Two new hires are expected to begin their careers at ALA Insurance in December, a family owned and run firm based in rural North Yorkshire. They’re joining an organisation that by any measure is thriving. Sales are up 32% year-on-year and have been for the last two or three years on the bounce.
Revenue per customer support team (CST) member is well over £1 million — over two thirds the industry average.
What’s perhaps more surprising is that the insurance broker achieved its sales figures by making less phone calls. Unusually for a brokerage, it doesn’t even have call targets for CST members.
Not only is revenue good, but customers are happy. ALA Insurance is the best rated insurance firm on Trustpilot with a 94% score. Around 90% of the comments about the broker talk about its ‘excellent’ customer service.
ALA Insurance also won two golds at the UK Customer Experience Awards held in October. It picked up gongs for Best Customer Service in financial services and Best Employee Experience for an SME.
Impressive sales figures and happy customers are by-products of ALA Insurance’s belief that by creating ‘peace of mind’ for its employees, it enables them to “give 100%”, to the business, Debra England, founder and director, ALA Insurance, told CX Lore, the podcast of CXM.
Employees are inducted into ALA’s open, honest, and collaborative working environment from day one. Everybody must buy-in to the company values, which are based around three pillars — care, share, and trust.
The leadership has taken the extraordinary step of incorporating its workplace culture into the employment contract. The team “has to live it, they can’t just read it, tick it, and move on,” said England.
“We genuinely care for them, and it makes it much easier for them to care for the customers,” she added.
The company culture encourages employees to speak up on issues and contribute ideas either for internal initiatives or to improve customer service.
“We work collaboratively with the team [on] everything. Whether they have been here for two days or 20 years, they all have the same voice.” Debra England, founder and director, ALA Insurance
The free-flowing environment has created an ideas factory, transforming the insurance broker into an industry innovator.
“The word they used before was family. To me, that made us sound a bit old fashioned. It’s OK being a family, but we also need to be innovators and disruptors,” commented England.
“All the things that we talk about need to happen. [The team] are very invested in that. Innovation is one of the big things they do now,” she added.
Some ideas may seem counter-intuitive. For example, to encourage buy-in, once an employee passes their probation period, they are free to write their own job spec.
To create a happier, healthier environment, the firm created Spill, which provides each team member with 52 sessions a year with a counsellor. The programme has been really effective at creating ‘peace of mind’ for its staff.
“Our sickness leave has gone down 55%. That relieves pressure on the team,” said England.
The firm also offers access to an online doctor.
“[Customers] appreciate people who sound like they have all the time in the world.” Debra England, founder and director, ALA Insurance
Spill has been so successful ALA Insurance has introduced something similar for its customers. If clients are in a serious car accident, for example, they’re offered two free counselling sessions.
The collaborative environment helped rewrite the firm’s holiday policy. Employees are entitled to 15 different types of leave, including menopause leave, menstruation leave, and a bereavement policy that encourages time off, even if a pet dies.
Staff are encouraged to swap Christmas leave for things that are more aligned with them personally. Somebody “may want to go to gay pride because that means a lot more to them,” explained England.
The open, trusted environment also applies to its CX strategy. There are no call targets, so staff spend as much time as they need on the phone to clients. It could be 10 minutes, or it could be an hour and a half. There are no set call scripts either; it is about being natural and building a rapport with clients.
“What we’re hearing is that [customers] appreciate people who don’t sound stressed. They appreciate people who sound like they have all the time in the world,” explained England.
“Customers find [it] refreshing that we are different,” she added.
The team’s desire to engage customers partly explains a lack of automation. The firm doesn’t even have an auto-renewal clause on its policies.
“We don’t have auto-renewal because we don’t agree with it. We are dependent on people liking us and coming back,” said England.
The firm’s website also remains clear of chatbots and other automated channels. “We don’t use any AI… it is always a person in the office,” said England.
For an unusual broker, it’s not surprising that ALA Insurance doesn’t typically hire from the industry. Currently, on the roster is a former biochemist, someone from John Lewis’ customer service team, and somebody who never had a job before, but who impressed everyone with his intelligence.
“We take people from everywhere. That joint experience makes us more outward looking.” Debra England, founder and director, ALA Insurance
Just because it hires sector debutants doesn’t mean ALA Insurance doesn’t pay well. According to England, the firm pays its staff £6,000 more a year than the market average.
The great wealth of initiatives that the ‘care, share, trust’ model generates wouldn’t be as effective if it wasn’t for a leadership team that is equally invested in good customer outcomes and actively listens to both clients and team members.
The open plan office encourages ideas to be shared and discussed. The co-founders — Debra and husband Simon England — are on hand to listen throughout the day.
“We get a lot of information from the team that we might not get otherwise,” said Debra England.
“And because [the team is] so interested in customers, they are constantly looking for ways to improve the customer experience,” she added.
Like many small businesses with a great company culture, ALA Insurance needs to figure out how it can scale, while retaining its bond with customers. The firm is looking at opportunities in Europe and even possible acquisitions.
Even if the organisation expands it is likely to retain its ‘small team’ culture.
“We’re not going to add layers. We will just recreate what we’ve got because it works extremely well,” she explained.Listen to the full interview with Debra England on the CX Lore podcast here.