Allianz

Allianz's customer insight team replaced agency-run surveys with an automated, API-driven programme built on SmartSurvey. Feedback that once arrived in the hundreds now arrives a quarter of a million times a year, lands in front of frontline teams within the hour, and shapes everything from digital journeys to how staff and suppliers are recognised and benchmarked.

At a glance

• Insurance and financial services, customer insight team, using SmartSurvey since 2019
• From 100 responses a month to more than 250,000 a year
• Customer comments in front of frontline teams within the hour, with a call to the customer shortly after
• Customer scores feed certificates, remuneration and performance benchmarking for staff and suppliers
• Collection across email, SMS, QR codes, web pop-ups and video feedback
• Surveys re-themed across the Allianz and LV= brands without rebuilding from scratch

"Since 2019, we've leapt from a hundred responses to upwards of a quarter of a million per year. The efficiency, the automation, meant that SmartSurvey was growing with the pace of our book, but also with the pace of how important customer feedback is in the day-to-day running of the business." - Mark McFarland, Customer Insight Team Lead, Allianz

The challenge: feedback that couldn't keep up

Before SmartSurvey, Allianz's customer insight team relied on a combination of external agencies to run its surveys end to end: the design, the question sets, the sends and receives, and much of the reporting. The output was around 100 responses a month, at agency prices, arriving too slowly to act on.

The business was growing, and customer feedback was moving to the heart of its vision and values. Sharing feedback at scale had become a requirement the old model could not meet. The team went looking for a platform they could run themselves.

The solution: an hourly loop the team runs itself

What drew Allianz in first was the ease of use, straightforward pricing and the ability to start quickly. What kept them was the API. The team now uses it for both the send and the receive, calling it hourly so feedback arrives in near real time.

"If a customer leaves us feedback at 11:41, the API call comes in at 12, and the feedback has landed by five past. We produce that for our frontline to review, and we can be on the phone to the customer very quickly after that to investigate their concerns." - Mark McFarland, Customer Insight Team Lead, Allianz

That callback does something subtle for trust. Customers are often surprised anything happens at all; as Mark puts it, "there's obviously sometimes a belief that it falls into a black hole." A call within the hour proves the opposite.

Scale created its own problem: a small team suddenly holding thousands of comments it could never read manually. So Allianz built a triage layer on top of the API. An internal tool surfaces new feedback every hour, line by line with scores and comments, and reviewers make three calls on the fly: is this a complaint, does this person deserve recognition, does it warrant calling the customer? Team leaders took to it quickly, sharing standout feedback with their teams and seeing the output of their people's work rather than staying disconnected from it.

Collection runs across email, SMS, QR codes and web pop-ups for what Mark calls "finger on the pulse" feedback, and customers can also leave video responses. Jemma Green, Senior Customer Insight Analyst at Allianz, points to the platform's flexibility as the reason the programme has survived the company's own changes: "We've been able to tailor-make our surveys as we go along. We haven't had to start from scratch." As branding shifted over time, including across the Allianz and LV= brands, surveys were re-themed rather than rebuilt.

The results: insight the business acts on

The numbers moved first: from 100 responses a month to more than 250,000 a year, on a platform the team operates without agencies. But the value shows up in what the feedback changes.

"We can categorise it and tell them what trends are occurring over time, but they want to be able to have that actionable insight to then make those changes and improve going forward." -Jemma Green, Senior Customer Insight Analyst, Allianz

Two examples. Feedback revealed that customers in the quote journey were investing time entering their details, only to discover late on that they were not eligible. The insight went to the digital teams, who repositioned the journey so customers could stop sooner. And by attaching claim and policy data to each response, the team can connect scores to operational reality: longer-tailed claims consistently produce worse NPS. "If we can pay our total losses quicker, we know for a fact they're going to be happier," Jemma explains.

Feedback is also assigned to the individual handling the customer, or to the supplier repairing their car or their property after a storm claim. Customer scores now feed certificates, remuneration and performance benchmarking for both staff and suppliers.

"To see the cultural shift amongst our people and our suppliers is where I think it's really had the biggest impact." - Mark McFarland, Customer Insight Team Lead, Allianz

The team talks about "the power of one": a single customer's video, played back to the exec, lands in a way no chart can, for learning and for recognition alike.

Why SmartSurvey

For Mark, it comes down to ease of use, navigation, and a relationship that has held since 2019. "The support I would say for me is outstanding, and I can honestly say that, compared to dealing with other suppliers, it's second to none." For Jemma, it is the customisation that has let the surveys evolve with the business instead of behind it.

As new partnerships and touchpoints keep arriving, the insight team is the one the business leans on.

Here's Mark's read on why that matters: "Customers feel more empowered and more informed than ever. It's more important than ever to make that your differentiator to your competitors and make sure you are truly delivering on what customers need."