The Secret to a Resilient Customer Experience

We had just completed an agency acquisition in Philadelphia and were in the midst of our first quarter of client renewals when we faced what I’d call a perfect storm. As intermediaries for insurance and risk management, our team needed to make a positive first impression on our new clients while meeting our obligations to our carrier partners. On one hand, the insureds’ first impression of our services would be shaped by how smoothly their account renewals were handled, and on the other, we were still grappling with hard market pressures and changing carrier appetites. Our customer experience initiatives were about to be put to the test...

Each day, as business leaders and professionals, our organization and team face stressors that challenge our ability to meet or exceed our clients’ expectations. These stressors can impact each stage of the buyer’s journey and service experience. Today, your organization might be experiencing stress as a result of:

• New workplace policies or procedures
• Changes in the industry
• Prospecting and sales
• Client expectations
• Workplace dynamics
• Training and education
• Emerging markets
• Regulatory changes
• Technology disruptions
• And more!

The measure of long-term success isn’t about how little stress impacts our customer experience journey, but how resilient our team is in addressing and combating these challenges. This is what building a resilient customer experience looks like.

What is Resilience?

Resilience is the practice of adapting in the face of stress. It’s the ability to "bounce back." Creating a resilient customer experience involves a combination of our team’s behavior, attitude, actions, and skills. And, although we may believe our customer experience journey is resilient to outside stressors, research suggests there is much room for improvement. According to a poll by SAS, 97% of business executives believe resilience is important, but only 47% believe their business is resilient. This indicates that while the concept of resilience is easy to grasp, it can be challenging to implement.

What Happens When Our Organization is Not Resilient?

As an educator and advocate of 'predict and prevent' risk mitigation strategies, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when organizations fail to consider resilience in their long-term goals and objectives. Whether it's advancements in artificial intelligence, industry-disruptive competitors, or employment challenges, failing to consider how resilient your organization's goals, objectives, and processes are against internal and external stressors leaves a gap in your organization’s risk management program.

Making Resilience Your Company’s Strategic Advantage

To build a more resilient customer experience program, consider the following six strategies:

1. Maintain a Sense of Perspective: When faced with stressors that could impact your customer’s experience with your organization’s brand or team, it can feel as though every challenge is the worst possible scenario. This phenomenon is called “catastrophizing” and is a learned trait. Instead, document the stressor, and in your next customer experience meeting, ask your team, “How big is this challenge really?” and “What needs to be done to overcome it?”
2. Have a Growth Mindset: Sometimes, you may feel as though no matter what you do, you are unable to improve your customer’s perception of your organization’s brand or your team. This is called “having a fixed mindset.” Instead, remind yourself that your actions and efforts to improve the customer experience impact your customers. Adopting a growth mindset will help you maintain a sense of control in the face of stress.
3. Embrace Work/Life Balance: Work/life balance may seem unrelated to your customer experience program, but it’s incredibly important that your team remains in tip-top shape. This means allowing each team member to unplug from stressful situations and focus on their physical, mental, and financial well-being—the three pillars of a holistic well-being program.
4. Identify The Problem Solvers: We all manage stress differently. Those of us who have developed a resilient mindset will be more equipped to build resilient programs and initiatives. Look for employees who have high emotional intelligence and view problems not as challenges but as opportunities for improvement.
5. Remain Flexible and Accept Change: Innovation is a fact of life. The way we conduct business today will not be the same in 3, 5, or even 10 years. Understanding that change is inevitable and can be leveraged to meet and exceed our customers' expectations changes how we view stress. Remain naturally curious and be a lifelong learner.
6. Embrace Failure: Finally, “failure” is a psychological viewpoint. We can sometimes get too focused on the facts and figures. Remember, building businesses, and improving your customer’s experience with your brand, is a journey, and you should play the long game. Reframe failure as an indicator that part of your customer experience program needs improvement.

To build a more resilient customer experience program with our new client base, we decided to reframe how we sold renewals, highlighting how industry trends impacted our client’s renewal. We also established clear lines of communication and protocols with our carrier partners to more quickly identify and review accounts we considered at-risk before proceeding with a renewal. This proactive approach allowed us to develop and execute conflict resolution strategies effectively.

The result? Our Client Advisors were able to retain most of the accounts we viewed as a high risk of turnover. Moreover, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from insureds about our efforts. They appreciated our dedication to educating them, negotiating terms, and collaborating on solutions that were truly win-win.

?This experience proved that resilience isn’t just about bouncing back; it’s about leaping forward. It's about seeing challenges as opportunities to innovate and improve. And as we moved forward, our team not only adapted but thrived, setting a new standard for customer service and performance in our agency.