Equipping Teams to Retain Customers

A health insurer set out to strengthen customer retention at the critical moment of policy renewal - a growing challenge in the context of rising prices. While their customer service was rated consistently highly, they recognised that their retention communications - specifically, retention calls and renewal documents - weren’t delivering the desired results. We partnered with them to uncover the barriers within these touchpoints and identify ways to make their retention efforts more effective. 

 Our comprehensive behavioural diagnostic involved listening to retention calls, fact-find discussions with managers and one-to-one interviews with each member of the retention team. Our diagnostic approach uncovered that this was a skill and a cultural challenge.

We identified three key issues we needed to address on the phones...

1. The team were focused on "completing tasks" on each call, leaving less room to explore customers’ underlying needs (e.g. through open questions)
2. Retention techniques being used by the team revolved around ways to reduce the price (e.g. increasing the excess) rather than reiterating the value of the policy 
3. There was an inconsistent approach to handling common customer objections

These issues on retention calls were exacerbated due various organisational influences: 

• Organisational norms and team culture was impacting retention efforts
• There was a lack of targets, feedback and knowledge sharing 
• There were inconsistencies in training and onboarding that led to varied call quality​

We also analysed the insurer’s renewal documents, uncovering structural and clarity issues that reduced their effectiveness in persuading and reassuring customers.

In order to address the barriers identified, and ensure ongoing impact, we needed to: 

1. Equip the team with the right tools (to develop their retention skills) and 

2. Motivate the team and build confidence (to ensure ongoing commitment). 

We provided 10 clear solutions to the health insurer to achieve these goals, including:

• Call flow guide: presenting a proposed conversation flow, including persuasive techniques and tips tailored to different customer scenarios 
• Objection Handling playbook: With suggested wording and responses to common customer objections (e.g. “I’m going to shop around” or “why is my price going up even though I’ve made no claims?”)
• Simple explanations of key terms: Including a bank of straight-forward, simple ways to explain key terms to overcome customer confusion and lack of confidence
• Repository of great calls for inspiration: Enabling the team to see these retention techniques in practice rather than in purely “theoretical” training materials
• Knowledge sharing: Introducing regular team sessions where the team can discuss any challenges and ways to overcome them

We facilitated an in-person workshop with the retention team and management to to provide our constructive feedback and actionable solutions. We also produced revised versions of the renewal documents, redesigned to be structured intuitively, clearer, and more persuasive.

Our work provided the insurer with...

• A clear diagnostic of why retention calls were underperforming, with actionable steps to resolve both skill and cultural challenges
• Revised renewal documents that are behaviourally optimised: clear, punchy and persuasive.
• Short and long-term strategies to upskill and motivate the retention team, with buy-in from both team members and senior management