadlines and call volume targets anymore. The most important thing to us is that our customers are satisfied by the service they receive and recommend us to their friends and family.

The results:
Now, the majority of times we are able to solve a customers query during their first telephone call to us, ensuring the customer is instantly satisfied with our service. We take fewer calls as a result, making us more efficient as a business. Our employees feel more empowered. They can build stronger relationships with customers and have the skills to make the relevant changes to our systems to make things better for customers. They have gained broader skills and engagement scores have risen as a result. But most importantly, we now make decisions from the customers perspective. Weve looked at their experience as a whole, rather than each process in isolation.
l

Case study:
In 2009, it took us on average 29 days to pay customers money to them when they made a withdrawal from an investment they had with us. By looking at the old approach with fresh eyes and removing unnecessary steps, we have reduced this time to payment within four days during 2011. We are now able to take the customers instructions over the phone and pay directly into their bank account. As a result our Transactional Net Promoter Score for paying monies to customers has increased by around 90 points in the last three years. This has all been achieved simply by redesigning our approach and building capability in our people to provide customers with what they need rather than through major change projects or IT investment.

Customer satisfaction has improved. Systems Thinking has delivered a 26 point improvement in our Transactional Net Promoter Score* in the UK. It has delivered millions of pounds worth of cost savings across the UK business. Redesigning the way we respond to customers helped us deal with many customer enquiries in just one call and reduced the number of complaints. As a result call volumes into the life policyholder contact centre fell by 16% during 2011. Employee engagement has increased and during 2011, the Aviva UK Direct Insurance team saw employee turnover reduce from 40% to 17%.

A team who made a difference: The Monies Out team celebrating at the grand final of our annual employee innovation tournament, the Aviva Customer Cup

How do we measure success?

To measure how well we are improving our customers experience with us, we use Net Promoter Score, a score based on our customers answer to the question How likely is it that you would recommend Aviva to a friend or colleague? using a scale of 0-10. We calculate Net Promoter Score by taking the number of customers who are promoters and subtracting the number of detractors.

The journey continues:

Systems Thinking is now being used in more areas in the UK and we plan to start using it in our European and North American businesses in 2012. And where we are already using Systems Thinking, we continue to look at what our customers need from us, working every day to improve our service to them.

*Transactional Net Promoter Score in existing annuity business, Q4 10 compared to Q4 11.

Net Promoter Score, Net Promoter and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Satmetrix Systems and Fred Reichheld. SYSTHINK_34676 01/2012
Aviva plc