Insurer LV= found that call centres were inefficient and didn’t offer the best in terms of customer service. A new digital system has allowed for a revolution in the company’s customer service proposition. Hassan Butt reports

Challenge: Layers of legal jargon form the blueprint of the insurance sector. This leaves customer service teams in the insurance sector facing the challenge of succinctly conveying important information to a diverse customer base. Yet high staff attrition in call centres and, in many cases, flat structured company foundations also lead to dwindling performance rates.

Liverpool Victoria was founded in 1843 and has over 2,500 customer service professionals across 17 UK locations. Rebranding to LV= in 2007, the company serves over five million customers and covers the remit of general insurance, from life insurance to small businesses. Despite ranking highly in customer satisfaction and leading many of its competitors, LV=’s task of overcoming its own complexities requires the possibility for effective information sharing; a shift that would allow the insurer to categorise, index and cross-reference each segment of its content and relay the information back to customers through straightforward instructions.

Addressing this challenge is not only a key company objective, but a key component of LV=’s wider internal communications strategy. With customer service an indicator of overall reputation, understanding the complexities present within the industry is the first step to bridging the invisible gap between customers and staff. However, improving employee efficiency in solving customer problems has traditionally been about the education of a workforce – something that is time consuming and requires further training.

However, creating large databases that hold confidential policy details and sensitive information, balancing data protection with fluid, back-end navigation is an ongoing industry gripe. Awash with endless software, from workforce management tools to sales order processing platforms, customer-facing employees are tasked with the high-risk job of tackling a matrix of varying systems. For LV=, working around this required a different way of thinking, something that confronted the problem head-on, without putting a strain on the employee. With the help of London- based product and service innovation company, Fluxx, LV= sought to redevelop the parameters of customer service.

Strategy: Building on the core of LV=’s internal systems, Fluxx administered a digital solution which focused on tying together the defining features of the existing customer service structure. Fluxx embedded self-supporting attributes into the new software, creating a self-learning tool that could be widely implemented. Under Fluxx’s fast-paced implementaton strategy, Rapid Start, a pilot system was created in two days.

Known as Resolv=, the system acts as an answer- based forum, stemming from gamification and social collaboration, users can answer customer queries with accuracy while simultaneously building information on the subject, thus improving the service. Paul Dawson, founding partner of Fluxx, says, “Although the platform itself isn’t unique, the way these problems are generally addressed in these environments is about referring to policy. Whether dropping paint on a carpet is counted as accidental damage is one example. Normally, things work hierarchically, an expert is consulted and it’s generally via a document. Over time, those documents become outdated, inaccessible and unclear.”

Fluxx understood that LV=’s customer-facing employees still had to interrogate a knowledge base that was developed by subject matter experts. Dawson says, “The reality of how call centres operate doesn’t account for conversations outside the pale of auditing, risk management etc. We harnessed that, because people are willing to get up and help other people, we brought it together under one mechanism by using digital tools, creating an ecosystem that worked across multiple locations.”

Fluxx’s digital solution began by capturing user feedback prior to the official launch over a three-day, introductory workshop that aimed to define how the service could be best used. Taking just one month from pilot to full implementation across each location, Resolv= allowed for the dynamic of LV= contact centres to undergo the largest system change to date.

Results: With the introduction of gamification and a cohesive social platform, the benefits of Resolv= continue to manifest in different ways. From staff relations to the transportation of information, Resolv= has improved customer service while reducing errors and handling time. In addition, call times have decreased along with first call resolutions increasing. Since its initial implementation in 2014, Resolv= has resulted in improvements in customer satisfaction and staff satisfaction, with over 96% of pilot users reporting ease of use.

Now integrated into contact centres across the UK, Fluxx’s solution not only allows for LV=’s limitations to be turned into strengths, it also unifies the workplace as one body, using the collective experience of the staff to remedy industry challenges. Rod Willmott, head of innovation at LV=, says, “This is the first time that we’ve implemented something that is self-learning. Sourcing information from all walks of the company, it was the first time that knowledge from the customer facing part of the company spread to the wider organisation, bottom- up rather than top-down. Resolv= is still very much at the centre of how knowledge is communicated around the organisation. It’s also a great place for us to understand what the common questions that are being asked by our customers.”

LV=’s new approach has collected several awards, earning recognition for its use of technology within customer service. Yet along with this, Resolv= has contributed to its own development as a model of open source technology, with the business benefits driving overall performance. Restructuring the parameters of its customer service strategy has, in turn, resulted in LV= benefitting from the service’s autonomy.