Question: Why does the insurance industry use so many acronyms?

Peter Harmer, CEO at Aon UK suggests: "Could it be that insurance professionals are inarticulate, lazy or have bad memories?"

As designed, Peter's self-posed question and response ellicited a nice ripple of laughter from the audience but if Peter is indicative of other insurance professionals then I wouldn't believe a word of it. Serious, yes, but with a dry sense of humour. Confident, yes, but with a healthy streak of humility. Focused on the customer? Absolutely!

Working in an industry like insurance which is largely seen, and I quote, "as a bastion of conservatism and tradition"; introducing an innovative concept like Net Promoter must take quite a bit of gumption. And although Aon's program is still in its early stages, it appears that Peter's team are off to a successful start.

Aon is one of the largest insurance (re-insurance) companies in the world with over 36,000 staff in 120 countries generating $8 billion in annual revenue. They, like other players in the industry, have seen the movement of focus from tangible to intangible assets such as brand, reputation and supply chain dynamics. Aon have embraced the changing environment and in 2007, they took the opportunity to review their position in the marketplace through a series of dialogues with their customers. They weren't asking "what do you think of Aon and how should we change?" but the more salient question of "what is happening for you?". By understanding their customers' positioning, focus, future goals etc, Aon could then look at how they could best respond to their customers' needs.

Their articulated focus is totally customer-centric: "It helps our clients - or it helps our people to help our clients."

So how has the introduction of NPS impacted their business? Fundamentally it has become the bedrock of their customer interaction and understanding. It underpins their other key customer interactions: customer advisory groups, customer interviews and debriefings and client service reviews.

And why did they choose NPS? Acronym aside, they chose the metric and the underlying discipline because it was simple and robust, and had global presence and recognition.

Their review process and introduction of Net Promoter led them first to re-segment their customer base, focusing on revenue and customer type, rather than the more traditional approach of product. Reviewing the Net Promoter Scores by segment gave them new learnings around the way in which they managed certain customer bands. They also reviewed scores by respondent role and by region and again applied learnings from the analysis to communications and management programs both regionally and by job role.

Aon certainly focus on taking action on detractors to mitigate the risk of attrition, but what impressed me most was the way in which they work with their promoters. Understanding the promoters within the Aon revenue engine is key. Strategically, they are able to use promoter data to help define strategies around upselling, cross-selling and developing direct referrals. Tactically, promoters have become important in helping at marketing events such as customer recruitment drives. Let's just say that the power of promoters in helping to "sell" to prospects cannot be underestimated! Fundamentally, promoters are assisting in a number of ways to drive that revenue engine.

Key in all of this is the ongoing focus on the customer. This has led Aon to a healthy NPS of +25% and they continue to learn and refine the program. Now that Peter is making insurance more interesting I, for one, am looking forward to the next chapter!

Click here to download the presentation.