NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2009 — The Chartered Insurance Operations Professional (CIOP) Institute is pleased to announce that The Progressive Group of Insurance Companies has been selected as the recipient of the 2008 Excellence in Insurance Operations Award. This highly selective award program is an appreciative approach that searches for and honors examples of successful operational innovation and leadership throughout the global insurance community. In qualifying for this award an insurance enterprise must demonstrate an explicit, planned, and masterfully executed series of intentions and decisions to optimize and integrate all of its resources to accomplish work in a manner that enables the organization to gain competitive advantage in consistently and profitably winning and retaining targeted customers. For 2008 the focus of the CIOP Institute's Excellence in Insurance Operations Award is "Building, Integrating, and Delivering an Outstanding Insurance Customer Experience."
As an aid in this year's selection process, a new and rigorous diagnostic tool was developed and applied based on the emerging body of knowledge and best practices surrounding the total customer experience. Though detailed and systematic in its evaluation, this diagnostic program was comprehensive in its application: Focusing on all those company attributes that forge, initiate and facilitate interactions with the targeted customer segments in such a way as to shape and reinforce a positive picture and perception of the company both in the customer's mind rationally and in the customer's heart emotionally.
The Insurance Customer Experience Diagnostic Model incorporates a detailed survey instrument that channels data gathering and analysis around seven vectors of performance including the following lines of enquiry:
- Strategy – To what degree does the firm consider "Customer Experience" as a strategic focus of the enterprise?
- Metrics – How does the firm calibrate the Customer Experience and compete on respective analytics?
- Innovation – What creative initiatives and resulting practices has the firm introduced to specifically enhance the customer experience?
- Technology – To what degree has the firm positioned technology as an enabler in "Building, Integrating and Delivering an Outstanding Customer Experience"?
- Products and Services – What product, service offerings, or enhancements have the firm introduced to specifically improve the customer experience?
- Structure and Processes – To what degree has the firm truly organized around the customer and respectively reoriented its processes to focus on the customer experience?
- Human Capital Management – How has the firm enhanced its ability to deliver a consistent and superior customer experience through the skills and shared values of its own people?
When taken and applied collectively, the Insurance Customer Diagnostic Model and Detailed Survey Instrument form a complete customer experience scorecard by which a firm's level of maturity can be determined in consistently and profitably delivering a superior customer experience.
"When we considered Progressive's approach and performance in determining its respective customer experience scorecard, it became quite clear the degree of dedication and disciplined execution Progressive is bringing to bear in 'Building, Integrating, and Delivering an Outstanding Insurance Customer Experience,'" stated Philip Mondanaro, a spokesperson for the CIOP Institute and member of the Excellence in Insurance Operations Award Selection Committee.
In sharing its assessment and analysis, the CIOP Institute provided a number of respective insights underlying the selection of Progressive as this year's recipient. First, and perhaps foremost, is its strategic intention to advance its capabilities as a target marketer. "Know your target and act with purpose" is a corporate mantra at Progressive that is helping the enterprise think about its customers in becoming a consumer's first choice or destination when they consider their insurance needs. While most insurers may consider themselves as having target markets, Progressive's approach is highly systematic. At all times and through all of its initiatives, Progressive wants to know who they are designing a product for, what services they are designing, what media they are using, what market share of the customers has been won and yet to be won, and what message resonates best. With this more robust and integrated approach to target marketing, Progressive is very conscious of its customer segments and their associated perspectives including demographic as well as behavioral characteristics. In this regard Progressive aligns its operations to service each customer segment on the basis of where, when, and how each target customer wants to be serviced.
Progressive was one of the first insurance companies to adopt the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure the customer experience, and it is linked to a comprehensive analytic engine. NPS levels and trends are closely monitored and supporting processes have been engineered to effectively resolve issues that detract from the customer experience. Basically, Progressive has effectively utilized NPS as a way to build a culture of customer care throughout the organization, imprinting the customer on its corporate DNA.
While Progressive has certainly leveraged technology over the years to improve transaction fulfillment, it has increasingly positioned enabling technologies on strengthening the customer experience. Progressive has and continues to be a leader regarding the use of the Internet, and Progressive's online service is highly valued by its targeted direct consumers. Indeed, Progressive is starting to use the Internet to change the traditional model of insurance and how the company interacts with consumers. Progressive has embraced and expanded Internet technologies in highly innovative ways. For instance, Progressive was the first major carrier to have a Web site, sell policies online, let customers manage their policies online, introduce an online comparative rating system, introduce payments using Web-enabled cell phone functionality, employ Voice over Internet Protocol to communicate with its customers, and report glass claims online.
The expansive and creative use of the Internet is one example of how Progressive applies technology to deliver a rewarding customer experience. Another illustration is in the area of usage based insurance (UBI) in which Progressive, with its program MyRate, is pioneering the use of hardware, logistics, fulfillment, and distribution by changing the traditional factors in setting rates to a model that is more focused on the nature and extent of actual vehicle usage in determining risk and price. This disciplined approach to developing and introducing MyRate, which holds the potential as a transformational advancement in how a carrier comes to market, is illustrative of a corporate value system that emphasizes customer advocating innovations.
Whether its pioneering work in the use of tiered rating in the 1970s, its embracing and expansion of the Internet, providing pet injury coverage, mobile claims services, claims concierge services, or online comparative rating, it is very clear that Progressive is continually exploring new and innovative ways of adding value to the customer experience.
Beyond its ability to invent and bring compelling and business-sensible innovations to the market, what emerged from the CIOP Institute's analysis is the dynamic balance that Progressive strikes between the more measured analytical aspects of the business with the less tangible but equally important social process in building and sustaining a customer centric organization. There are reinforcing mechanisms and linkages that tightly integrate the human dimensions of the business with the more technical organizational components and processes. Customer care is explicitly included within Progressive's performance management program to ensure resonance among objective setting, human capital development, individual performance measurement and accountability. Indeed, while Progressive has instituted dedicated and formal job positions, such as Customer Experience Managers, all Progressive leaders and associates are viewed as customer advocates. This notion of customer – in its most encompassing meaning and interpretation – has been imbedded throughout the collectively shared value and belief system that more than anything else defines Progressive.
Mr. Mondanaro summarized the selection of Progressive as the recipient of this year's Excellence in Insurance Operations Award by noting that recent management thinkers have concluded that "the best leaders pay a great deal of attention to the design elements around them: they articulate a lucid sense of purpose, create effective leadership teams, prioritize and sequence their initiatives carefully, redesign organizational structures to make good execution easier, and, most importantly integrate all of these tactics into one coherent strategy" (Wheeler & McFarland).
When taken in the context of Building, Integrating, and Delivering an Outstanding Insurance Customer Experience, it became increasingly clear that Progressive has emerged as an industry leader and should be recognized for its focus, discipline, creativity, and consistency in reinventing and continually refining the insurance customer experience.
About Progressive
Progressive, founded in 1937, is a leading insurer of cars, motorcycles, recreation vehicles, boats, personal watercraft and commercial vehicles. The company offers competitive rates and products that meet drivers' needs throughout their lifetimes as well as 24/7 online and in-person customer and claims service. Progressive's products and services are available locally through more than 30,000 independent insurance agencies in the U.S., online at http://www.progressive.com and by phone at 1-800-PROGRESSIVE (1-800-776-4737).
About the CIOP Institute
The CIOP Institute is the premier global insurance leadership development organization built upon a deep belief in the power of knowledge as a shaper of performance, a builder of professionalism, a creator of ideas, and an inciter of innovation and change. While offering a compelling array of educational experiences and thought leadership, the Institute administers the Chartered Insurance Operations Professional (CIOP) designation – a highly rigorous learning and examination program that combines underlying business concepts, respective tools and techniques, and real world applications. CIOP candidates learn the underlying concepts, business practices, emerging concepts, and practical approaches to optimizing and integrating all the disciplines necessary to significantly advance the performance of insurance operations. For more information regarding the CIOP Designation, visit the CIOP Institute's website (http://www.ciopdesignation.com) or call 866.930.CIOP (1.866.930.2467).
Contact:
Paul James
1.866.930.CIOP
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