This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.
The subtitle of our new book, Winning on Purpose, is “The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers,” and one of the companies that really lives that strategy is PURE Insurance. Perhaps insurance is not the first industry that comes to mind when thinking about intense customer focus, but PURE was created to offer something customers could not find elsewhere. Its founders recognized that a substantial segment of risk-averse, relatively high-net-worth customers who required multiple lines of coverage—home, auto, umbrella, and so forth—were being overcharged and underserved by existing carriers.
Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers
This new book by Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns demonstrates that great leaders embrace a higher purpose to win, and Net Promoter® shines as their guiding star.
PURE publishes its pricing philosophy online, eschewing the practice of overcharging loyal long-term customers in order to subsidize below-market prices that would bring in new business. The policy reflects the company’s overarching goal of caring for existing customers, who are known as members, not policyholders. PURE also cares for members by coaching them on steps they can take to protect themselves and their property—installing backup generators, water shutoff devices, burglar alarms, and so on.
Its 2020 annual report featured a number of stories of PURE helping members navigate disasters. One is the story of Natasha Trethewey, a Pulitzer Prize winner, Northwestern University professor, and former US poet laureate, who on Thanksgiving 2017 stood with her husband, historian Brett Gadsden, and watched their Chicago-area home burn. PURE’s claims adjuster was at the house within minutes of receiving a call about the fire, and the company assisted the family with temporary living accommodations, helped manage the contractors rebuilding their home, lent moral support, and even connected them with another couple who had suffered a similar loss the year before to commiserate and talk about what the rebuilding would entail.
Who would have thought you could develop this kind of a relationship with people from your insurance company, Gadsden marveled. “Who experiences that in their lives? No one ever does.”
Over the past few years, this kind of above-and-beyond service has steadily boosted the company’s Net Promoter ScoreSM to a very impressive 71%. PURE discusses NPS® in its annual reports and mentions innovations that were introduced based on feedback from its NPS member survey. These include more logical pricing on high limits of umbrella coverage, a new type of fraud coverage that also covers cyberfraud, and higher sublimits on jewelry in the basic homeowner’s policy. When I filled out the Net Promoter Survey and mentioned an issue, I got an email response from a PURE employee seeking to find a remedy. By taking action on the survey in ways large and small, managers show that NPS is truly an important part of their business model.
To us, NPS is a scientific way to measure how much your customers feel loved and how much they love you in return. It’s a test of how willing they are to stake their own reputation on referring you to others. The majority of PURE’s new members were referred by existing customers, and its member retention rate is an amazing 96%. That’s customer love.
