Your Brand and CX: They’re Connected!

What do customers think of your brand and what do they think of their experience? Well, here’s a spoiler alert they’re connected.

One of the things that we say to our service employees is that the Aflac duck is the most famous asset that we have and very well known. But the Aflac duck only says one word, and that’s “Aflac.” And the way that the brand communicates is through our call center. And so I tell them, look, you’re the one that is proving to them what we do and how we do it and delivering that promise. So we want to make sure that people are empowered to make the right decisions.

The connection between brand and customer experience on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

The CX Leader Podcast is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Hello everyone, I’m Pat Gibbons, I’m the host of this episode of The CX Leader Podcast, and thank you for listening. Around here we like to say it’s a great time to be a CX leader, and we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you develop great programs and deliver amazing experiences for your customers. In summary, we want to help you make a difference. You know, in today’s consumer world, we are inundated with advertising from countless online and offline mediums, and too often companies think that that’s really what drives their brand. But if you’re a customer experience leader listening today, you know experience has become a prominent and maybe the most prominent ingredient in a company’s brand. So how do we make it work? How does CX leaders ensure an experience that influences the brand and reputation of their organization in a positive way? Well, my guest today is going to share his experience directing CX at one of the world’s most famous brands. Keith Farley is senior vice president for individual benefits that focuses on innovation and customer experience at Aflac. In the US, Aflac is the number one provider of supplemental health insurance products. Keith, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.

Thanks for having me, Pat.

Well, it’s great to have you here. You’ve got some some great experience working with a number of companies. Why don’t we start with, if you can give us a little brief background on how you got into doing customer experience work.

Absolutely. So I appreciate it. I started my career with Coca-Cola, and that is obviously one of the largest brands in the world and kind of understood how a global brand works and how it’s built. Spent a short period of time there before moving to DeWalt Power Tools. Um, the the road from, you know, soft drinks into power tools is a well-trodden path. So I followed many that did that. Just kidding. Um, and…

Of course.

…I spent seven years at DeWalt Power Tools, um, which is one of the Stanley Black and Decker brands, and learned a lot there about designing around the customer and making sure that you start with the customer in mind. And then for the last 15 years I’ve been here at Aflac. So from soft drinks to power tools to to insurance, um, you know, there’s a there’s a path there somewhere, I suppose. And, um, at Aflac here, I do focus on running our individual business, and I’m in charge of the customer experience for that business.

Yeah. So yeah, of course many have gone through that same path of soft soft drinks and power tools and insurance. But uh, obviously big difference in, in those industries and particularly, you know, at Aflac, um, you know, it’s I’m sure a lot different than selling a tangible product. Tell us about some of the challenges or learnings that, uh, came about as you transferred into that industry.

Yeah. I think the first thing you realize when you work in a services industry like this and in our case, insurance is that your service is actually the product. And I’ll give you an example, if you’re at DeWalt Power Tools and the customer service isn’t great, which it is by the way it’s wonderful, right?

Okay.

But let’s say it wasn’t. But if the drill is great or if the saw is great, uh, that kind of can make up for anything else that could be lacking if there were. Right. And same thing with Coca Cola. If if the drink tastes great and it’s refreshing and it’s cold and it’s how you wanted it, um, then that that’s a big part of the experience. When it comes to insurance here at Aflac, there is nothing you can hold, there is nothing you can touch, taste or feel. So the whole, uh, brand itself is around the experience. And so there’s there’s a spotlight on experience from that standpoint. And I think it’s important for us in the service industry to remember that, that our service is actually the product that we’re selling.

Yeah, no. Makes total sense, and I’m sure there are many touch points along the journey, whether it is selling the insurance, the renewal, the subscription process. But one of the things that in some of the background in just kind of looking into, you know, some of your work, I believe you mentioned that, uh, Aflac is a claims-driven organization. Tell me what you mean by that.

Yeah. I mean, for us, that’s that’s the moment of truth, you know? Essentially the way that our product works is, you know, we talk to you about the benefits of having this type of coverage. You buy into those benefits, you pay a premium to us that one day, if you were to get sick or hurt, we’ll be there for you, um, and pay that claim. And so for us, the claim is the final closing of the loop. You know, we we we don’t wish claims on anyone, but we do have things like wellness claims where just for going to the doctor once a year, you can get paid money just for checking up on yourself. So those claims we, we do want people to do. And to us the loop isn’t really closed and the experience isn’t really full until you’ve had a chance to experience our claims. And we have things like our claims specialists that work on them here are actually incented to find more ways to pay you. So, so many of us have experience with insurance companies of arguing, you know, over what’s covered and what’s not, but the way that that ours works with the type of supplemental health we do is we actually look for more and more ways to pay you as much as we can on each claim, which is great from a company standpoint, because our employees are happy to try to help out the customer, and they’re empowered to do so.

So so you actually kind of market to your customers that might be time to make a claim. Is that right?

We do. We send out millions of emails every year. We send them out on a quarterly basis, reminding people that they might have a claim to to pay, that we could pay, and we want to make sure that they’re filing their claim, they’re getting their money and they’re experiencing the product that they bought. Because really, until you make that claim, you do have the peace of mind of protection, and that’s part of our product. But the final piece is getting the claim when you need it most.

Yeah, no, that’s really interesting because I think others would say, wait a minute, you’re asking people to pay you money, but, uh, it because it is such an important touch point, I can see why you would want people to go through that process, have a good experience. The outcomes of that, I’m sure you know, they’re varied. You know, what are some of the benefits you get as a company when somebody goes through a claim process and has a good experience?

Yeah, I mean, from us, you know, if you have experienced the product and you see the value in the product by using it, likely you’ll keep the product. So there’s a persistency aspect for us. You know, if you’ve if you’ve gotten that experience, I think also we look at it as a chance to show off what we’re about. So we want to make sure that people get that we pay claims quickly, we pay them accurately, we pay them fully. And so we want everyone to have that experience that is in the position to file a claim. The other thing is, as we look at our team, you know, when you if you were to call our call center or email us or reach out via chat, all of our folks are trained to understand that when someone’s making an insurance claim, especially a health insurance claim like we are with supplemental health, they’re going through a tough time. Uh, you know, they’ve been they’ve been hurt. They might be in the hospital still, uh, they might be sick. They might have received a difficult diagnosis of a disease that will change their life forever.

They might have lost a loved one. So we constantly remind our team here that, you know, we have a chance to be a beacon of of hope and light in what is otherwise kind of a dark time in someone’s life. Um, it can be it can be difficult. And the roles that we have are people in customer experience and customer service because of that. But we kind of lean into this is our opportunity to make something easy, to give them a peace of mind that, hey, from a financial standpoint, we’ve got you covered. You’re going to be okay. And we also will talk to people about you’re going to heal, you’re going to beat this disease. You’re going to, you know, recover from this injury. Um, it’s almost, um, pastoral at times when people call us because they’re calling us on a pretty rough day. It’s not like booking a flight or ordering a pizza where it’s transactional. Uh, our, our experience is a very emotional experience when we have, uh, when I have people contact us.

Yeah. You know, I hear a lot and I’ve actually done some writing about just the whole topic of making CX more human. And I think what you’re describing is something that is, is obviously very human, a very, um, intentional experience for the customer. But it sounds like even your agents get some fulfillment out of it as well. Is that right?

That’s right. I’ll give you an example. We we created a special line in our call center for a first time diagnosis of cancer. And so when you’re in our, um, IVR system, it will say if this is a first occurrence of cancer, press one for special assistance. And you get sent to a team that all those people do is take first occurrence of cancer calls, which are very, you know, difficult calls for a lot of people, right, because they’re having to tell others and admit, you know, I’ve got this disease and I’m I’m worried. Um, so we have a special team that will take these calls, that takes these calls all the time and knows exactly what information you’re going to need and how to get you through this. And we thought originally, Pat, when we did that, that every 2 to 3 weeks, we’re going to need to switch those people off the team because they’re very difficult calls and…

Yeah. Of course.

…give them password reset calls or something much easier change of address calls, you know, those types of things. What we found is that people on that team don’t want to shift off that team because they say, I go home every day more fulfilled knowing that I made a difference in someone’s life. Now, if you update someone’s address, you made a tiny difference in their life. You know, if you help…

Right.

…them reset their password, you made a medium difference in their life. But if you walk them through their cancer diagnosis and the coverages that they have and how they’re going to get paid quickly, um, that’s a completely different experience. So where we thought we’d have to rotate people, we actually have people asking to get on that line because they want that, that feeling of making a difference, which is exactly what the Aflac brand is and what we want everyone to think of customer experience.

Yeah. So, you know, thinking about, uh, the, the, you know, brand and customer experience, you know, a lot of it does come down nowadays to innovation and how you’re constantly coming up with different ways. And I was reading something that you wrote, and I’ll try to quote you here. I think you, uh, you wrote “the expectation someone has from one brand becomes the expectation they have from all brands. We’re no longer compared to other insurance companies. Instead, we’re now compared to the experience someone has with other companies.” Maybe you can tell us a little more about that. It sounds like you. You look outside your industry for ideas.

Absolutely. We think that, you know, uh, insurance is not just our competitor. You know, we’re looking at how would Amazon provide this experience? How would Marriott do it? What would Delta do? Um, if they were doing it and constantly looking at, you know, what’s the Uber experience of how you could just have, you know, automated experiences and things that just know. So we’re constantly looking outside. Well, how would Tesla do insurance if they did it? You know, um, how would other companies like that deliver? You know, these great customer experience companies. Uh, we do compete with insurers, obviously, but we don’t really look to to our competitors for inspiration as much as we look for other brands that have a great customer experience and constantly push ourselves, because literally the same person that ordered a pizza and could track it, you know, all the way from Domino’s to their door, tomorrow is filing a claim with us and then is wondering, why can’t I track the claim of where it is in the process? Right as we’re, you know, rolling out the dough, adding the red sauce, putting on the mozzarella, sticking in the oven, loading it in the box, putting in the car, driving it down the street or with us,

we’ve received your claim. We’re doing initial review, following up on documentation, double checking your coverages, processing your payment. And now it’s direct deposited. Why couldn’t we show you that same experience? So that was actually on the innovation team one of the experiences we delivered we call it internally the Domino’s Pizza Tracker for your claim. But what we did is we brought in a group of of claims folks, and we ordered a pizza from Domino’s over to headquarters here at Aflac. And we tracked it on a big screen TV, and we talked about how we felt about it, the information. I feel good because I can see where it is in the process. I know they’ve got my order. I know that they’re, you know, delivering it. If there’s any delays, it would say our driver hit traffic or the ovens are fully loaded right now. Your next don’t worry. And so we kind of went through how we felt as customers getting this pizza and said, now how can we deliver that same experience for our customers who are filing a claim?

Yeah. No, I love how you kind of map the process. And, you know, in in our business, of course we do. We help companies with a lot of journey mapping. And sometimes, you know, you can get caught up in going through all the, the steps, you know, you got to do this, got to do this. And, you know, particularly on the operational side. But I think the emotional piece is, is a key one that sometimes gets left out. And that is how do people feel at that point. Because, you know, we can do things operationally to be as efficient as possible. But if it’s not making a difference for the customer, then you’re not accomplishing you know, what you really need to.

That’s exactly right. And there’s a balance, you know, even with new technologies you were talking about earlier with innovative technology. You know, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. You can automate it. You can make it faster. You can make it, you know, more efficient. But all that really matters is how does the customer feel at the end about it? Because if you’ve put them through some process that made it easy for you and difficult for them, or in the case of artificial intelligence, you know, we constantly remind our team the first word in AI is “artificial.” And when you’re going through an uncertain time, sometimes you just want something authentic, not artificial. I want a human experience. I want to talk to a real person. And so we want to make sure that we can deliver that. And the way that we would leverage technology, AI and our mobile apps and things like that is to let you do the transactional processes with the AI, which then frees up our staff to help people with the more emotional or difficult processes that we have and challenges that they would go through when they’ve got, you know, a serious illness or a serious accident. So we look at it as, you know, how can we automate the easy and then service the complex. So if you’re doing an address change, that’s a chat bot. If you want to talk to human, we have that ability. If you want to mail it in to us, we’ll take your mail. But really we say that’s the mobile app or that’s a chatbot, that’s a digital channel. But when you’ve been, you know, when you’ve had a heart attack or a stroke, that’s a human that you want on the other line in most cases. And we want to be able to provide both.

Yeah.

So obviously you’ve spent a number of years at Aflac. You must have seen a lot of innovative changes, technological changes over the years. How just overall, how do you feel that that has affected the experience and how does that affect the brand that, uh, you know, Aflac portrays?

Yeah, I think we’ve changed more. And this is probably true of every company, maybe the world. I think we’ve changed more in the last five years than we did the 15 before, you know. Um, you know, the rate of change is ever increasing. It is exponential. The rate of customer expectations is ever growing. For good reason. I mean, we have amazing resources at our hands right now. I mean, you can in some cities order something and have it delivered in an hour or two. And by the way, if someone’s listening to this five years from now, it’s 2024. If you’re listening to this in 2029, they’ll say you had to wait an hour or two? It just didn’t come? Uh, you know why why why wouldn’t the system just know that I’m ready for, you know, a new loaf of bread and just bring it? You know, it should just know what’s in my pantry or not. And I’m sure we’ll get there one day. But we look at that and say, well, if that’s the kind of expectation, how do we change? And Aflac has seen that, you know, we’ve seen our digital claim submissions significantly increase the fact that now you can sit, you know, in the doctor’s office or in the hospital and use your mobile device, take a picture of the paperwork, upload it to the Aflac app and get paid. Uh, you know, some, some claims we have are paid in just seconds, like a wellness claim. So you’d get paid, you know, almost instantly. And then other claims might take a few days, depending on the complication of it. But the fact that you can do that while sitting in the doctor’s office, you’re in the waiting room waiting on your final discharge, and you can go ahead and file your claim. You know that that’s something that’s definitely changed in the last few years.

Yeah. You know, another aspect of the experience that relates to both the employee and customer is the ability for the employee to really that they’re enabled to make decisions in working with customers. How do you work with your call center and contact center, you know, employees to help them feel like they are enabled to make decisions and really help the customer in the best way that they can?

Yeah. One of the things that we say to our service employees, especially the ones on the phone, that that speak to customers, which we have, a lot of people come through the mobile apps, chat and things like that.

Yeah.

But for the voice, you know, one of the things that that I like to remind the team is that, you know, the Aflac duck is the most famous asset that we have and very well known. But the Aflac duck only says one word, and that’s “Aflac.”

Right.

And every other word in the English language. And the way that the brand communicates is through our, our call center. And so I tell them, look, he might be the famous one, but he’s limited to one word. You’re the one that is proving to them what we do and how we do it, and delivering that promise. So we want to make sure that people are empowered to make the right decisions. Now we’re we’re regulated industry. So, you know, a lot of decisions are this is this is, you know, the decision sort of been made for you by the rules of the policy and the regulation. But if there’s any gray area, you know, we always want to make sure that our, our employees know, as one of our founders said, if you take care of the employees, they’ll take care of the customer. So we take care of our employees, and then we allow them the ability to make sure they’re taking care of the customer. And that gets back to that claims paying culture that we have. You know, we have we continue to push our teams to say, look, if we pay the claim, as long as it’s, you know, legitimate and accurate, if we pay the claim quickly and fully, that person will be a customer for life. And that’s that’s really what we aim for.

Yeah. So, Keith, any other examples or examples of how you’ve used innovation in your organization to advance?

So another way that we’ve used innovation is in our claims process, specifically helping make a decision on the claim for our employees. So we essentially have leveraged AI to look at all the documentation we received, compare it to all of the things covered in your policy, and make a recommendation on if it should pay and how much it should pay. Now, the the AI that we’ve set up is able to pay a claim and fully adjudicate the claim based on the rules that it’s been designed with. But if the AI is going to deny a claim, we require it to go to human to make that decision. So the I would say AI recommending we deny it based on these things, that it doesn’t meet the right, um, you know, rules. And then the human makes the decision. And I think that’s important for, for us as customer experience leaders, that we want to make sure that as we leverage innovation, it can do no harm to the customer. So it can only be to their benefit, it can pay them, and it cannot deny them that a human has to come in and kind of overrule that decision. So I think that’s something as we look at innovation, we talk about customer experience. You want to make sure that in the name of innovation and technology and speed and efficiency, you don’t create harm for your customer. And you put those, those blockades in where you need to.

Oh no. That’s a, that’s a great example. And just, you know, broadly speaking, how do you define customer in the scheme of customer experience? What’s your take on that?

So I think for Aflac, I mean, the most obvious customer for us is the policyholder, the person who’s insured. And that’s what everybody thinks about as well they should. But, you know, we sell through the workplace. So the the business and the business owner are the key decision maker. That’s another customer for us. We have an independent sales force. So our salespeople become a customer because they could sell other people’s products, either competitors or noncompetitive products. Um, and then the other one that I would say that where you start to really get, you know, a broadened view is we even look at, um, from a philanthropy standpoint. Now, philanthropy obviously, is, is supporting a cause that we’re passionate about. In our case, it’s childhood cancer. And they’re not a customer from the standpoint that they’re buying anything, but they’re a constituent. And so I would say for those that are in customer experience, you know, and customer experience, marketing and service and those areas, how do you take that and expand it beyond just the true customer who’s paying you, but any constituent you have in the company? And one of the ways that we did that is we have been supporting the Aflac Cancer Center with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Pediatric Cancer for the last 25 years, and have given over $170 million into that cause. But once we got the customer experience team involved in the philanthropy and looking at what we’re doing, we realized that while we’re giving a lot of money and helping a lot of kids and helping research and cures, um, what is the constituent experience and specifically the constituent being the child going through the treatment? So what are we doing for him or her? And that’s where I think we took it to another level. Um, as we looked at that as a constituent said, let’s think about that patient experience. And we created working with another company, a robotic companion duck stuffed animal. Right. That…

Okay.

…is an animatronic duck that we give to every child in the US and Japan and Northern Ireland that is diagnosed with cancer. And the reason that we do it in those three countries is that’s where we have a presence, and this is a companion that the child can take with them as they go through all of their cancer treatments, so they don’t have to go alone. And the duck has things like it has a port on it. So if the child is receiving chemo, they have that. You can use the port on the duck, and the child can have someone go through that treatment with them in their mind. The duck has these emoji discs that come with it, where if you hold it to the chest of the duck, the duck will act out that emotion. So if a doctor or nurse were to come in and ask the child, how are you feeling today? And maybe the child can’t verbalize it either because they’re not old enough or they’re not well enough to verbalize it, they can pick up an emoji disc and put on the duck, and the duct will act out whether it’s happy, sad, silly…

Wow.

…nauseated, whatever, whatever the feeling is. And so I think that’s a way that as a company, we’ve taken innovation and customer experience beyond just our customer. But looking at all the constituents and all the things that we want to support and say, well, how can we impact their experience as well?

Yeah. No, I, I love that because I think really the role that customer experience leaders play today should be broad through the whole organization and really should apply to as many stakeholders as possible. And that is an excellent, excellent example. So we’ve gotten to the point of the podcast where we ask every guest what we call take home value. And it’s one tip, one idea, one concept that ideally is something that our listeners can put to use right away. So Keith Farley, what is your take home value?

So my take home would be and it’s something that everyone can do today or tomorrow is to walk your process, but don’t walk it alone. And so what I mean by that is go through the experience as a customer. But also I’m in my 40s. Have your mother walk the process and watch her when she calls into your call center when she interacts with your website. Have your child right. That way you’re getting multiple generations, generation above, a generation below. Have your neighbor pick a few people and say, hey, could I just watch how you interact with our brand? Obviously you’ll do it and you’ll have an idea, but you already know the brand and you know where to go next. Um, and there’s tons of research that we do, and we all invest heavily in research and customer feedback. But there’s nothing like watching someone that you know and love go through your own company’s process to see exactly what they’re experiencing. So I would encourage everybody, call your mom, grab your child, have them use your website, call your number, whatever it is, try your product and give real, honest feedback that you can hear only from a loved one or a neighbor or a friend about…

Right.

…what your customer experience is really like.

Yeah, that’s fantastic advice. And as we encouraged something they could put to use right away.

Great.

So thank you Keith. And Keith Farley is senior vice president for individual benefits. He focuses on innovation and customer experience at Aflac. Keith, thanks for being on The CX Leader Podcast.

Thanks for having me, Pat.

And if you want to discuss this topic with one of our experts, or you have a great idea for a topic of a future episode, email us at podcast@walkerinfo.com. We’d love to hear from you! Be sure to rate The CX Leader Podcast through your podcast service and leave a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listeners. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com. From there, you can follow the show and find all of our previous episodes and a link to our blog, which we update regularly. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success, and you can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening and remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader. We’ll see you next time.