Car Insurance Q1 2024 Call Centre Rankings
Introduction
Commencing in October 2023, each month, we conduct mystery shopping calls to a minimum of six different Car Insurance Providers in Australia to provide Voice of Customer (VoC) insights into the performance of the call centre channel for consumers and add additional value for ACXPA Members who are seeking regular, independent industry benchmarking data based on real calls, not self-reported information.
We pose as real customers and assess the accessibility (how easy it was to connect to a live agent) and the customer service/quality of the interaction using over 80 different performance metrics as defined in the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards.
As the majority of Car Insurance Providers require existing customers to provide account information for claims, all the mystery shopping scenarios we tested were posing as new customers searching for either a new car insurance policy or looking to switch from an existing provider, with both scenarios considered new business opportunities for the Car Insurance Providers.
Existing customers with claims enquiries or renewals may have different experiences, as they are often treated with a different priority and handled by completely different teams.
Average sector data for Car Insurance Providers is published monthly for ACXPA Members, and we publicly release a quarterly report (like this) containing average sector information and a small sample of the individual results for three random Car Insurance Providers.
Car Insurance Providers that purchase our Contact Centre CX Benchmarking reports receive the data for all 80 metrics for their contact centre each month, call recordings, assessors notes, trend data and benchmarking data for any five competitors they nominate. Learn more >
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Q1 2024
Of the six business sectors we currently assess monthly (Banks, Car Insurance, Councils, Energy Retailers, Internet Retailers, and TAFEs), the Car Insurance providers were ranked the second lowest for Overall Rankings in Q1 2024 with a score of 52.1%, primarily due to difficulties getting through to a live agent and the level of customer service provided.
- The Overall ranking score for Car Insurance Providers in Q1 2024 was 52.1%, the second lowest of all sectors. Scores for each Car Insurance provider ranged from 37.2% (AAMI) to 75.1% (Youi), with Youi consistently ranking on top for the past six consecutive months.
- Access rankings for the sector were 58.4%, the second lowest of all sectors, with scores ranging from 18.1% (RACV) to 81.8% (Youi). Youi has been the easiest to connect to for the previous three consecutive months.
- The Quality score for the Car Insurance sector was 53.5%, ranging from 45.1% (Budget Direct) to 72.3% (Youi). Car Insurance providers were the second lowest-ranked sector for Quality, only marginally ahead of TAFEs (53.1%), with Councils the highest-rated Quality sector at 64.2%.
ACCESS RESULTS Q1 2024
Accessibility scores (how easy it was to get through to a live person) to a live person at a Car Insurance Provider was rated ‘Below Standard’ at 58.4%, coming in second last of all sectors for Q1 2024 (Banks were the worst at 44.2% and Internet Retailers the best with 81.8%).
- For Q1 2024, RACV was the most difficult to get through a live agent with a ranking of 18.1% (the second lowest Nationally of all call centres tested), with Youi the easiest at 81.8%.
- Across the Car Insurance sector, 9.5% of calls we made were not answered in Q1 2024 within our 10-minute threshold. AAMI and Allianz failed to answer 22.2% of our calls in Q1 2024 with March 2024 the lowest recorded score when AAMI failed to answer two-thirds of our calls within 10 minutes.
- Average wait times across all Car Insurance Providers increased to their longest-ever result in Q1 2024 with an average wait time of 02:19 minutes, a significant increase of 01:24 minutes from the Q4 2023 results (00:55 minutes).
- Budget Direct had the lowest average wait time for Q1 2024 of 00:12 minutes, achieving the lowest wait times for two of the three months in Q1 2024.
- AAMI had the longest wait times (07:03 minutes), with March 2024 their longest-ever recorded wait time of 09:35 minutes.
- All Car Insurance providers had a minimum of one IVR layer (press one for this, two for that) ranging from 1.0 layers (RAC Insurance) to 6.0 layers (RACV Insurance), the highest Nationally of all contact centres.
- In addition to making menu selections, customers were forced to listen to 00:53 minutes of recorded messages, the longest of all sectors measured, ranging from 00:11 minutes (RAC Insurance) to 02:10 minutes (RACV Insurance).
- RACV was the most prominent in encouraging people waiting in the queue to speak to a live agent to hang up and shift their enquiry to online (occurred on 67% of their calls).
- AAMI was the only Car Insurance provider that consistently interrupted wait times with repeated messages (at least one message every 60 seconds).
- Talk time averaged 11:03 minutes across all Car Insurance Providers (the highest of all sectors), ranging from 08:46 minutes (RACV Insurance) to 18:08 minutes (Youi).
QUALITY RESULTS Q1 2024
The Quality of customer service across the Car Insurance sector was rated ‘Below Standard’ with a score of 53.5%, ranging from 45.1% (Budget Direct) to 72.3% (Youi).
- Of the five Quality Competencies we assessed using the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards, the ‘Engage’ competency was the lowest rated at 43.1%. Car Insurance providers continually fail to build rapport with customers, take ownership, and provide a personalised experience. Scores ranged from 25.0% (AAMI) to 51.4% (Youi and RACV Insurance).
- Using the customer’s name during the conversation, one of the four ‘Engage’ behaviours we assess, was ranked at 34.1% for the Car Insurance sector, ranging from 11.1% (AAMI) to 72.2% (RACV Insurance).
- The ‘Energy’ competency was the highest rated with a score of 75.2% ranging from 51.4% (Allianz) to 93.1% (Youi).
- The ‘Discover’ competency was rated at 46.3% in Q1 2024 and is used to assess that the conversation explores and confirms both what the customer needs from the call and what they wish to achieve through the available products and services. Scores ranged from 33.3% (Allianz and Budget Direct) through to 83.3% (Youi).
- There were no major audio issues observed in Q1 2024 across any of the Car Insurance providers, however, RACV received deductions for repeating menu options and a constant push to online channels.
Call Centre Rankings Key:
POOR
BELOW STANDARD
MEETS STANDARDS
EXCEEDS STANDARD
OUTSTANDING
OVERALL RANKINGS – Q1 2024, CAR INSURANCE PROVIDERS
*The Overall Rankings are determined by the Access Score and Quality Score, with a higher weighting applied to the quality of the call. Deductions/penalties are applied for metrics that impact the customer’s experience, such as technical glitches, audio quality, and a failure to answer calls within our 10-minute threshold.
ACCESS SCORES – Q1 2024, CAR INSURANCE PROVIDERS
The Call Centre Access Rankings rate how easy it was for customers wanting to speak to a live person to discuss their car insurance requirements.
59 individual elements are assessed, capturing the entire experience before interacting with a live agent including queue wait times, how easy it was to find the phone number, the number of menu options (i.e. press 1 for this, 2 for that), messaging times, hold music, audio quality and lots more.
Mystery Shopping calls to Car Insurance Providers are terminated if wait times exceed 10:00 minutes.
QUALITY SCORES – Q1 2024, CAR INSURANCE PROVIDERS
While getting through to a live Car Insurance provider can be frustrating on occasions, what happens during the call can have a large influence on the customer’s satisfaction.
Recent CX Statistics continue to highlight the importance of interacting live with a customer service employee and the preference to speak to a live agent rather than an automated chatbot/AI, etc.
The Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards have been developed and refined over 30 years, and when businesses consistently achieve high ratings in these core competencies, there is a direct correlation to improved business metrics however you measure them – Sales Conversions, NPS, Customer Effort Score, improved efficiency, reduced AHT etc.
The standards apply to all contact centres and are adapted to customer service or sales calls.
Quality is assessed across five core competencies and 18 call-handling behaviours that directly correlate to better customer and business outcomes: Engage, Discover, Educate, Close, Energy.
Learn more about the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards >
DEDUCTIONS – Q1 2024, CAR INSURANCE PROVIDERS
Deductions are applied to the overall scores if there are moments that can negatively impact the customer experience, including excessive queue messages, technical glitches, menu navigation challenges, audio distractions, etc.
A low score (i.e. 0.0%) means there were no deductions applied.
LIFETIME AVERAGES – CAR INSURANCE PROVIDERS
The lifetime averages for six metrics, displaying the top three Car Insurance Providers, the Car Insurance provider with the lowest score, and the lifetime sector average.
ACXPA MEMBERS QUARTERLY REPORT DOWNLOAD ⬇️
Download a quarterly report that contains sector averages for 40 metrics plus 23 individual metrics for three random Car Insurance providers each quarter.
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
The scenarios we use are typically based on new sales opportunities (i.e. new insurance enquiry looking to purchase or switching from a current insurance provider).
How does the scoring work?
You can learn more about the framework we use here >
How many calls are assessed?
For the public monthly report, we include at least three calls per month per Car Insurance Provider.
When you purchase the CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, we will assess a minimum of six calls per month for each business.
Please refer to our customised Benchmarking service >
Why aren’t all the Car Insurance Companies included?
We’d love to have all the Car Insurance companies included; however, conducting independent Mystery Shopping is expensive!
We randomly chose some leasing Car Insurance companies to commence our program with and as other Car Insurance providers purchase the CX Contact Centre Benchmarking program, they’ll be included in our monthly report.
How can we improve our score?
Our Mystery Shopping program has been designed to provide Car Insurance Contact Centres with the insights they need to improve performance!
When you sign up to our CX Contact Centre Benchmarking service, you’ll receive detailed information on your performance against over 80 individual elements, so you know exactly where to focus, and we also include a quarterly report that provides you with personalised key recommendations on areas to focus on.
We also offer a range of training courses that can help teach your frontline employees the skills they need to deliver great customer service or improve sales:
- Customer Service Phone ‘Essentials‘ & ‘Professional‘
- Inbound Phone Sales ‘Essentials‘ and ‘Professional‘),
- Training courses for your Team Leaders/Managers so they know how to coach effectively using the Quality Standards to improve your performance (and scores!).
How do I get my contact centre included?
We have a fixed-price service starting from $1,297 per month that will provide you with information on your contact centre, as well as a benchmark of your performance against a minimum of five other Car Insurance companies that you can nominate. Learn more >
How do I order the service?
We have an online ordering form that makes it easy to order the service, nominate the Car Insurance companies you’d like to benchmark against, who you’d like the reports to be sent to etc. View the online order form >
How do I access the full data for the Car Insurance companies?
ACXPA Business Members get full access to the summary monthly data for Car Insurance Providers (and other sectors) along with a host of other benefits.
An ACXPA Business Membership starts from just $497 per year and includes five individual memberships you can allocate to key employees who could benefit from gaining access to leading industry insights for contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service, and in-person customer service.
Is there someone I can speak to to learn more?
Absolutely! If you’d like to speak to someone further about the Benchmarking Service, please get in touch with our General Manager of Quality Insights, Simon Blair – 0407 002 113 or simon@acxpa.com.au or call us on 03 9492 2871.
What type of scenarios do we use to conduct the Mystery Shopping calls?
Most of our mystery shopping scenarios involve new insurance purchases (either as a new stand-alone purchase or switching from another car insurance provider).
Why do you hang up at either 10 or 15 minutes?
All our Mystery Shopping calls are conducted live by our accredited Mystery Shoppers who are all based in Australia.
We cut off the calls if wait times exceed 10 minutes for two key reasons:
- Research has shown that these are at the end of typical times customers will wait before they hang up (especially for new business enquiries which is what we are testing).
- It’s expensive! As we use real human beings to conduct the Mystery Shopping call, it’s simply not practical to pay them often for hours (hello Centrelink!) whilst waiting for the call to be answered. So unless we get a very generous sponsor that enables us to wait the full time, we thought this was a reasonable decision.
Why don’t your results align with my experience?
Despite the perception, call centres are complex operations involving lots of people, processes, technology and the random nature of call arrival as we don’t know when people are going to call!
Even with the best planning, this can result in a varying level of performance depending on a wide range of factors, including the time of day, whether everyone who was rostered attended work, whether the number of calls forecasted is accurate, and much more.
In addition, calls for service can be treated very differently than sales, and many call centres have the technology to alter the priority of calls answered depending on their nature, previous history, status within the organisation, and so on.
All of these factors can result in a much different experience every single time you call a contact centre.
As we’ve mentioned though, most customers don’t really care about any of that and will make their decision based on their phone call only – and our mystery shopping is designed to capture that – a snapshot of what customers are experiencing.
Finally, we are also unable to test the experience for existing customers. To maintain the anonymity of mystery shopping, we cannot provide account details, etc., which many call centres now require before being placed into the queue.
And frustratingly, its often the existing customers who receive the worst experience 😱
Do Car Insurance companies really care about the service they provide?
Yes! Most of us need car insurance and as a significant expense, it can really pay to shop around. That’s why the majority of car insurance companies spend a LOT of money on advertising and branding to ensure that when you are ready to look at options, they are front of mind.
But sometimes, whether it’s through a lack of resources, skills or competing priorities, the Contact Centre experience that is delivered is often well below both customer and industry standards.
There are loads of CX statistics that demonstrate that delivering a better customer experience is not only is it good for you as a consumer, it’s also good for the business so our aim is to help the car insurance companies realise that by investing smartly in their contact centre, it will deliver a good return on investment for their business and make customers happy at the same time!
Why does ACXPA publish results each month?
Our mission is to improve the level of customer experience in Australia so by publishing the results monthly, we’ll continue to ensure that Car Insurance companies are accountable for the level of customer service they are providing and to enable all consumers to make an informed choice.
What type of services does ACXPA offer?
In addition to the Mystery Shopping CX Benchmarking, we offer a range of services and resources for people working in contact centres, customer experience (CX), digital service and in-person customer service/retail. You can learn more about us here >
Purchase exclusive Voice of Customer insights for your Business
If you’d like to gain Voice of Customer (Voc) insights specifically for your contact centre and benchmark your results against other Car Insurance Providers, we offer a cost-effective, fixed-price benchmarking service that makes it easy!
Starting from just $1,297 per month, by purchasing our Contact Centre CX Benchmarking Service, you’ll receive the following:
- Six Mystery Shopping calls into your call centre each month at random times and days where you’ll receive the full assessment against 48 metrics, our quality assessor’s notes, the employee’s name (where provided) and the full call recordings.
- Benchmarking data for any five Car Insurance Providers you nominate, so you can benchmark your performance against other Car Insurance Providers that matter the most to you.
- Sector Average data from all the other Car Insurance Providers we assess providing you with sector-wide results to further compare your results to.
- A monthly email with data to track your performance along with the call recordings.
- A quarterly report containing insights and trends that are easy to understand, along with actionable recommendations to help improve your performance.
- An optional Quarterly Insights workshop for your team (conducted live via Zoom) that can provide additional insights, coaching and guidance.
- Access to training to help you improve results.
Upcoming ACXPA Member Bites Sessions
Short, sharp interviews and presentations on specific topics to fast-track your knowledge!
The ACXPA Member Bites are only available to ACXPA Members!
ACXPA Members can watch all the ACXPA Member Bites at any time in their Video Library. Discover which membership is right for you >
IVR Best Practice
Over 90% of contact centres are using an IVR (Press 1 for this, press 2 for that), and we've encountered many contact centres with over four layers of options for customers to select from. In this session, Nadine will be sharing some best practice tips on IVR design for 2024.
Presented by Nadine Power, Client Success Manager, VERSA Connects (and ACXPA National Advisory Board Member)
More sessions announced soon!
(If you're interested in speaking at one of our events, click here to learn more >)
