Prudential embraces customer centricity: An interview with Priscilla Ng (2024)

As Prudential plc embraces digital transformation, the 176-year-old insurance company finds itself navigating a delicate balancing act: harmonizing the power of AI with a human touch, essential to delivering exceptional customer experiences. Prudential prioritizes data-driven insights to offer customers more-personalized, proactive, and efficient services and drive sustainable growth across global markets while preserving the personal connections that insurance customers value.

Joe Ngai, chairman of McKinsey, Greater China,and a senior partner, spoke with Priscilla Ng, Prudential’s group chief customer and marketing officer. With more than 18 million customers and a presence in 24 markets, Prudential is embarking on a customer-centric transformation journey. Ng shares her insights on the importance of customer centricity, the role of data-driven marketing, and the challenges and opportunities of driving customer-focused growth in a rapidly evolving insurance landscape.

A new customer function supporting Prudential’s journey to customer centricity

Joe Ngai: What are you trying to achieve in your role within the customer and marketing organization?

Priscilla Ng: I have been in the financial industry for more than 25 years, and throughout my career, I have worked with multinational companies. Most companies prioritize growth as a core objective; however, the challenge lies in creating a sustainable business model that can deliver consistent year-on-year growth. When I observe the most successful companies worldwide, I find that their primary objective is to maximize value for the customer. This means ensuring customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy, which leads to repurchases and referrals. It forms a strong value chain in which happy customers translate into happy investors.

Joe Ngai: Prudential has always prioritized customer focus. However, with the introduction of the customer function and role, it is now centralizing data-driven approaches and using them to drive growth across markets. How will your customer function enhance the existing customer-focused efforts with agents and bancassurance?

Priscilla Ng: To provide some background, our group CEO, Anil Wadhwani, joined us in February 2023. He is a strong advocate for customer centricity, which led to the establishment of the customer function. At that time, I was working in the Hong Kong business and was appointed as the group chief customer and marketing officer. In summary, my responsibilities can be classified into three main roles.

First, I am responsible for the customer strategy across our 24 markets. This includes developing customer segment strategies, defining product propositions, and overseeing acquisition and retention efforts.

Second, I serve as the customer advocate, fostering a culture of customer centricity across Prudential markets and actively listening to the voice of the customer.

Last, I play the role of an enabler, building core capabilities within the organization. This includes leveraging data and technology, as you mentioned, to enhance our customer-centric approach.

AI as an amplifier: Empowering humans to excel

Joe Ngai: Investing in data and technology is a priority for Prudential. Can you tell us more about your approach and how you have been using AI and data analytics to enhance decision making, manage risks, and improve the customer experience?

Priscilla Ng: Data and technology absolutely play a key role in shaping the future of customer service. When we think about the customer journey and servicing channels, our goal is to create a seamless and smooth experience across all touchpoints. This requires leveraging data and technology to ensure a consistent and personalized experience for customers, regardless of the channel they choose to interact with us.

We recognized the importance of AI and data analytics early on and started our initiatives several years ago, even before the market hype surrounding AI. We have been leveraging AI and data analytics to analyze vast amounts of data, enabling us to make better decisions, manage risks effectively, and enhance the overall customer experience. By harnessing the power of AI, we can provide personalized solutions, automate processes, and deliver services with speed and efficiency. This has been instrumental in meeting the heightened expectations of today’s consumers and ensuring we stay at the forefront of the industry.

Just to give an overview of the use cases, AI can be used to simplify and personalize underwriting, as well as proactively detect fraud and claim cases. AI can be used to detect forgery in claim cases, enabling more-personalized and simplified underwriting processes. Another important use case is enhancing the customer experience, particularly in the call center. When customers call, AI can assist in answering customer inquiries quickly and accurately, ensuring seamless and efficient service. There are numerous other use cases, but, in summary, AI is a transformative force in the service industry. It not only makes things easier for customers but also streamlines operations and improves efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

In fact, with AI, we can reduce manual work and invest more time in building relationships with customers. AI allows us to save time and focus on value-adding projects. It enhances the customer experience by providing faster delivery and simplified information. It also lowers costs by reducing the need for a large workforce, allowing humans to focus on building relationships and addressing the emotional needs of customers. AI enables a human-centric, technology-enabled customer journey.

Joe Ngai: What challenges are you confronting as you help the company along this digital transformation journey?

Priscilla Ng: It’s not easy, especially considering we have more than 15,000 employees in Prudential worldwide. Nevertheless, it is an exciting endeavor. To successfully transform, we need to focus on equipping our employees with the right mindset, skill set, and tool set.

First, mindset is crucial. We need to foster a stronger customer-centric culture and actively listen to the customers. This involves creating a culture that prioritizes customer needs and feedback.

Second, developing the right skill set is essential. We must provide our staff with the necessary skills to effectively use data and advanced tools in serving customers. This includes both internal training and attracting external talent to enhance our capabilities.

Last, having the right tool set is vital. Our conversation today revolves around leveraging data and technology to enable our staff to deliver excellent customer experiences. For example, we can start meetings by discussing insights from customers, which helps to embed a customer-centric mindset within the organization.

Changing the culture requires practical actions. It involves consistently reinforcing the importance of customer insights and incorporating them into decision-making processes. By focusing on mindset, skill set, and tool set, we can overcome the barriers and challenges associated with digital transformation and drive the company forward.

Joe Ngai: As you consider Prudential’s 24 markets, how do you approach data in terms of your team infrastructure?

Priscilla Ng: Data is definitely a top priority for Prudential, especially as more people go online and rely less on offline customer-service officers. Our goal is to combine data from both online and offline sources to gain a 360-degree view of the customer. While different markets have their own rules and laws regarding data, we are building a unified data platform at Prudential. This ensures consistent data structure and governance, allowing us to roll out initiatives in a synchronized and strategic manner.

Looking ahead, creating great customer experiences requires data-driven decision making, such as understanding and optimizing communications. By analyzing data on customer behavior, such as drop-off points or time spent on a page, we can identify and address any issues. This highlights the importance of data in our operations. Ownership and proper use of data will be a powerful factor in winning the hearts of customers.

Challenges of AI integration: Striking the right balance

Joe Ngai: How do agents perceive the digital transformation? Do they see it as a threat to their jobsor as a way to improve their lives?

Priscilla Ng: We are all consumers ourselves, constantly checking emails, messages, and social media. Employees and agents have realized that digital is the way to go.

At Prudential, we are investing in building a platform to help agents better engage with customers. This digital platform serves as a reminder for agents, notifying them of important customer events, such as birthdays and necessary transitions. Furthermore, with the use of data and AI, agents can access the right information for each customer. This simplifies their work and allows for faster and more accurate delivery of services. Agents can analyze a vast amount of data, providing valuable insights into customer behavior.

Agents should embrace technology because it improves their lives and enhances customer interactions. As a company, we gain more data and insights into our customers, leading to better service and satisfaction.

Culture shift and empowerment: Embracing the symbiosis of human and AI

Joe Ngai: How has Prudential embraced the value of customer centricity and put it into practice?

Priscilla Ng: At Prudential, customer centricity is more than just a slogan; it’s a way of life. The company cultivates a culture that embraces the symbiotic relationship between human expertise and artificial intelligence. Last year, we implemented a company-wide employee culture value initiative. Our first value is the customer, which serves as our guiding principle. It emphasizes our dedication and seriousness in transforming our organization into a truly customer-centric one. However, it’s not enough to just have a slogan; we must put it into practice.

The first practice is listening to the voice of the customer. In the fourth quarter of last year, our senior management, including our group CEO and myself, led by example by meeting with customers. This campaign aims to actively listen to customer feedback. Over the course of a month, we met with more than 150 customers worldwide, gathering their comments and feedback on our products and services, as well as receiving compliments.

Starting this year, we are extending this practice to all staff members, including product managers and technology platform managers. They will have the opportunity to directly hear from customers about the quality and relevance of our products and the stability and user-friendliness of our platforms. This approach is much more powerful than simply receiving instructions from a boss. Our goal is for each staff member to meet with 100 customers in the coming year.

Now, let’s discuss data analytics. It’s important to note that each country has its own data privacy laws and regulations to protect customers. We are committed to complying with these laws and ensuring the privacy and security of our customers’ data. We have robust data protection measures in place to safeguard personal information and adhere to the highest standards of data privacy. We understand the importance of maintaining trust with our customers, and we take data privacy seriously in all aspects of our operations.

By prioritizing the customer, actively listening to their feedback, and respecting data privacy, we are building a strong foundation for a customer-centric organization that values trust and delivers exceptional experiences.

Joe Ngai: You’ve been using customer satisfaction scores as an important tool for gathering feedback and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Could you provide more details on how you’re using those scores and how effective that has been?

Priscilla Ng: Yes, we have adopted customer satisfaction scores across all markets as a way to assess our progress in becoming more customer-centric. When I look at successful companies around the world, many of them are early adopters. The philosophy behind it is that we measure our success based on the impact we have on our customers. It means ensuring that we deliver the experience our customers desire, brightening their days and enriching their lives. This shift aligns with the concept of “good profit,” which is generated by having more promoters. Good profit not only benefits our company but also contributes to making the world a better place.

In terms of my vision for the customer space, it is to bring more smiles to our customers’ faces, which means having more promoters and fewer detractors. We aim to enrich the lives of our customers. As for our scores on a scale of one to ten, I would say that we see a positive trajectory of improvement year after year. We constantly compare ourselves not just to average players in the market but also to the top players. Our vision is to be the best in the market, reaching the first quartile of customer satisfaction scores by 2027.