Real-time Customer Engagement the Goal for MassMutual Life Insurance

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) maintains award-winning customer service and industry-leading client retention rates for retirement plans.

So, how do you improve upon those lofty grades to boost customer engagement and customer experience even further?

As part of its continuous efforts to distinguish itself for customer service, MassMutual partnered with Medallia to implement a new customer feedback and response program. Built on a powerful data analytics platform, Medallia’s enterprise SaaS CEM solution enables MassMutual's employees to gather, analyze, and act on customer feedback in real time to continuously improve the company’s performance as well as the customer experience.

Loyalty360 caught up with Una Morabito, Senior Vice President, Client Management for Workplace Solutions, MassMutual, to learn more about this exciting partnership.

What does CX mean to Mass Mutual and how will Medallia’s new customer feedback and response program impact that?

Morabito: Incorporating the voice of the customer is critical to MassMutual’s ability to serve our customers, meet their needs and compete in the marketplace. CX allows us to better understand our customer needs on every level. The Medallia platform will enable us to not only better understand our customers – including retirement plan sponsors, participants, financial advisors and Third Party Administrators – but to address their concerns in real time.

What are your goals for this partnership from a CX/customer engagement perspective?

Morabito: MassMutual differentiates itself on the ability to deliver best-in-class service. Incorporating CX and partnering with Medallia helps us gather, analyze and act on feedback immediately with the goal of anticipating our customers’ needs and delighting them.

How important is CX to MM?

Morabito: CX is critical to MassMutual’s overall goal of delivering a best-in-class customer service experience.

How sophisticated would you say your customer experience and customer loyalty initiatives are?

Morabito: MassMutual views its ability to deliver best-in-class customer experience and customer loyalty initiatives as second to none in the industry. The goal of the Medallia program is to enhance the quality of our award-winning service and boost the industry-leading marks MassMutual already receives from customers.

We continue to hear about brands that are looking to create alignment between their customer loyalty efforts and the brand promise. Should all brands try to become the next “Apple” or “Amazon?” Or is it more realistic and/or beneficial for brands to understand their own unique brand identity, and then define objectives, process and programs that align with that unique identity?

Morabito: MassMutual has its own brand identity and we want to build on it. MassMutual helps people secure their future and protect the ones they love. Our new customer engagement program is designed to help ensure that we are delivering on that promise every day and in every way.

There is a lot of talk about customers changing, how do you feel customers are changing and how are you adapting to that change? Is this just the case for your brand or vertical? Or is this affecting everyone?

Morabito: The bar continues to rise for customer service. It’s not enough to solve problems. We need to anticipate our customers’ needs. MassMutual’s new customer service program enables us to anticipate changes in the customer expectations and take systemic action on those changing needs to deliver an exceptional experience every time, everywhere.

How does employee loyalty and/or employee engagement fit into the customer loyalty discussion?

Morabito: MassMutual’s employees truly make a difference so it’s critical that they are loyal, engaged and dedicated to our mission. We have a team of more than 100 relationship managers who work closely with our retirement plan sponsors to help ensure their retirement plans are working as effectively as possible. It’s their efforts, backed by our award-winning service centers, that have helped us earn best in class marks for customer satisfaction.

How do you measure customer experience loyalty?

Morabito: Going forward, MassMutual is stepping up its efforts to measure retirement plan customer satisfaction and act as quickly as possible on the feedback we receive. The bottom line is customer retention and continuing to build long-term relationships with retirement plan sponsors, their participants, and the financial advisors and third party administrators who support them.

How do you define customer loyalty and has that definition evolved in recent years?

Morabito: MassMutual regularly measures retention rates for retirement plan sponsors. Based on past surveys, we know that our customer retention rates are among the best in the industry. We want to improve on that.

It’s not enough to just satisfy our customers. We want to anticipate their needs and delight them.

How is customer loyalty being prioritized in your organization?

Morabito: At MassMutual, doing everything we can to ensure the satisfaction and loyalty of our customers is our first priority. We don’t want to just serve our customers, we want to delight them.

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