How we are doing - The Key Customer Commitment Measures
LV= and all other participating companies have made a formal Board resolution to ensure that the needs of the customer are at the core of the way they run their business. This has always been fundamental in how we work.
All companies who are part of the Customer Impact scheme have signed up to:
1. Developing and promoting products and services that meet the needs of customers.
2. Providing customers with clear information and good service when they buy products.
3. Maintaining appropriate and effective relationships with customers, providing them with a good service after they have bought a product.
1) Developing and promoting products and services.
In this area LV= significantly outperformed the industry with 40% of you rating us as excellent and very good, compared with just 35% for the industry as a whole.
The quality of our productsWe remain focussed on ensuring that the products we develop are right for you. And we continue to out-perform the industry in this area. We have placed even more importance on involving you, the customer, in the design process by asking you about your needs and what you think about new products and services we are developing.
2) Giving clear information and service.In this category we performed marginally above the industry average and have taken action in response to this feedback to improve our performance in this area. Our aim is to always provide you with clear and timely communications and our teams are working hard to ensure this happens. We have invested in a number of research projects to test product literature and documentation to ensure that our communications are always clear and easy to understand. Our own more recent Customer Satisfaction and Commitment survey shows that 70% of you rate our "statements and letters" as excellent and very good.
Investment communications
This year we have increased our investment performance communications to our investment customers by adding a six monthly investment report in between the annual statement. We have also carried out research to assist us in updating our sales process and literature to make sure that customers are fully aware of the risks involved when investing in the stock-market. Performance information that has only previously been available via the post is now available online.
Claims statistics
This year we published our 2007 protection claims statistics (see extract below) and overall, more than £54.9m was paid out to policyholders in protection claims last year. This includes £5.8m in critical illness claims and £15.2m in income protection claims equating to 86% of total claims.
We have put a lot of work into developing ways to help financial advisers and their clients with policy applications and claims, so that valid claims are paid promptly, and that the risk of non-disclosure is significantly reduced.
Member website
We have recently launched a new website for our members at www.lv.com/yourmembership. This website keeps members informed of the latest developments at LV= and also includes information on member benefits, discounts and services.
LV= Research Community
The LV= Research Community is an online community for all LV= customers and members. As a result of feedback, we created this website to make it easier to communicate with you and hear your views on how we are doing and what you are looking for when protecting you, your family and business and personal assets. The online community gives you the chance to discuss and share your views on a variety of topics and subjects. Features include discussion forums, quick polls and more in-depth online surveys.
You can find out more about our research community by going to our member website as highlighted in the Member Website section above.
Claims Management
Our performance in managing and paying claims is still above the industry average and our own survey sees 75% of customers rating our overall claims service as excellent and very good. We are continuing to improve in this area by using the results from the work carried out by our Service Improvement team and customer feedback projects.
Sales Process
We remain focussed on improving our sales process; in particular, shortening the time it takes from the initial application through to the issuing of acceptance documentation on our protection products. New initiatives have seen this time decrease by 41% since January 2007 with the introduction of an on-line application processing capability and ‘teleinterviewing'. Teleinterviewing is a system that removes the need for you to complete a lengthy application form. Our medically trained team contact you and take all the relevant medical information needed to complete the application.
3) Maintaining effective relationships.
The results show that once again LV= are above the Industry average.
Our complaints process.
Whilst we are still seeing more complaints than the Industry average relating to General Errors, our hard work has seen the percentage fall from 67% to 45%. The number of customers who ‘felt like making a complaint' has remained consistently low, and well below the industry average at 4%. Despite these low numbers we always treat all complaints very seriously and continue to learn from mistakes we have made.
Our Customer Service Centre Our customer service centre continues to perform above the industry average. More recently our own survey showed that 80% of you rated our service as excellent and very good. This reflects the significant investment we have made in providing training for every single member of staff to ensure that you know we have the right level of expertise to answer your questions and that we do so in a way that demonstrates we care about you.
*Tomorrow was acquired from Swiss Re and formally known as GE Life
# In-house means that all services are provided and managed directly by LV= and no other 3rd Party companies are involved.
