Progressive has been using NPS for 4 or 5 years now, but Richard started with a true feedback story that predates their NPS days.

He was in charge of their direct business at the time, with 9,600 sales and service reps reporting to him. At the time, their feedback loop was informal. People would come down the hall and raise the flag when call center interactions pointed to a potential problem.

One particular day, a bit of company lore was created. The head of marketing’s mom bought insurance from Progressive in the state of Pennsylvania, and was sent a regulatory “Notice” that she was required to return. She accidentally forgot to return the form…and was promptly cancelled.

So what does a mom do when their insurance is cancelled? Well, if your son runs marketing for the insurance company, you can guess the call doesn’t come in through the call center!

As Richard described, this feedback loop led to some interesting learning about the customer process design, and has survived many years as part of the company’s culture. When they looked into the cancellation at the time, they realized that in the state of Pennsylvania they had been cancelling about 10% of all the new customers because of this technicality. And what was even more fascinating was the fact that returning this form was not the only way to meet the state’s regulatory requirement. The company could just as easily accomplish this by proving that the form had been sent.

A Rallying Cry for the Customer

Richard asked us, “Would you do that do your Mum?” And that’s the rallying cry that he still uses today as a filter, to decide if their processes and policies are as customer-friendly as they should be.

As Richard described this story, I thought back to many conversations I have had with people about how to make cultural change happen within companies. It requires stories that “shock the system” and demonstrate a new way of looking at things and making decisions.

Richard showed the economics of Promoters, Passives, and Detractors in Progressive’s business. He highlighted the importance of working on these numbers with the CFO. They use NPS economics to support decision making in many parts of the business, including their IT prioritization process. It is also becoming an important yardstick for measuring performance of the service providers who support Progressive’s business.

Verbatims and Follow Up

Richard turned next to discuss the importance of verbatims. For him, the verbatims are the equivalent of having the Customer Service Rep standing outside his door, mimicking that natural feedback process that happens when employees sit together.

To create this, they push verbatims to employee desktops based on the topics of interest to them, giving them a running ticker of comments during the day. It makes it so personal…employees start to read the comments, and it connects them to what is going on with the customer in the moment.

In their claims area, about 11% of survey respondents request a claims rep follow up, and 3% request follow up from a manager. They integrate this follow up process with their claims system, and log what they learn from each call. Richard admitted that they tend to focus most of their efforts today on following up with Detractors, like most businesses. But it gives them lots of valuable feedback to use in the business.

What’s Your Price?

As expected, they find that in time periods where they increase rates, NPS moves down for those consumers. They also see differences when they run promotions. Richard called it “Bait and Switch.”

For example, they offer a one-time discount for moving to online, paperless interaction. The problem is that when they renew, this one-time discount goes away. And yet people don’t always remember why their rate was discounted. So as soon as rates go back up, they see NPS dip.

One interesting innovation around pricing that they have implemented is a new function on their website that allows the customer to say what they want to pay, and they can come back to the customer with information on what coverage this will buy for them.

It’s the Little Things

But ultimately, pricing can be difficult to control. So, Richard turned next to a series of smaller process improvements that are easier to address without a lot of extra cost…just by better understanding the customer’s point-of-view and needs. Everything from the way they print and mail their insurance ID cards (consumers were losing them in the stacks of paper they receive when they sign up). Another example was the way they presented the discounts that the policyholder received. They not only made this easier to read, but also added a section with suggestions on how they could save even more money.

It’s the Big Things, Too

How do you let customers know about the changes you are making?

In addition to the little improvements, Progressive has also made some big investments in things like the claims experience. Richard noted that Claims is one of the most critical moments of truth in the insurance experience. For auto claims, they have set up a concierge service, where the customer simply drops off their car, and is handed the keys to a rental car in the same building, through a partnership with Enterprise Rent-a-Car.

Richard’s 2 Big Takeaways

1. Work on your own economic value of NPS, and get it blessed by your CFO.

2. Work on your customer feedback loop. Use the comments and engage with the verbatims, not just the score. This really helps to personalize it, and get eager employees involved in helping to make changes happen.

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