Zurich’s ‘empathy training’ leads to surge in customer service scores

As we enter national customer service week, today Zurich UK announces it has rolled out its new ‘empathy training’ to over 100 customer-facing employees in its retail protection business.

The retail protection business has seen customer satisfaction scores surge following the training, which focuses on identifying each customer's preferred communication style so they can tailor the call accordingly. Developed with professional coaching experts, the bespoke training programme took more than 3,000 hours over six months to design and implement.

How does the training work?

The empathy training enhances employees' self-awareness and sharpens their interpersonal skills. It also teaches employees how to better understand behavioural cues and emotional nuances enabling colleagues to establish genuine connections with both advisers and customers

The training allows colleagues to determine whether customers need detailed explanations or quick, high-level responses, and how emotionally engaged they need the call handler to be.

The research carried out whilst designing the training included an on-site diagnostic programme whereby the experts listened to calls and hosted focus groups to identify Zurich’s needs.

The training was delivered during a two-day immersive training programme to ensure employees can offer customers a personalised experience. During the training, true life role-play scenarios were acted out in front of the teams to bring to life the differing personality types. Through the training, colleagues discovered their own personality drivers and learnt how to spot and adapt to the needs of others.

Since undergoing ‘empathy training’, customer research has shown Zurich’s retail protection ‘helpfulness of person’, ‘ability to provide clear information’ and ‘being easy to do business with’ scores have increased significantly. In fact, 92% of customers who provided feedback since the training was launched have scored agents a nine or 10 out of 10 for helpfulness.

Pete Sanderson, Head of Retail Protection Operations at Zurich UK, commented:

“There isn’t a one size fits all approach to helping our customers, but one key element of success is acting with empathy. When someone is making a claim, it’s most likely that they’re at their most vulnerable. It may have been they’ve just been diagnosed with a critical illness or even lost a loved one. We know this can be a stressful time, so it’s important that we’re there for them at their time of need, both emotionally and practically.

“Customers quite rightly expect a high level of customer service. We’re proud of our how our empathy training is being received by customers and colleagues, and it’s great to see other teams within Zurich UK looking to implement it to deliver first class service to more of our customers.”

The training has been so successful that Zurich UK’s SME team is now training colleagues to handle brokers’ queries in the same way. The programme will also be rolled out globally with over 21,000 employees across the business expected to complete the training.