Over the last three years, we've been changing the way we look after our customers in the UK. We've been creating a culture that puts the customer at the heart of everything we do, simplifying processes to ensure we're providing the best possible service. It's made a difference to our employees and our customers; employee engagement and customer satisfaction have both increased.

1. Systems Thinking
at Aviva
What’s it all about?
Over the last three years, we’ve been
changing the way we look after our
customers. We’ve been creating a culture
that puts the customer at the heart of
everything we do, putting ourselves in
their shoes to ensure we’re providing the
best possible service. Much of this cultural
change has been led by the people who
know our customers best - those at the
front line of the organisation. We call it
‘‘Systems Thinking.’’
A cultural change
led by the people
who know our
customers best.
What have we
been doing?
Our customer service teams have been
looking at our interactions with our
customers and looking at what matters
to them most at these moments. We
mapped out our processes (sometimes just
using simple post-it note flowcharts stuck
on the meeting room wall) and identified
where we could remove complexity.
Systems Thinking is now working across a number of areas in the UK.
Although it was the customer facing We started in the pension’s area and since then we have rolled it out
teams who led the change, it has been to many customer areas including protection, bonds, annuities, health
a true ‘‘one Aviva’’ effort. Our risk, legal, and general insurance.
compliance and IT departments have all
been involved to ensure our approach And we’ve removed targets. We’re not driven by deadlines and call
revolves around customer needs rather volume targets anymore. The most important thing to us is that our
than internal processes. customers are satisfied by the service they receive and recommend
us to their friends and family.

2. The results:
Now, the majority of times we are able to solve a
Case study:
customer’s query during their first telephone call to In 2009, it took us on average 29 days to pay
us, ensuring the customer is instantly satisfied with customers’ money to them when they made a
our service. We take fewer calls as a result, making withdrawal from an investment they had with us.
us more efficient as a business. By looking at the old approach with fresh eyes and
removing unnecessary steps, we have reduced this
Our employees feel more empowered. They can build
time to payment within four days during 2011. We
stronger relationships with customers and have the skills
are now able to take the customers’ instructions
to make the relevant changes to our systems to make
over the phone and pay directly into their bank
things better for customers. They have gained broader
account. As a result our Transactional Net Promoter
skills and engagement scores have risen as a result.
Score® for paying monies to customers has increased
But most importantly, we now make decisions from the by around 90 points in the last three years. This
customers’ perspective. We’ve looked at their experience has all been achieved simply by redesigning our
as a whole, rather than each process in isolation. approach and building capability in our people to
provide customers with what they need rather than
l Customer satisfaction has improved.
through major change projects or IT investment.
Systems Thinking has delivered a 26 point
improvement in our Transactional Net
Promoter Score®* in the UK.
l It has delivered millions of pounds worth of
cost savings across the UK business.
l Redesigning the way we respond to customers
helped us deal with many customer enquiries
in just one call and reduced the number of
complaints. As a result call volumes into the
life policyholder contact centre fell by 16%
during 2011. A team who made a difference:
The ‘Monies Out’ team
l Employee
celebrating at the grand final of our
engagement has increased and during annual employee
innovation tournament, the Aviva
2011, the Aviva UK Direct Insurance team saw Customer Cup
employee turnover reduce from 40% to 17%.
How do we measure success? The journey continues:
To measure how well we are improving our Systems Thinking is now being used in more
customers’ experience with us, we use Net Promoter areas in the UK and we plan to start using it in
Score®, a score based on our customers’ answer our European and North American businesses in
to the question “How likely is it that you would 2012. And where we are already using Systems
recommend Aviva to a friend or colleague?” using a Thinking, we continue to look at what our
scale of 0-10. We calculate Net Promoter Score® by customers need from us, working every day to
taking the number of customers who are promoters improve our service to them.
and subtracting the number of detractors.
*Transactional Net Promoter Score® in existing annuity business, Q4 ‘10 compared to Q4 ‘11.
®
Net Promoter Score, Net Promoter and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain & Company,
Satmetrix Systems and Fred Reichheld.
SYSTHINK_34676 01/2012 © Aviva plc