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The value of gaining real insights from all stakeholders—customers, staff, and management—is only half of the story. Translating these insights into a clear service proposition, and experience prototyping the key touchpoints, are essential. This process allowed for feedback not only on the design of the physical touchpoints themselves but also on the entire service proposition and experience. For the designers and for Gjensidige, it was important to know how something so radical would be perceived in the marketplace. The prototypes were created to test unknowns—for example, Was this a low-end or a high-end offering? The two types of newspaper advertisements helped reveal how the marketing of the service would feel in those different contexts.

Services are usually complex and expensive to roll out. In this case, such a radical change to Gjensidige’s offering was not just radical for them, but for the whole industry. It was also clear that it would take a lot of explaining to introduce the concept to their existing, loyal customers. In fact, having only two types of insurance turned out to be too radical even for Gjensidige and the way the entire industry works. This ending might have taken the wind out of the sails of this story, but there is an important innovation lesson to take away from it.

Thinking through radical ideas and prototyping the experience of them helped mature the cultural mindset within the company, and many of the insights have fed into Gjensidige becoming a totally service-oriented company. The Extreme Customer Orientation team acted as champion for the customer experience and the internal changes that needed to happen to deliver it well. A company-wide framework for customer orientation called the “Gjensidige Experience” was implemented. Management understands that this will be a key competitive advantage in the future, building on their vision that “we shall know the customer the best and care the most.”

Gjensidige made extraordinary efforts to simplify their insurance policies. They have worked hard to explain the claims process better and have developed a Web-based claims-mapping tool. Pricing has been worked out differently and is now fed into their online calculators. Although the big idea was not used as a whole, many of the small elements have now fed into the company in very concrete ways. Having the big idea helps bundle together lots of smaller, disparate innovations that would not otherwise have seen the light of day. It also helps challenge organizational traditions that may be holding back innovation.

Finally, mapping out the big idea in detail gives organizations an overview of problems and opportunities all in one place, which helps them make strategic decisions about what to deal with when, how those decisions relate to other parts of their business, and how to scale their service innovation up or down according to budgets and resources.

Gjensidige’s 183 activities is a very large number of improvements. Some were small; others were large undertakings rolled out over several years. The bottom line is important, of course, but it is not the sole focus. The change process required top-level leadership in all aspects of the business, from committing to quality in their computer systems by removing glitches, to simplifying their products and language, focusing on the service experience as well as internal funding, and paying attention to branding, education, and measurement.

For example, 130 Gjensidige managers, including the CEO, gathered their own insights by calling 1,000 customers (Figure 1.9). They loved it, because they realized they had not spoken to customers in years and it was often these interactions that had sparked their interest in the business in the first place. Managers were deeply familiar with their statistics about customer satisfaction, as well as the challenges that needed to be addressed. But it made a real difference to experience for themselves how many customers said they really liked Gjensidige, and to feel people’s emotions firsthand when they talked about things that didn’t work out as they should have. The symbolism of this is important. When a CEO sits down to talk to customers to find out what they think, it sends an important signal to the rest of the organization and the industry.

FIGURE 1.9 Gjensidige CEO Helge Leiro Baastad and 130 of his managers spend a day calling 1,000 random customers to hear what they really think about the company. (Courtesy of Gjensidige)

The results of these kinds of company-wide changes take time to surface. Two and a half years after starting this process, Gjensidige have seen a dramatic rise in their position on the Norwegian National Customer Satisfaction Barometer and have won the two biggest customer satisfaction awards. They have consistently beaten market expectations with their financial results and can prove that they provide their services more efficiently than their peers in Europe and the United States. Still, according to Baastad, the business case for customer orientation should not be seen in isolation. It is a natural part of the bigger story of developing a modern and efficient insurance company that brings real value to employees, shareholders, and customers.