AXA improves customer satisfaction

MANILA, Philippines - Life insurer AXA Philippines is confident it is on track to becoming the preferred company, and one of the dominant players in the local life insurance industry with its heightened focus on customer experience.

In a recent interview, AXA president and CEO Rien Hermans said as the company started crossing the line in 2010, it recognized that the customer has to be at the center of attention in everything that AXA does — prompting a change in systems and procedures for customer service and in building up sales.

“Every research is showing that we have succeeded in this and that customers have a more positive experience in their dealings with AXA. There are more repeat sales, better persistency, and increased referrals,” Hermans said.

“These two pillars resulted in two things: sales more than doubled from 2009 to 2011 with compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, and improved customer satisfaction.”

This was the result of the AXA strategy of giving customers what they need by segmenting the market according to the distinct needs of the customers, their behaviors and general insight on insurance.

A survey conducted by AC Nielsen through telephone interviews showed that net customer satisfaction for AXA increased from 70 percent in 2010 to 75 percent in 2011.

“We did that in a lot of different fields, especially in operations where customers saw changes that gave the impression that they are at the top of what we do. Last year, we ranked as one of the top players in terms of total premium income. We broke the P10-billion barrier by giving people what they need,” Hermans said.

Ariel Magtoto, AXA customer experience head, said that in their most recent Scope survey, AXA Philippines exhibited the greatest improvement in customer scope among the global insurer’s eight Asian operations. Scope is a satisfaction survey conducted annually with AXA customers, distributors, and employees.

“To be preferred, we must ensure that we deliver what our customers truly need, at the minimum. It all starts with listening to what they are saying and being sensitive to what they are not saying. We also made every staff realize that everything we do impacts the customer. We created a strong sense of accountability for results,” Magtoto said.

“By the close of 2011, we set the platform to say that, ‘we are easy to do business with,’” he added.

AXA has 133,476 individual clients and 160,448 certificate holders of group policies. Of the 130,000 customers, 79,000 have registered their mobile numbers. As for e-mail, AXA already has 12,000 addresses out of its target of 50,000. This paves the way toward more intimate and meaningful customer communications. 

Meanwhile, AXA chief financial officer Don San Jose said the company’s net premium in 2011 was P10 billion, net of reinsurance premiums, and its net income at P967 million.