An Evaluation of CRM Strategy at Ping An Life Insurance, China - Dissertation Example

? An Evaluation of CRM Strategy at Ping An Life Insurance, China EXECUTIVE SUMMARY relationship management (CRM) holds the key to survival in every business sector. CRM has been effectively applied in insurance sector as well but challenges are inherent in its adoption. CRM is a tool that integrates technologies and business processes to satisfy customer needs. It is thus a customer-centric approach based on customer retention and relationship orientation. This report analyses the CRM approach at Ping An Life Insurance, China, a major subsidiary of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China. Ping An has been recognized and awarded for its customer relationship management approach but an evaluation of data suggests the adoption and implementation of CRM is not professionally and strategically adequate. Emphasis on salesmen appears to a hindrance to growth and accountability is lacking at Ping An. After evaluation of the available data, recommendations have been made on how CRM can be effectively implemented at Ping An Life Insurance. Table of Contents Chart 4.1 Services offered by Ping An Life 8 Table 4.1 Insurance Products off 8 Table 4.2 Written Premiums and Premium Incomeered by Ping An 9 Chart 4.2 Customer Acquisition Cost Comparison 10 Chart 4.3 Product Purchased by Ping An Customers 11 Table 4.3 Premium Income Insurance Products 12 Chart 4.4 Current CRM process at Ping An Life 13 Chart 4.5 Primary Organizational Obstacles 15 Chart 5.1 Customer Pyramid Model 16 Chart 5.2 CRM – 4 Building Blocks 18 1.0 Introduction 1.1 China Insurance industry 1 1.2 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 2 2.0 Methodology 2 3.0 Literature Review 3.1 CRM – definition and concept 3 3.2 Benefits of CRM 4 3.3 CRM in the insurance sector 5 3.4 Barriers to CRM implementation 6 4.0 Findings & Discussion 4.1 Company Background 7 4.2 CRM strategy at Ping An 10 4.3 Analysis of CRM strategy 13 5.0 Recommendation for an effective CRM 15 6.0 Conclusion 22 References 23 1.0 Introduction 1.1 China Insurance industry Life insurance business in China is huge and intensely competitive, according to Binder, Bowers and Yung (2004) of The McKinsey Quarterly. China is now the world’s fastest growing major life insurance market. The drivers of growth in the sector include 40 percent household savings rate, limited and deteriorating public-pension and health schemes that have heightened the demand for personal retirement savings and protection tools. Consumers sought investment options but the choice was limited. No attractive mutual funds offers are available and consumers cannot invest overseas. Bank yields are very low compared to typical savings policy. This helped to stimulate growth in the insurance sector in 1990 when foreign insurance companies were allowed to enter China either in joint venture with 50:50 partnership or with a maximum of 25 percent ownership. However, within 15 years more than 90 percent of insurance sector is with three domestic insurers – China Life Insurance, Ping An Insurance and China Pacific Life Insurance. The insurance industry is among the fastest growing industries in China and is the core business of the Ping An Group (Annual Report, 2012). However, the Chinese insurance business is in transition and hence has to adjust for sustainable and healthy growth (Market Review, 2012). This is critical since China’s economy is growing and personal wealth is expanding and hence sustainable growth becomes essential. Besides, competition is setting in as foreign insurers’ operational areas have expanded, which means they can operate in geographical regions they were earlier barred from. Besides, despite the three domestic insurers having large number of agents, the productivity on an average is less than one-fourth of Hong Kong agents. It has also been found by Binder, Bowers and Yung (2004) that these agents give misleading information and poor customer service. Such issues would allow the foreign insurers to increase their market share of the affluent and mass-affluent segment. 1.2 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) To combat such issues and to remain competitive, insurers in China would have to follow the changing business model like the rest of the industry. It has becoming increasingly difficult to attract net-new premium and hence insurers try to foster growth through existing customer base. Carriers are operating in a challenging landscape with commoditization pressures, natural disasters, low interest rates all of which lead to poor underwriting performance (Lambert, 2012). Under the circumstances, when insurance has become a commodity offering similar products at similar prices, the only point of differentiation to achieve competitive advantage can be through relationship marketing. Long-term relationship with current customers helps to increase loyalty and to gain customer lifetime expenditure. One of the ways to overcome these challenges is through improving service offering. Service delivery has to be evident to the customer through all stages of the claim process – online self-help portal, agent interaction. Service is what the Asian countries still lack despite economic growth and Asian consumers, fed up of poor service, are willing to pay a premium for quality service (Bizcommunity, 2013). While premium price is not applicable to the insurance sector, this highlights the importance of service and customer relationship management in China as CRM holds the promise to achieve corporate objectives in the competitive business environment (Karakostas, Kardaras & Papathanassiou, 2005). With the focus on one Chinese insurance company – Ping An Life Insurance – this report evaluates to what extent CRM as a strategy has been exploited and why the companies have been or not been able to achieve results. 2.0 Methodology This study is based purely on secondary data as no organization would be willing to share information on their internal processes. While literature on the subject has been gathered through different sources, data particular to the organization have been derived through the company’s Annual Report and through another study that had gathered primary data from the company. An exploratory, qualitative case study method has been applied to arrive at the results. This is thus a report based on qualitative findings and the expected difference through an effective CRM strategy has been discussed. A case study approach helps in exploring the phenomenon from a variety of sources (Baxter & Jack, 2008) and a variety of sources would help reveal multiple facets of CRM at Ping An Life. 3.0 Literature Review 3.1 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – definition and concept Different definitions of CRM put emphasis on different aspects of CRM as some focus on the technological perspective and some on the knowledge management perspective in implementing customer relationship management. Yet others focus on business re-engineering and continuous improvement perspective. Karakostas, Kardaras and Papathanassiou (2005) also highlight of web-based e-CRM where customer data is gathered through internet-based system. Bose (2002) describes CRM as a tool that integrates technologies and business processes to satisfy the needs of the customers. Gronoos (1994, p.4) contends that CRM aims, “ To identify and establish, maintain and enhance and, when necessary, terminate relationships with customers and other stakeholders, at a profit so that the objectives of all parties involved are met; and this is done by mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises ”. CRM philosophy is based on customer retention and relationship orientation. Process management helps create superior customer value and IT as the enabling technology helps management of customer knowledge. CRM involves transparency between customers and the organization. Customers now are keen to observe other consumers’ impression of product performance. Communication has to be more than basic conversation (McKenna, 1995). The organization must have adequate customer knowledge and have a relationship strategy in place for effective communication so as to establish an individual value proposition. 3.2 Benefits of CRM Economic, social and technological forces have become the drivers of CRM that have made the traditional models irrelevant. Customer data can lead to generation of more effective differentiation strategies that cannot be easily replicable. While earlier it was possible to develop close relationship with the customers and understand and satisfy their needs, developments in technology and advance consumerism has rendered this process ineffective (Peppard, 2000). Every satisfied customer brings in at least three more customers, according to Ederer, Seiwert and Kustenmacher (2000). On the other hand, an unhappy customer would share his negative experience with ten other potential customers, which has been facilitated by the social media. The regular customers are less price sensitive, and they are even willing to pay a premium price for the products or services. If CRM strategy is carefully implemented, it would be observed that a five percent decrease in customers leaving the organization can enhance profits by as much as 85 percent (Topfer, 1996). At the same time, acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than generating repeat business from existing customers (Karakostas, Kardaras & Papathanassiou, 2005). The purpose of CRM is to coordinate all business processes that deal with customers and involves data collection, collation and interpretation of customer data in order to define buying behavior that would support development of effective marketing programs. Most financial services have some kind of customer data based but implementation of CRM with enabling technology helps use the data effectively. Implementation of CRM would include several internal systems such as customer databases, systems for interaction with consumers and order processing via B2B portals. However, despite the enabling technology and high expectations from CRM, very few actually achieve success or use it effectively. In fact most are unable to even complete the systems, contend Karakostas, Kardaras and Papathanassiou (2005). A study by Karakostas et al found that financial service providers (FSPs) are unable to integrate CRM data with their existing infrastructure as well as with their business processes. This adversely impacts customer-related decision making and management. They also found that data mining was under deployed and the FSPs are not keen to invest in new approaches and technologies related to CRM. No effect on the internal processes has been found and the only small benefit they derive is in operational costs. There is limited impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty in this study as no compliant management has been provided. 3.3 CRM in the insurance sector In the insurance sector as well, CRM failed to produce the expected synergies and benefits. Albazaz and Wei (2004) believe that expectations were unrealistic that CRM would help increase customer database. Poor planning and lack of shared business culture throughout the organization are other barriers to the success of CRM in the insurance environment. CRM should be introduced in a phased manner and training should match the implementation of technology. Employees have to get used to the technology and moreover, employees must be motivated to develop a customer-centric approach. As insurance service providers recognized that all clients cannot be treated equally, adoption of CRM would help insurance companies to manage individual customers with the aid of customer databases, as well as interactive and mass customization technologies (Verhoef & Donkers, 2001). The biggest challenge that insurance companies face in implementing CRM can be attributed to lack of training and poor understanding of the concept of CRM. Data warehousing, if not implemented effectively, can also render the exercise futile. An insurance company had gathered relevant customer data but while centralizing their data, quality issues emerged (Ryals & Payne, 2001). Multiple records of a single customer were found and addresses were either missing or wrongly entered. Gaps, omissions and ambiguities do not allow achieving the desired synergies. If effectively implemented, CRM could help organizations to identify which customers to focus on and which to let go. Ryals and payne also cite of an insurance company that could make 17 segments of its customers through effective data warehousing and this enabled them to identify two low-profit segments who they did not want to deal with. Companies are known to simply mail a certain portion of their clients every month with product information without data mining and hence they are not sure if the information actually reaches the target segment. Panda (2003) also highlights the same issue when he addresses that product life cycle approach is redundant. CRM should involve four important components – people, process, technology and data. Such a strategy would give leads about the probability of customer demand, and with the technology it would be possible to track the characteristics and categorization of customers depending upon their buying behavior. Panda emphasizes the importance of customer life time value over product life time value. Customer life time value approach also enables the company to analyse the cost of acquiring, serving and retaining a set of customers within the organization. Panda advices the FSPs to have an integrated CRM approach across the entire organization that can lead to high customer life time value. 3.4 Barriers to CRM implementation Agarwal, Harding and Schumacher (2004) highlight the challenges and barriers in implementing CRM. This is because companies seldom pay attention to the organizational challenges inherent in CRM adoption whether it is in delivering a new solution, fixing an application or working on a functioning CRM capability. If collaboration of people from different functions and levels such as frontline sales and service providers, business analysts, IT professionals and managers are insisted upon, it only complicates the process of CRM adoption and creates accountability issues. Agarwal et al suggest that CRM implementation should not be considered a heavy-handed rollout but should be viewed as a service targeted at internal customers. Its values should be clearly defined and its benefits advertised appropriately. Moreover, a dedicated temporary team is not sufficient to achieve success in CRM adoption and utilization. While people responsible should be accountable they should also be provided with motivation and training. In addition, their efforts should be tracked so that there is no rush to fix the technology. The role of the top management is essential and the message from the top should be forceful and clear so that the frontline employees feel motivated to accept change and accountability. In the next section, background of a life insurance service provider in China has been presented. 4.0 Findings & Discussion 4.1 Company Background Ping An (Ping) Life Insurance Company, established in 2002, is a major subsidiary of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China. The group was established in 1988 and Ping An has achieved substantial growth in the last decade as China’s insurance industry has expanded in both service and quality. Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, Ping An LIfe is the first insurance company in China to have introduced foreign investors in its shareholding structure. Ping An life’s core strategies are “Reaching new heights” and “two-tier market development” which is pursued by a team of highly productive sales agents with strong cross-selling capabilities (Annual Report, 2012). Ping An embraces value-driven operations to reinforce customer relationships which also helps in continuously improving its operation workflow and service quality. With an unfavorable macro-economic environment Ping An adopted different marketing channels such as telemarketing and internet marketing. The telemarketing channel fetched a high rate of growth compared with traditional sales channel. It also improved the product structure designed to meet customer needs. The e-operation platform also helped grow its product lines and expand its usage channels. Ping is strategically positioned as “one of China’s largest retail financial services group” covering auto, home, and health insurance. It has the largest market share of affluent and mass-affluent retail customers in China. In the insurance sector, Ping offers the following services as shown in the chart below: Chart 4.1 Services offered by Ping An Life Source: Ping An (2013) Different insurance products offered by Ping An Life include the following: Table 4.1 Insurance Products offered by Ping An Through its nationwide service network of 35 branches, Ping An Life has 2600 business outlets, provides individual customers and institutional clients with life insurance products. As of December 31, 2012, Ping An had approximately 53 million individual customers and 900 thousand corporate clients. Its e-operation platform helped create greater value for customers as well as for the company. In the case of Individual Life, despite growth in the number of products, more sales channels and improvement in product, there was a decline in first-year single new premium and first year regular premium in 2012 over 2011. However, commission expenses increased from RMB11, 351 in 2011 to RMB12, 680 in 2012. As a result, the net profit of insurance business decreased by 35.3 percent in 2012 to RMB6457 million from RMB9974 million in 2011 (Annual Report, 2012). Table 4.2 Written Premiums and Premium Income Source: (Annual Report, 2012). Ping can offer a single customer multiple products and for the customers it is convenient, simple and safe. Ping’s competitive advantage lies in its strong customer base because of its three core divisions – banking, insurance and investments. Almost 70 percent of its affluent and mass-affluent customers are in the 26-45 age group (Ping An, 2013). Life insurance agents cross-sell other company product lines to customers thereby enhancing customer loyalty. Life insurance channel at Ping has low customer acquisition cost and this sector continues to provide quality customers as shown in the chart below: Chart 4.2 Customer Acquisition Cost Comparison Source: Ping An (2013) 4.2 CRM strategy at Ping An Ping has a team of 180,000 sales and agents and has been thriving on its charismatic corporate culture, professional employees, and sound management principles (Ping An, 2013a). In addition it also offers its agents and employees intensive training, has strong IT support system and back-office support. The company’s senior management comprises of established insurance experts from mainland China and from overseas countries. It has thus amassed an organic combination of international experience and local knowledge. With a nation-wide network, Ping is highly customer-focused and has also recently opened a call-centre towards demonstrating its customer-centric approach. It also observes an annual customer service day. It is the first mainland insurance company to offer urgent support services to both domestic and international customers. Ping An’s 3A customer service approach (Anytime, Anywhere and in Any Way) is an example of the company’s service with a human touch. This strategy has fetched the company the award for “Best CRM Practice” twice. They also support services at the branch level. Since it started the insurance business Ping An has been able to generate 53 million individual customers in addition to corporate clients. To retain and continue generating new customers, service plays a critical role and hence an insight into customers’ structure and characteristics is essential. The customer base comprises of fresh/new customers as well as customers that have steadily renewed their insurance over the years. In 2012, nearly 30 percent of the life insurance premium has come from new customers and the rest is renewal premium. Based on the product purchased, the chart below shows the percentage of products sold by Ping An. Participating and Universal Life are the two most popular products. Chart 4.3 Product Purchased by Ping An Customers The five highest premium income insurance products fall under Participating and include the following: Table 4.3 Premium Income Insurance Products Source: Annual Report (2012) The customer’s of Ping An come from different strata of society and from different regions as Ping An has no restrictions on recruiting salesmen. They distribute their products through a network of 513 thousand individual sales agents, 3300 group insurance sales representatives, and over 64,000 commercial bank outlets that fall under bancassurance arrangements with Ping An Life. The following chart gives an idea of the customer structure of Ping An: Table 4.4 Customer Structure at Ping An Source: (Deng, 2010). 4.3 Analysis of CRM strategy Currently the CRM process of Ping An Life is as has been shown below: Chart 4.4 Current CRM process at Ping An Life Source: Deng (2010) Once the product is purchased it is delivered to the business development department after which is subject to scrutiny and if the applicant does not qualify in health and finance, the purchase order remains at the observation stage. However the customer is entitled to full refund in ten days if he does not qualify. To retain the customer, he is informed through the call centre. Once the insurance policy has been verified, the salesman receives his commission. Based on the above information, the CRM strategy employed would be analyzed in the next section. The sales strategy of Ping An demonstrates a very high concentration of sales men (513 thousand) that dominate the sales of their insurance products. Deng (2010) analyzes weaknesses in the CRM strategy of Ping An from two different perspectives – lack of strategy and lack of efficient technology application. Lack of an effective strategy can lead to an inefficient management module that cannot serve the purpose of employing technology. While Ping An’s strategy does demonstrate new customer development, the outcome has not enhanced the premium value as is evident from the Table 4.1 which shows decline in premium from new customers. They do invest in training, in advertising to reach out to new customers, but there is no evidence to substantiate data mining and data warehousing. No customer feedback is taken and analysed for changes in the marketing strategy. Salesmen appear to be the prime communicators between the client and the company and none is allowed to intervene till the salesman is out of the picture. This does not enable the company to evaluate of the customer has been provided with all the alternatives and whether all customer needs have been addressed. The salesmen are offered incentives and hence they may offer products that serve their own interest the best. This can adversely impact customer retention. This is because even customer retention is addressed by the salesman and there is no dedicated department to look into customer retention or even complaints. Since the sales men have the discretion to attend to and offer products of their choice, it may negatively impact customer satisfaction thereby also affecting the corporate image. Data mining and data warehousing appear to be severely lacking at Ping An which leads to chaos in handling customer data. This affects proper segmentation and identification of platinum and gold customers that need focused attention. In the process, Ping An is unable to identify the non-value customers and continue to serve all equally, thereby resulting in misuse of human and financial resources. Simply hoarding customer information from all the different products such as life insurance, annuity and health insurance, do not allow the data to be used as a source of competitive advantage or to reduce costs (Peppard, 2000). Agarwal et al, demonstrate the typical areas where communication and commitment lacks during CRM implementation and this appears to be applicable in the case of Ping As as well. This has been shown in the chart below. Chart 4.5 Primary Organizational Obstacles Source: Agarwal et al (2004) Based on the identification of the weaknesses, recommendations for an effective CRM strategy has been made in the next section. 5.0 Recommendation for an effective CRM The main hindrance to effective CRM appears to be the empowerment meted out to salesmen with little control over them. In the process the company is unable to segment its customers based on the contribution they make towards the growth of the company. The first step that Ping An should employ is to analyze the customers based on the customer pyramid model. Chart 5.1 Customer Pyramid Model Source: Berzett (2010). The four different levels of customer segmentation enable an organization to focus on customers that are valuable for the company and this helps minimizing investments in non-valuable customers (Verhoef & Donkers, 2001). However, this strategy is successful in single-service setting and hence Ping An should apply it only on its insurance clients. They should not combine all their customers from three different sectors, even though all fall under financial services. The platinum segment comprises of the most loyal customers that are not price-conscious but value service and quality of the product. They are the heaviest users and are keen to try new product offerings. At Ping An, they may comprise of just 1 percent of the total customers but they provide nearly 49 percent of the revenue. Therefore, this suggests that the platinum customers must be offered incentives to sustain loyalty. The different methods of incentives include loyalty cards, shopping discount cards, or special services. The gold segment customers are price sensitive and do not purchase as much as the platinum customers. Moreover, they are not loyal and for a small change in price they can switch service provider. Ping An has to turn the gold customers into Platinum customers through discounts, incentives and other methods such as price matching. The Iron customers are extremely price conscious and shop around frequently even after they have been satisfied with one service provider. Ping An should not focus must attention or expend energy on such customers as they provide an insignificant amount of business. It is very difficult to turn the iron customers into gold but through advertising and price matching, attempt can be made. Ryals and Payne (2001) point out that one insurance company evaluated and found that customers that contacted them frequently were not necessarily the desired customers to have. Lead segment customers are the problem customers as they demand a lot of attention without contributing corresponding amount of business to the organization. However, when such customers approach Ping An, they cannot be turned down. Thus, the strategy should be to specifically train people to deal with such problem customers. In fact, such customers should also be charged for using up the time of the organization. The four blocks that build CRM are customer knowledge, relationship strategy, communication and individual value proposition, as shown in the pyramid below. Chart 5.2 CRM – 4 Building Blocks Source: Peelen (2005) It is essential to have 360 degree customer information as this is considered a strategic success factor. The company and its employees must have the ability to act on knowledge generated. Within the organization customer knowledge should be shared across departments to ensure concerted actions. This is the basis of the relationship strategy that would enable to work towards a common goal of nurturing strong relationships. Ping An should always strive to add value to their product offerings and create a point of differentiation to gain competitive advantage. The company is currently using multiple channels such as direct selling, online marketing, telemarketing, through agents and resellers such as through banks. However, all the channels should be integrated and it should be an integrated sales strategy. Chart 5.3 Integrated Sales Strategy The resellers and the agents or the individual sales representatives engaged in direct selling must be well equipped with product knowledge, and be committed to the company. There is no evidence of direct electronic mail to customers from its database of other financial products such as investment banking. Hire and retain customer-friendly employees and they must develop a customer recovery strategy. Every valued customer must be served at least once a year personally by the employees of the organization. With the advanced technology personal interactions have become difficult and personal touch in service is lost. The business processes must be structured around the needs of the customers. All areas of performance that add customer value should be touched upon in delivering service. Agents must be loaded with client information such as past policies, renewal dates and past interactions. With the help of IT, it is not difficult for insurance companies to gather multiple views of the customer. Dynamic CRM is one of the methods suggested by the representatives of Microsoft which will help insurance companies gather all these information and redefine their strategies (Lambert, 2012). This architecture enables two-way integration which implies that all the data can be held under a consolidated database. This helps generate a single consolidated view of the customer which can be shared within the organization. Here not only the internal employees but the agents and salesmen too, would have to be encouraged to adopt the system which would also reduce training costs. This strategy can open up opportunities for insurance companies and particularly for Ping An as they try to convert and generate growth from their existing customer base. The insurance agents of Ping An engage in cross-selling other products and hence this tool would help generate a comprehensive view of the customer, and accordingly make any new product offering. Dynamic CRM would not only benefit the company by way of service improvements and enhancing sales, the insurance company would also be able to identify its most efficient intermediaries. This would also give insight into which are the most important or fast selling products and channelize their energies accordingly. Once data mining is effectively employed, lead customers could be easily identified and this would reduce the number of cold calls. Based on the past performance, family history and needs of the customers, the right product would be offered. This should be a consolidated database of the customers available across the organization to all departments and sectors. The web application of Ping An should improve so that customers get an appropriate view of the different products on offer. Leads can also be extracted from the website through website analytic software available. Salesmen need to be trained and supervised to ensure they do not serve their own interest alone. Training should be in such a manner that the career goals of the salesmen are in alignment with corporate goals and objectives. Such a strategy is expected to lead to a customer-centric approach or customer-orientation. If the product quality suits the needs of the customer, the customer derives satisfaction which ensures customer retention. This in turn enhances customer value and the company achieves success in its CRM adoption. This process has been demonstrated in the figure below. Chart 5.4 CRM route to Success 6.0 Conclusion The motivation of the report arose from the need to evaluate the current CRM strategy at Ping An Life and to recommend a suitable strategy for successful adoption of customer relationship management. This is an exploratory report based on the case study method where data has been gathered through secondary sources. The report finds that Ping An Life has been receiving awards and recognition for its CRM efforts but there appears to be lack of CRM strategy and lack of full technology adoption. While the company dies have IT support and backing but the CRM technology has not been successfully implemented. Ping An appears to lay great emphasis on its salesmen and it is not known to what extent they are able to fulfill the needs of the customers. The company has not used the customer pyramid model to identify its high-value customers so that it can focus on them and not waste its resources on low-value customers. With a focus on more intensive customer-centric approach, data mining and data warehousing, the company would be able to generate valuable leads from the consolidated customer data base that should be available across all departments and groups within the organization. The salesmen should be accountable and supervised. Top management commitment and control is essential to ensure accountability at all levels and departments. It appears that CRM at Ping An Life is not professionally managed or strategically implemented. It also appears to lack technical applications for effective CRM strategy. No report has been found of resistance to change but accountability and commitment appears to be inadequate. References Agarwal, A., Harding, D.P. & Schumacher, J.R. (2004). "Organizing for CRM", The McKinsey Quarterly, Albazaz, F., & Wei, Y. (2004). 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