The AEGON Scottish Equitable board was one of the first to sign up to a new voluntary scheme called Customer Impact. This commits us to making sure our customers are at the centre of how we run our business.
Customer Impact is run by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and overseen by an independent Customer Impact Panel. Launched in 2006, it aims to ‘improve outcomes for customers of the UK’s life, pensions and investment industry’. It’s part of our industry’s commitment to improve customer experiences, and to be accountable for our performance in doing so.
The watchdog for our industry, the Financial Services Authority, hopes that Customer Impact will help firms consider how to treat customers fairly.
Customer Impact commitments
As a member of Customer Impact, we make three commitments to you:
- to develop and promote products and services that meet your needs
- to provide clear information and good service when you buy one of our products
- to maintain an appropriate and effective relationship with you
We see these commitments as the absolute minimum we should be doing for our customers.
Yearly survey
Each year, an independent survey is carried out on behalf of companies who have signed up to Customer Impact. The first full survey, conducted in 2006, was based on the views of 18,000 customers. And the 32 participating companies represented 85% of the life and pensions industry, making it the largest-ever survey of UK financial services.
The survey covers some people who have recently bought a product, some who have recently made a claim and others who have held a product for some time. It assesses how well companies are meeting their customers’ needs in a number of areas. This helps us to understand how our industry is performing in general, and how AEGON Scottish Equitable is faring within this.
As well as measuring overall satisfaction, the survey also gathers views on specific areas such as products, complaints handling and sales. This gives us valuable insights into exactly where we need to improve.
It also helps us to concentrate on the right areas when we invest for the future, whether it’s developing our employees to better appreciate how their actions have an impact on you, designing efficient services that suit your needs, or staying ahead of technological developments. We’ll cover all of these later in this report.
Good practice guides
To help member companies deliver a better customer experience, the Customer Impact scheme is supported by a series of good practice guides, and we check what we do against these. Each guide tackles an aspect of how we operate that has an impact on how you’re treated and the service you receive. Topics include clear language and layout, handling customer claims, yearly statements and complaint handling.
You can read the guides, and find more information on the scheme, on www.customerimpact.org
If you want to know more about how our industry in general is performing, please visit www.abi.org.uk to access the ABI 2006/07 Industry Report.
Before Customer Impact
Although Customer Impact is still very new, our commitment to our customers isn’t. We were also one of the first organisations to sign up for another scheme, Raising Standards. As part of Raising Standards, we made significant progress in reviewing and improving product literature and simplifying the charging structures within our products.
