Guy Cartwright – NEW/Asurion
Americans are more connected than ever. In the US today there are more than 296,000,000 mobile devices including cellular phones and smart phones. If you’re like most of us, your phone is a critical lifeline to your day to day existence; it’s a way of keeping in touch with family, friends, clients and co-workers. Most of us would be lost without their devices! That’s where Asurion comes in.
Asurion is the global leader in protection services for consumer electronics and Guy Cartwright is Asurion’s VP of Client Experience. Asurion was founded in the late 1980s and currently serves more than 170,000,000 clients across 5 countries. Asurion’s engagement model is unique as they are a B2B2C organization. Asurion contracts with major cell phone carriers (Verizon, AT&T and others), which sell Asurion’s insurance coverage services to the end customer. Customers pay a nominal monthly premium through the carrier on their phone bill and if their phone is lost, damaged or stolen the device will be replaced for a small deductible.
Guy noted that many customers have “love affairs” with their smartphones as these devices help drive an emotional need to connect with others and become more and more integral to our daily operations. This love affair with smartphones is getting very hot steamy as projections show that over 60% of all mobile devices by 2015 will be smartphones. As more and more of us use and integrate smartphones into our daily lives, the potential risk for damage or loss becomes greater. As such, Asurion sees tremendous upside potential in their ability to scale.
Customer Experience is extremely important to Asurion so that they can retain their valued customers and grow their customer base as more individuals purchase additional devices for themselves or their family members. To ensure that Asurion is able to drive positive experiences within their client base, the decision was made to design and deploy a Net Promoter program.
The process in which Asurion deployed this program was described by Guy as “The How”. Specific examples of operational and structural improvements made as a result of developing their NPS program was coined “The What”.
When developing Asurion’s program (“The How” ), it was imperative that Asurion understand the process and flow of each touchpoint that a customer may experience. This process of developing the “customer corridor” was integral in developing a survey instrument which would provide the organization with meaningful data which would be analyzed as drivers of customer loyalty and satisfaction. After developing this corridor, which consisted of processes within JOIN - Incident - Claim - Phone, Asurion launched their program and began to measure customer feedback to best understand which areas of the business could be optimized for efficiency and quality of service.
Asurion strongly believes that while “The How” is important, it is just as important to drive action from customer feedback and not just watch the NPS like a score of a football game. By moving Beyond The score, Asurion developed both structural and operational improvements within their business (“The What”) which has had a profound impact on customer loyalty.
Some of the improvements which have been made as a result of customer feedback include the development and launch of a unified claims management system, which allows Asurion customers to file a claim via phone, IVR or web and integrate this information so that a client can inquire on the status of their claim and replacement via any of the three mediums. In other words, if I submit a claim over IVR, I may then check into the status of the claim by checking the web. This service reduces cost to serve a client while also providing greater flexibility and access to data from the customer’s perspective.
From a strategic perspective, Asurion has taken customer feedback to develop new products like whole-home protection plans which integrate mobile device coverage coverages for home telephony and Internet equipment, game consoles and TV & audio devices. This product segment looks to be quite promising for Asurion as more and more people rely on these devices to work, unwind and entertain.
Perhaps the most telling piece of data shared with us was that Asurion has utilized customer feedback to create a win-win-win for both their carrier and consumer clients. Among consumers who have had a documented mobile device incident over the past 12 months, the Carrier NPS of Non-Asurion customers is -13% while the Carrier NPS of Asurion customers is 6%. In other words, Asurion delivers value and increased loyalty to the carriers in which it serves.
As a consumer, do you have any stories of how a lost or damaged mobile device has impacted your life? Please feel free to share any stories, questions or comments below.
Thanks!
