Our CEO, Todd Argall, recently announced that the Customer Experience (CX) Department will be expanding to include Marketing, and that our Customer Experience Department will now fall under Sales and Marketing, reporting to our VP of Sales and Marketing, Chuck McDaniel. This change was designed to enable the organization to expand our customer experience focus and encompass the full customer journey, from our initial marketing efforts through our long-term relationship with our customers. With that broader emphasis on the entire customer journey,
I want to share with you the initiatives that we will be working on in 2021 that will help us to both understand the customer experience and enhance the customer experience.

 
THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
As an organization, we need to be able to ensure that our customers are having great experiences with us at each point of the customer journey - from the very first time they hear about us, when they become new customers, as existing customers, and when they file a claim. This year we will create a comprehensive customer journey map that identifies each point of contact and we will begin working on plans to deliver great experiences for our customers at each point of the journey. 
 

CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
As an organization, we want to have customer centricity embedded within the culture of Farm Bureau. Customer centricity is a mindset and way of doing business that focuses on positive experiences for the customer through the full set of products and services that the company offers. The following initiatives will enable us to listen to our customers and allow us to do an internal evaluation of where we stand as it relates to Customer Centricity.

 
We will be completing an evaluation of Farm Bureau’s customer centricity maturity and when we have those results, we will share them and establish initiatives to help embed customer centricity into our culture. We have also already established a Customer Experience Ambassador program by bringing together employees from across organizational levels and roles –both customer-facing and back office – to provide input and engage in moving the CX strategy and action plans forward. We will also be developing a plan to implement a customer advisory board (CAB) made up of key customers and executives. We will schedule periodic meetings with the customer advisory board to offer feedback on products as well as their overall impressions of the company.

 

We will also be capturing our customers’ feedback with two key surveys. We currently utilize a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey which measures the likelihood of our customers to refer friends, family or colleagues to Farm Bureau. You can see our 2020 NPS results on FBConnect and we will be doing more with this metric this year. We will develop a plan to measure the ease of doing business with our company using a Customer Effort Score (CES).

 
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE 
As an organization, we want to prepare for the best digital payment solutions for our customers' increasing appetite for digital services. This year we will work toward adopting a payment processor that offers more modern digital payment solutions like mobile wallet, text and email reminders for upcoming payments, and speed pay. We will also be implementing a remote deposit capture app that allows agency staff to capture check payments with a photo and have that payment automatically applied to the customer’s account.

 
MARKETING
As part of the customer experience, we have several marketing initiatives lined up this year that compliment the customer journey very well. We will actively be involved in the unveiling of the company's new Mission, Vision, Values and Tagline, and you will experience this in the very near future. We will also be focusing on developing preferred carrier partnerships within the agricultural arena. Additionally, the development of an affinity program with Idaho-based businesses will be a focus of ours this year as well. We will be developing a new public website and, finally, we’ll be working toward creating a company store where Farm Bureau marketing materials and swag can be purchased online.

  
I’m looking forward to working together with each of each of you to create the type of experience that will make our customers our biggest advocates.  

Thank you! 

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Dana May, Director of Customer Experience

 

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