In August Ageas UK’ CEO, Ant Middle picked up the Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Customer Experience Awards. It was the fourth award that night for the insurance firm that has invested heavily in technology to streamline customer journeys, improve VOC analysis and train its staff.
But as Ant Middle tells CXM, there is more to come in 2025.
CXM: Between 2021 and 2024, Ageas has been on a journey to improve its understanding of people and simplify insurance. How has this strategy driven change through the organisation?
Ant Middle: Our strategy was all about creating a sharp focus on things we know we do best, and perhaps the biggest change as a result of this was our decision to concentrate wholly and solely on personal lines insurance. This meant stopping doing some things. In making these tough choices, we have been able to invest more in the business areas we wanted to build and give an even better service to our customers and fuel the future growth of the business.
CXM: Firms often fail to consider customers when rolling out new technology or processes. How does Ageas remember to always keep the customer in mind?
Ant Middle: Customers sit at the heart of our purpose, to understand people [and] simplify insurance, so it’s part of our DNA to consider them whenever we’re rolling out a new technology, process or product.
Listening to our customers and getting them involved early in the process has been important. Last year we underwent a significant project to map and enhance all our customer journeys. By seeking direct input from hundreds of customers and deeply analysing our data, we were able to transform our end-to-end customer journeys, eliminating many existing pain points and providing seamless service choices.
CXM: What were the business reasons behind the adoption of this new business strategy in 2021?
Ant Middle: Ageas had always been well-known within the market for personal lines insurance sold through intermediated channels, particularly brokers. But at the time, we were also doing a lot of other things.
We knew that a laser-like focus on what we’re best at doing was what was needed to deliver better results for our customers, our people, and our shareholders.
Today, we insure well over four million customers, we’re one of the UK’s largest personal lines insurers, and we’ve invested more than ever in the key capabilities we need to be the best for our customers in the long term. We’ve achieved that while delivering well above the average benchmarks in our industry for customer sentiment – something that I and the rest of the team values greatly.
CXM: When you look back at the journey that Ageas has been on in the last three years, what have been some of the biggest challenges?
Ant Middle: I’ll point primarily to the external environment. In the last few years, we’ve experienced a global pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, high inflation, and we’ve seen war unfold. All of these events have touched our customers in one way or another and part of our role… is to ensure we understand and mitigate the impacts for our customers as best we can and are there for them in the moments that matter.
CXM: What keeps you awake at night, when considering Ageas’ future direction?
Ant Middle: At the moment, it’s a sense of excitement at what’s ahead. In January, we’ll begin the next stage of our journey, with a new strategy to take us to 2027. We have some ambitious plans for what comes next, including further investment in our ability to serve customers ever more effectively.
CXM: What further digital technologies do you see helping to transform Ageas customer experience?
Ant Middle: The way customers want to engage with businesses continues to evolve so front of my mind is how our technology and digital model can support our customers in the way they want to interact with us. As part of our new strategy, we’ll enhance our digital and self-serve tools for our customers and brokers to keep pace with how they expect to deal with us.
We also plan to increase the pace of development and level of investment in data, AI, and technology. Using AI to complement what we do as humans allows us to focus on the tasks where we can really add value to the customer, in those moments that matter.
“Last year we underwent a significant project to map and enhance all our customer journeys. By seeking direct input from hundreds of customers, and deeply analysing our data, we were able to transform our end-to-end customer journeys, eliminating many existing pain points and providing seamless service choices.” Ant Middle, CEO, Ageas UK
CXM: How has Ageas empowered its staff to give the best customer experience?
Ant Middle: Great customer service starts with having the right team, and so our recruitment process looks for people with the behaviours, attitudes, and values that align with ours. We look for individuals who can show empathy and who already have a fundamental understanding of what ‘customer’ means.
Around six years ago, we threw away the traditional rulebook and took a fresh approach to customer service. We helped our people to see that their job wasn’t to answer the phone or to settle a claim – it was to understand people [and] simplify insurance.
We gave our people the freedom to have open conversations where they could truly really listen to customers. It was a significant cultural shift, which laid the foundations for where we are now, including our above industry standard NPS scores and Institute of Customer Services (ICS) ServiceMark accreditation.
“Customers increasingly choose the convenience of completing simple tasks relating to their policy online. This means the interactions our people have with customers now often relate to more complex questions and therefore a much broader set of skills and knowledge are required.” Ant Middle, CEO, Ageas UK
CXM: How has ‘Project Evolution’ re-engineered your customer contact centre roles?
Ant Middle: The roles of our customer-facing teams look very different today to the way they did, say, five years ago.
Customers increasingly choose the convenience of completing simple tasks relating to their policy online. This means the interactions our people have with customers now often relate to more complex questions, and therefore, a much broader set of skills and knowledge are required.
We know each customer query is different, so it is much more about predicament management and understanding and adapting to a customer’s query or issue in the moment.Because of all of this, we’ve evolved the way we recruit for, train, and reward the people in these roles. Now, our recruitment process is far more based on competency, behavior, and values and our training incorporates more of those predicament management and people skills, for example, understanding vulnerability.
CXM: I understand the UK operation is leading the customer-centric approach across the international organisation. How have you managed to convince them, and shareholders, that putting customer experience at the top of the agenda is the right way to go?
Ant Middle: The fact we were asked to spearhead the customer experience programme for the entire Ageas Group is testament to the hard work and commitment of our people, as well as the proven methodology we’ve developed in the UK.
Ageas Group has a long-standing reputation for putting customers first and it’s great to know that sharing our best practice has resonated across 13 countries across Europe and Asia.
CXM: I realise you’ve just got your lifetime achievement award… but what else do you still want to achieve with Ageas?
Ant Middle: Lots! My long-term ambition is for Ageas to achieve a podium position in UK personal lines insurance and achieve that ambition whilst preserving our caring culture that our business is so proud of.