Editor’s Note - This story was originally published in January's Loyalty Management Online, and is part of Loyalty360’s “Best of 2016.” We wish you and your family a happy holidays, and will return to our regular content schedule in 2017!
Innovation is such an important word in today’s loyalty marketing world, one that hinges creativity and brand success. For Allstate Corporation, innovation means everything.
Orlando Mercado, Allstate’s Product Management Director, told Loyalty360 that introducing things like Allstate Rewards and Drivewise promotes more positive interaction with customers.
Through the use of Drivewise− a telematics insurance program that rewards drivers for driving safely−and its integration with the company’s loyalty program−Allstate Rewards−Allstate wants to change the way customers perceive and interact with their insurance companies. By taking the extra step of allowing customers of other insurance companies to participate, Allstate hopes to kick-start brand loyalty in new policyholders.
Allstate took home several honors at the second annual Loyalty360 CX Awards held during the Engagement & Experience Expo, hosted by Loyalty360. Allstate walked away with three awards: A Gold in the Best Customer Insight in Customer Experience category; a Silver in the Best Technology & Trends in Customer Experience category; and a Bronze in the comprehensive 360-Degree.
Mercado participated in an intriguing interview with Loyalty360 to talk about Allstate’s ongoing efforts in the customer loyalty arena.
Innovation is a big buzzword in the loyalty marketing world these days. How does Allstate innovate and can you describe the ongoing process behind it?
Innovation is a critical element of our effort to provide a complete customer experience that emphasizes service, connectedness, safety, preparedness, and value. We have found that combining our digital software product team and our insurance product team can lead to ideas that bring greater value and engagement to our customers. From a Connected Car technology perspective, there has been an Allstate culture shift to become more digitally savvy and engage our customers through our technology innovation. We are in an ongoing learning process of continuous improvement as we push the boundaries in the development of additional features for the Drivewise app.
Allstate won a Gold Award in the Best Customer Insights in Customer Experience category of the Loyalty360 CX Awards in November. Can you talk a bit about how Allstate collects and leverages customer insights in such a way that enhances the customer experience?
Understanding our customer’s wants and needs is critical to providing them with products and services that they value. By obtaining customer insights, we have been able to design our Drivewise® app to be user friendly, providing information about customers’ driving and giving them tips on how to be safer on the roads. We have also integrated a reward platform, which further incents good driving, providing consumers with rewards that help enhance their experiences with us.
How does Allstate define customer-centricity and has that definition changed or evolved in recent years?
Allstate is striving to be much more than an insurance company to fulfill what customers expect now and in the future. While being a customer-centric organization hasn’t changed, we have seen that technology has enhanced the ways in which we engage our customers. That is one reason why we developed the Allstate Rewards℠ program, to create more frequent and positive interaction touch points with our customers.
Allstate also won a Silver Award in the Best Technology & Trends in Customer Experience category at the Loyalty360 CX Awards. Can you talk about how technology drives the company’s mindset on a daily basis and, in turn, positively impacts the customer experience?
Technology is changing the way customers interact with the companies they do business with. It is also creating new opportunities for consumer interaction from a business perspective. We stay in close contact with our customers, ensuring that we are communicating with them and serving them in a way that they expect. Our Drivewise app, for example, has allowed us to create more frequent and positive interaction points then we had before, which is helping to enhance the overall customer experience.
How does Allstate benchmark and does it benchmark against various industry leaders?
As it relates to consumer connectivity, we work with various industry groups to understand the offerings and capabilities in the marketplace. This helps us understand how we compare to the industry as well as understand the products and services they may be offering. This keeps us at the forefront of connectivity trends and technology advancements.
Allstate also won a Bronze Award in the comprehensive 360-Degree category. What does this mean to Allstate to be recognized in such a comprehensive way when it comes to customer experience?
The 360-Degree award is a great recognition for the work we have done in the connected consumer space. It tells us that we are on the right track as it relates to listening to our customers and providing them products and services that meet their needs and expectations. It was especially gratifying as recognition for the work we have done to deliver our Drivewise and Allstate Rewards programs to the market place, as these are relatively new product offerings and we have spent a considerable amount of time gathering consumer insights and incorporating them into the products.
How does Allstate simplify its relationships with customers?
Customers are inundated with communications on a daily basis from companies that they do and don’t do business with. With that in mind, we are mindful with how we interact with our customers and how often we do so. We solicit input from customers to understand how they would like to interact with us and we do our best to develop processes than align with their expectations.
What would be one piece of advice you could offer loyalty marketers seeking to build upon their respective customer-centric strategies?
Be in the mindset of iterating. What may be a best practice for engaging customers today may not be the same as it is tomorrow, so it is important to keep contact with customers and the ever-evolving industry to ensure that customers are being served in a way that they want and expect.