Emotional intelligence highly impacts customer experience

Creating exceptional customer enthusiasm (or, “member” enthusiasm in our case) is the single strongest way to build and sustain top-tier growth over the long run. We use Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure that enthusiasm, understand how it is created or threatened, and identify “promoters,” who are the most loyal and enthusiastic ambassadors of the company.

NPS data is collected through surveys, including an annual member survey and claim satisfaction survey that is distributed after every claim is closed, regardless of whether a payment was made. These surveys, which are rich with quantitative data and mountains of insightful comments, allow us to determine the impact that certain people, products, services (e.g., claims, billing) and other interactions have on the member experience.

I read every single claims survey, share it with the appropriate adjuster and send a personal response to the member whenever warranted. In doing so, I’ve observed and validated that the most common element of truly exceptional service experiences is when our people not only quickly respond to the damages resulting from a loss but take the extra step to truly understand the impact that the loss had on a member’s life and address it in unexpected, thoughtful ways. Said differently, fast and generous claims settlements create high degrees of satisfaction; using empathy to find thoughtful ways to positively impact someone’s life creates an emotional response that yields a “promoter” 100% of the time.

Consider the following to see how a truly exceptional customer experience was created during a few relatively common scenarios that we face in our industry:

Christmas fire. Last year, a member’s home was engulfed in flames just seven days before Christmas. As we were expected to do, we promptly found an equivalent home that would serve as the member’s temporary residence and began coordinating the loss settlement process. The advocate assigned to the claim knew that the member was satisfied with the progress of the claim, but sensed that while the devastation was being addressed, their holiday season was ruined. Without asking anyone, he coordinated delivery of a fully decorated Christmas tree and other festive decorations, and even made reservations at what he learned was a favorite restaurant. In response, the member ultimately wrote, “My only opportunity to repay the kindess is limited. I have asked a colleague to consider it a personal favor to me if the will please move their insurance coverage to PURE and they assured me they will.”
Lake house loss. Another member’s lake home suffered a tragic loss prior to the start of the summer season. The member was satisfiedwith our ability to swiftly negotiate suitable temporary housing on the same lake, so that family and friends who ordinarily came to visit would still be able to do so. However, when one of our adjusters heard the anxiety in the member’s voice that the lifejackets used by her grandchildren had been destroyed, she took it upon herself to find and deliver the exact replacements, creating a much more powerful response.
Blessing in disguise. I found it peculiar when a member told me he was grateful that his wife was injured in a car accident. It made sense once he explained that the physicians treating her accident-related injuries discovered she had kidney cancer. Unbeknownst to me, when our claims analyst learned this in a conversation with him, she offered to collaborate with his health insurer to sort through all the medical bills and ensure they are paid so that he could concentrate on the most important thing: his wife’s care.

No manager or manual asked these individuals to take the actions that they did. Instead, two things enabled these experiences to be created: “emotionally intelligent” people and a culture that empowers them to do what’s right. In a 2013 column for the Chicago Tribune, Rex Huppke provided a simple way to understand emotional intelligence when he wrote, “A person who is emotionally intelligent can recognize and understand his or her own reactions to workplace events, while also recognizing, understanding and appreciating the responses of others.”

In a recent post on Forbes.com, Travis Bradberry, co-author of “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,”points out:

EQ is unrelated to IQ. Bradberry notes, “There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence (EQ); you simply can’t predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.”

EQ is impacts performance and professional success. According to Bradberry, whose firm TalentSmart studied the effects of emotional intelligence and 33 other workplace skills, “Emotional intelligence is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence.” He goes on to note that 90% of top performers have a high level of emotional intelligence, and that people with a high level of EQ make more money than those with lower EQ.

We are convinced that emotional intelligence has a profound impact in the workplace, not only with regards to the member experience, but also in the interactions our staff have with our agent partners, vendors, and each other. As a result, we have partnered with TalentSmart to add emotional intelligence to the screening criteria and training curriculum for our claims adjusters, member services associates, underwriters, sales and marketing professionals, and others.

We’re fortunate that 77% of our promoters have already made a referral. By upgrading the EQ of our people and our culture, we aim to create more promoters, increased word of mouth advertising, and ultimately an increased rate of growth for our company and our agent partners.

Four Skills to Emotional Intelligence

Self-awareness: The ability to be aware of your emotions as they happen
Self-management: The ability to control or redirect your emotions to create a desired outcome
Social awareness: Essentially, this is empathy, the consideration for other people’s feelings and emotions in a given situation.
Relationship management: The ability to use the three skills above to build effective relationships, including workingrelationships, with others.

Gary Stephen is executive vice president of claims & risk management at the PURE Group of Insurance Companies.

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