Customer-Centric Culture Initiative

What is the Customer-Centric Culture Initiative?

The Customer-Centric Culture Initiative at IAG focused on embedding a customer-centric approach throughout the organisation. This involved building organisational customer understanding, training, and implementing customer experience frameworks. The initiative aimed to align the organisation’s goals and employee actions with customer-centric values to enhance overall customer satisfaction, loyalty and experience.

Challenge

How might we bring IAG's purpose-led, customer-centric, and risk-intelligent culture to life by ensuring all employees understand, engage with, and prioritise inclusive customer experiences in every decision and action they take?


Context: IAG, Australia and New Zealand's largest general insurance company, employs over 10,000 people and sells insurance under many leading brands. IAG’s purpose is to make your world a safer place, and achieving this ambition requires a journey toward becoming a customer-centric organisation.

At IAG, culture is defined by how we come together to consistently and powerfully deliver our purpose and strategy. Our culture aspiration is to bring a purpose-led, customer-centric, and risk-intelligent culture to life by building inclusive customer experiences where all customers are at the heart of our decisions. The IAG Way—comprising Purpose, Mindset, Values, and Behaviours—embodies a holistic approach that fosters a culture supporting and enhancing employee engagement and customer satisfaction, ultimately delivering the best customer experience.

Objectives:

  • Collaborate with key divisional stakeholders to integrate customer experience outcomes into programs of work, strategic initiatives, and leadership programs.

  • Continuously enhance the Customer Hub to provide accessible and relevant customer information, insights, and learning modules.

  • Create and implement customer-centric culture frameworks and tools to support leaders in fostering customer-centric practices within their teams.

  • Promote and embed the PX=CX equation, highlighting the relationship between employee experience and customer experience to drive organisational alignment and performance.

Role: Strategic Design + Customer Centric Culture Lead

Culture Champion, Customer Advocate, Cross-Divisional Collaborator, Researcher, Visual Designer, Facilitator, Experience Creator, Quality Gatekeeper, Scenario Planner, Relationship Alchemist, Knowledge Nurturer.

Timeline: October 2021 – January 2023

The things I designed: Customer-Centric Culture Frameworks and Ecosystem, Workshops and Co-creation Sessions, Engagement Platform, Visual Narrative, Interactive Prototypes, Culture Survey, Templates, Training Modules, Handbooks and Tools.

What is a customer-centric culture?

Customer centricity is the act of putting your customers at the centre of everything you do, by listening to them, learning about their needs, and acting on what you learn.

A customer centric culture is one where your organisation aligns itself around providing a great customer experience, including everything from how you set high-level goals to how your employees do their day-to-day job. In a customer centric culture, employees feel “close” to their customers—they understand their needs, how their work affects their experience, and what they can do to make it even better.

Why is it important?

A customer-centric culture is vital because it drives customer satisfaction, loyalty, and trust, which are essential for long-term success. By prioritising customers, organisations can improve their reputation, increase customer retention, and foster a competitive advantage in the market.

The Design Solution

The design solution for embedding a customer-centric culture at IAG focused on developing several key components: a customer-centric framework, a suite of practical tools, an enhanced Customer Hub, training modules, and effective measurement and feedback mechanisms. The initiative used a collaborative, cross-divisional approach to instill customer-centric principles into daily practices and decision-making processes.

The initiative employed a collaborative, cross-divisional approach to inspire and influence IAG employees through customer-centric methodologies, frameworks, and practices. By leveraging the PX=CX equation, which links people (employee) experience (PX) to customer experience (CX), the initiative aimed to foster deep connections between employees and customers. The ultimate goal was to transform IAG into a truly customer and employee-centric organisation.

  • Research and Insights Gathering: Conducted comprehensive research to understand current customer experiences and employee perceptions of customer-centric practices.

    Employee Interviews: Collected feedback from employees through interviews to identify gaps and opportunities for enhancing customer-centricity.

  • Set Clear Objectives: Established clear project objectives aligned with the challenge statement to guide the integration of customer-centric values into the organisation.

    Framework Development: Developed a customer-centric framework incorporating the PX=CX equation, linking employee experience to customer experience.

    Stakeholder Alignment: Engaged key stakeholders across divisions to ensure alignment and support for the initiative.

  • PX=CX Narrative: Created a visual to illustrate the relationship and connection between employees and customers.

    Training Modules and Resources: Co-created training modules and resources to educate employees on customer-centric practices and the importance of the PX=CX relationship.

    Customer Hub Enhancement: Enhanced the Customer Hub to provide employees with easy access to relevant customer information, insights, and metrics.

    Workshop Development: Designed interactive workshops to review and workshop the customer question set for the Enterprise Annual Culture Survey.

  • Workshop Facilitation: Conducted workshops to actively engage employees in understanding and adopting customer-centric behaviours.

    Monitoring and Feedback: Established mechanisms to monitor the effectiveness of implemented solutions, gather feedback, and continuously refine practices based on evolving needs.

    Annual Culture Survey Results: Curated a report with the results from the culture survey identifying cultural shifts and areas for ongoing improvement and distributed to senior Leaders and the Culture Team.

Impact

The outputs from the Customer Centric Culture initiative have resulted in a more connected and customer-focused organisation, with employees better equipped to understand and meet customer needs, ultimately driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, and competitive advantage for IAG.

Outcomes

Customer Hub

A centralised platform providing accurate and timely customer insights, frameworks, and learning modules, accessible to all IAG employees.

PX=CX Narrative

A visual narrative highlighting the connection between people (employee) experience (PX) and customer experience (CX), used by leadership to promote customer-centric values.

Measurement and Improvement

Implementation of annual culture surveys and actionable practices for leaders to integrate customer-centricity into their teams’ workflows.

Customer-Centric Culture Ecosystem

A framework that captures the necessary ecosystem to create a customer centric culture. It enabled IAG to have clarity on the elements required to unlock a customer centric culture at IAG.

Reflection:

It is critical to align every level of the organisation around customer-centric values. By fostering a shared understanding and commitment to customer experiences, employees feel more connected to their customers and are better able to meet their needs. Additionally, continuous feedback and iteration are essential in refining and enhancing customer-centric practices, ensuring the initiative remains relevant and effective in a dynamic market environment.

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