Erie Insurance Increase VoC Response Rate by 145%

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of an organization. However, that information is only useful if it’s actually put to use. Collecting data for the sake of collecting data doesn’t do anyone any favors.

When it came to customer feedback for their claims department, the Erie Insurance company relied on a manual process. The cost of materials and labor for getting their customer satisfaction surveys sent out and processed once returned got to be too much.

In addition to the cost element, the company found that they didn’t have a good way to systematically analyze the feedback they received. As a result, customer feedback remained primarily anecdotal.

Erie incentivizes customers to take their survey, offering a chance to win a prize. Originally, they relied on web surveys but quickly found that some customers weren’t comfortable using the computers. To keep things fair, they opted to add a phone version as well.

Using Plum Insight enabled Erie to integrate their web survey with the phone survey option. Working with a third-party vendor, Erie created a custom dashboard that collated all their customer feedback on a nightly basis and gave their employees fresh performance data every morning.

The switch to automated surveys has seen the volume of completed surveys sky-rocket for Erie. They went from receiving 4,900 response per year to over 1,000 per month, which translates to an improved response rate of 145% just from the voice channel alone. It also allowed the company to decrease their follow-up response time, which typically occurs within a day now.

Using the data gleaned from these surveys, Erie developed a better understanding of what made customers upset. This led the Erie claims department to revisit their on-boarding and training materials and procedures to ensure that their agents have the tools and training to be customer-centric when processing claims.

Survey data also helped the claims division identify a major customer pain point. Most customers don’t understand the full extent of their coverage. The claims department worked with the sales department, using actionable data obtained from these surveys, to highlight the areas of concern and to work toward further improvements.

To learn more about Erie Insurance and how they use Plum Insight to drive internal improvements, read the full case study.