Faced with disruptive threats and evolving customer expectations, insurance organisations are increasingly recognising the need for robust digital strategies to create an engaging customer experience. FST Media and Fuji Xerox hosted an exclusive luncheon in Sydney with communications, marketing, digital and distribution heads from leading Australian insurance organisations. The discussion focused on the challenges and opportunities in embracing digital transformation and how organisations can leverage technology to manage their customer communication lifecycles. Need help? Just ask. Visit our website www.fujixerox.com.au or email us enquiries@aus.fujixerox.com

1. Embracing digital transformation
Faced with disruptive threats and evolving
customer expectations, insurance organi-
sations are increasingly recognising the
need for robust digital strategies to create
an engaging customer experience.
FST Media and Fuji Xerox hosted an
exclusive luncheon in Sydney with
communications, marketing, digital and
distribution heads from leading Australian
insurance organisations. The discussion
focusedonthechallengesandopportunities
in embracing digital transformation and
how organisations can leverage technology
to manage their customer communication
lifecycles.
Most organisations were at different
stages of their customer engagement
journey – from personalised communi-
cation and social media to utilising big data
– and facing internal hurdles in achieving
these goals.
“[Digital transformation] might make
your environment more competitive but
ultimately the customers in a digital world
are much more empowered,” said, Tim
Tez, Chief Marketing Officer, AIA Australia.
Paul Sainsbury, Chief Customer Officer,
AMP, stressed that changing technology
and customer expectations have made it
critical for insurance organisations to
adapt. “The digital age and the information
age are conspiring to create a more
informed and mobile customer, and if you
are not finding ways to engage and bring
value, then you are at risk of losing them
like never before,” said Sainsbury.
Facing a cultural shift
Thejourneytowardsdigitaltransformation
requires a cultural shift within insurance
organisations that have traditionally seen
business operations and customer
communications as separate areas.
According to Anthony Cogswell, Executive
General Manager, Fuji Xerox Global Services,
customers engage ‘horizontally’ across
organisations, however many processes and
communicationpiecesoriginatefromwithinthe
disparate silos in organisations, this creates
inconsistent customer experience, and drives
the need for improved collaboration between
differentpartsofthebusiness
“The [customer journey] is not something
that has a start or an end – we need to keep
investing,” said Cogswell.
Tez noted that within AIA Australia, a
cultural shift was among the first things the
organisation had to consider when it started
on its journey two years ago to embrace
mobile and social media platforms.
“In the digital space, we had to learn to
utilise an agile, project methodology.
Better to test and learn if we were going to
fail, and fail quickly, than commit fully to
the wrong course of action,” Tez said,
adding that AIA Australia also decided
early on to remain technology agnostic,
which has helped it keep pace with
changing technology.
Many executives pointed out that in
Australia, insurance has historically seen
low levels of customer engagement in part
because of the nature of the insurance
products and the reluctance of potential
customerstotalkaboutundesirableevents.
Tez cited AIA Australia’s Vitality program,
which uses behavioural economics to drive
customer engagement via community
Top row (from left to right): Julie McCormack, Head of Strategy & Distribution, Zurich Australia; Paul Sainsbury, Chief Customer
Officer, AMP; Dominic Brandon, Group Manager Marketing & Brand, Allianz Australia; Hamish Graham, Account Director –
Global Services Strategic Accounts, Fuji Xerox Australia; Robin Moore, Regional Community Manager Asia Pacific, ACE Insurance;
Mark Reinke, Group Executive, Customer Data and Marketing, Suncorp; Liz Smith, Head of Commercial Marketing & Media,
Insurance Australia Group; Tim Tez, Chief Marketing Officer, AIA Australia; Aaron Fuller, Head of Digital, Hollard Insurance;
Sharon Kenny, Head of Engagement and Brand Marketing, Hollard Financial Services. Bottom row (from left to right):
Patrick Brownsberger, Head of Digital, Allianz Australia; Anthony Cogswell, Executive General Manager – Global Services,
Fuji Xerox Australia; Richard Dunkerley, Head of Marketing, Life & Investments, Zurich Financial Services; Gary Boyd,
Manager – Digital Strategy & Publishing, QBE; John Binfield, Head of Distribution, CommInsure, Commonwealth Bank of Australia;
Jane Merrick, Head of Brands, Insurance Australia Group; Lee Morgan, Head of Direct Distribution, MetLife.

2. initiativesutilisingmobileandonlinefitness
tools, has seen a strong take-up among its
customers.“Youneedtotailoryourproducts
so that [customers] embrace digital, and it
is not just another way to transact your
products,” said Tez.
AIA Australia also formed cross-
functional groups within the organisation
and encouraged the testing of real-life
business problems. It also sponsored
initiatives between CIOs and CMOs in
addition to rebranding its sales team as
‘client development managers’, said Tez.
MarkReinke,GroupExecutive,Customer
Data and Marketing, Suncorp, pointed out
that the insurance industry has been built
on ‘information asymmetry’ causing it to
lag behind many of the rapidly-evolving
technology trends.
“Customers have an ability to know
much more about their risks and that
creates the disruption of business models,”
said Reinke. He added in five years’ time,
the industry is likely to encounter even
more disruptive trends such as peer-to peer
and open-source platforms that could
potentially assess risk better than today’s
insurance organisations.
Richard Dunkerley, Head of Marketing,
Life and Investments, Zurich Financial
Services, also noted the potential channel
conflict arising from the use of
intermediaries and advisors by insurers.
“There has been a fear of communicating
to the customer because there was the
debate as to whose customer it was,”
said Dunkerley. “The whole industry
dialogue is around [customer] retention
and there is a bit of finger pointing as to
whoisresponsibleforretaininganddriving
the sustainability.”
Aaron Fuller, Head of Digital, Hollard
Insurance,saidfinancialproductsandservices
areincreasinglybecomingcommoditised,and
that delivering a good end-to-end customer
experience will ultimately become a
branddifferentiator.
“It is the perception of the experience,
which touches into mobile and a holistic
customer experience footprint,” said
Fuller. “Customers have more technology
than we do and they are always going to be
ahead of the curve because of the
technology they hold in their hands.”
John Binfield, Head of Distribution,
CommInsure, emphasised that customer
expectations are likely to change further.
“Customer expectations, particularly in the
digitalspace,arenotsetbytheirexperience
with banks or other insurers; it is set by
the very best of their experiences online.”
further improve customer engagement.
According to him, a customer should not
have to repetitively input information if
engaging with different products owned
by the same financial organisation.
“It is a far more simple experience and
that is what our customers expect of us – to
know them even if it extends into claims,”
said Binfield.
Power of personalisation
Executivesemphasisedthatpersonalisation
is increasingly becoming a non-negotiable
tool in the journey to engage customers,
with many pointing to live web chat.
“One of the big things in personalisation
is the idea that if you are in a process
that can be interrupted, you want to be
able to pick up from where you left off,”
said Dunkerley.
Moore of ACE Insurance noted the
importance of communities in building
brands and fostering trusting client
relationships within those communities.
“A relationship that is long term rather
than transactional is very powerful,”
said Moore. *
Patrick Brownsberger, Head of Digital,
Allianz Australia, pointed to the pace of
change in technology as another challenge.
“We have thousands of devices hitting
the [stores] every single day. To talk about
a proper optimised experience regardless
of device, is not a simple question any
more,” he said.
According to Cogswell of Fuji Xerox,
effectivecustomerexperiencemanagement
is the product of deliberate organisational
design. “Customer experience does not
happen; it is only well-planned execution
that leads to a certain experience, whatever
your brand wants to portray as that
experience,” said Cogswell.
Social channels, powerful
yet underutilised
Executives acknowledged the power of
social media to engage with customers, but
the channel itself remains underutilised.
According to Dunkerley, call centre staff
couldbetrainedtoengageviasocialmedia.
“There are some who still see [social
media] as this magical black box,” said
Dunkerley. “There is more emphasis on the
medium rather than the message. You have
to move away from that in the same way no
one should own the telephone or no one
should own written communication.”
According to Robin Moore, Regional
Communication Manager, Asia Pacific at
ACE Insurance, ultimately, digital strategy
is about redesigning processes in terms of a
social business model and responding to
[disaster] events. He cited last year’s
Queensland floods as an example.
“That was a point when the interests of
the insurer intersected with the interests
of the insured because they needed to
provide information and get information,”
said Moore.
Big data’s potential
While executives recognised the promise
of big data, many expressed concern about
the recent breaches in data security. “Big
data is not the answer to everything,” Tez
said. “It is about how we leverage big data
in a way that the customer wants it, driving
a consumer proposition.”
According to Tez, context is critically
important for customers, especially in the
life insurance space. “There are more
factors than what that data is telling us...
we need to look at the behavioural
economics behind it.”
Binfield of CommInsure sees benefits of
big data in ‘pre-populating’ customer
history within large organisations to
Big data is not the answer to everything,
it is about how we leverage big data in a
way that the customer wants it, driving a
consumer proposition.”
– Tim Tez, AIA