Not all awards are created equal

Yesterday Bought By Many was awarded the Feefo Gold Trusted Service Award and I tweeted about this. But so what? Why should anyone care?

Visitors to the Bought By Many office in London often comment on the large number of awards that we have on display – do they matter?

Some background to insurance industry awards, and there are many.

A number of the insurance industry awards have independent judges, but a number don’t and as with awards in most sectors there’s always speculation that prizes are based on sponsorship or table-buying. Some awards are based on pure merit or consumer surveys. But many are based on written submissions – submissions that some large companies pay third-party professional award writers to write for them (indeed one awards company I am aware of even has a third-party award writer on its judging panels). Some awards are free to enter but many charge, and others charge industry figures to be part of the judging panel, further confusing the role of these awards and of these judges.

An entire industry has sprung up to produce awards dinners. For many awards these dinners are the sole reason for the award to exist – they are standalone for-profit businesses that offer awards to drive table sales at these dinners. To be clear, I am not suggesting that all dinners are bad (full disclosure: I’ve enjoyed many) and I am not suggesting that for some businesses they aren’t vital to make their main function – journalism – economically viable, I am just suggesting that a number have their priorities wrong.

Which brings me back to my topic and my assertion that awards are not all created equal, and the merit of our latest – the Feefo Gold Trusted Service Award.

Let me explain.

Bought By Many uses Feefo to capture feedback because it ensures only genuine customers leave reviews (although my mother would dearly love to be able to tell the world what she thinks of me….). And we have a huge number of reviews – in the two years since we launched our own cat and dog insurance products over 10,000 customers have taken the time to tell us what they think:

Critically, and unusually, we invite every customer to review us at every touch point that they have with us, so these 10,000 reviews include a significant number of claimants, in fact 3,531 to be precise (as of this morning):

Many other insurance companies only ask for a review immediately after a customer has purchased, unsurprisingly someone who has found a product that suits them at a price they’re willing to pay is likely to be fairly satisfied.

But we know the real test is when we handle a claim for a pet with cancer or explain to a customer that their price will change once they change address. These are the interactions where we have to work to earn a 5-star rating.

To have achieved a Gold Trusted Service Award a business must have collected at least 50 reviews between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2018, and achieved a Feefo service rating of at least 4.5 – clearly we passed that mark.

So this award is based on feedback from real customers and in significant numbers to be meaningful, over a lengthy period. This award recognises our long-term commitment to building a truly customer-centric business – one that values customer feedback (over industry awards). Oh, in case you’re wondering, we won this award last year too…

All the awards we’ve been a part of have been important to us and we’ve put a lot of effort into our entries. As a fast-growth business we’ve used our nominations and wins to gain industry and investor exposure. We enter to celebrate the work of our teams and have a platform to show other companies how they could be doing more for customers.

But we’ve found the most rewarding recognition is from customers who appreciate the work we do every day to improve insurance for them. A Gold Trusted Service Award means something to every employee of Bought By Many.

That’s enough of a rant, there are customers to be served and delighted - so that we can win again next year.