People use all kinds of digital interfaces to find out more. There is a digital component in more than 80% of all purchasing decisions that our customers make. Interestingly, however, most of these customer journeys also include at least one contact with a human being. A successful growth strategy therefore needs digital and personal elements.

That's not enough. You have to be able to deliver both in full. This means that everything should actually be available digitally. But at the same time, personal contact must be available when needed, and slightly differently for each customer. It is a phenomenon that our customers have remained so keen to interact with a person. Incidentally, this also applies to completely different sectors than the insurance industry.

I don't yet dare to make a judgement on whether this completely new technology will bring about a shift. But it is a question that concerns me. I would neither categorically answer it in the affirmative nor in the negative. However, generative artificial intelligence can be used to create communication that resembles human dialogue.

Anyone considering buying a policy demands things like expertise, an excellent product, and good accessibility from the insurer. These hard facts are therefore extremely important, but in the end they only contribute half to the decision.

Two soft facts are equally important. Firstly: Do I trust the company and the broker of the policy? Trust is crucial. Secondly, the buyer wants to feel that they really are at the centre of the whole process. These two elements are difficult to digitalise. This is the deeper explanation: the customer's desire for personal contact remains stable.

Allianz was an early adopter of the idea of offering both options. Every company has to take this into account: People are now moving more independently, and in some ways are less loyal. If they come across another provider on the internet, this is sometimes a good thing for them. We experience this ourselves when we visit restaurants or choose a tour operator. There are three prerequisites for success in this environment. Firstly, you need a brand that is well-known, but above all relevant.

I could ask you to write down five names of insurers that you would look at for cover. The question for me is: Are we there? The charisma and appeal of a brand are mega important. Allianz is the 29th most valuable brand in the world. No other insurance company is ahead of us, and only two financial service providers are ranked higher. That helps. We are very good in this category.

The second approach is: How satisfied are people with our performance? Worldwide, Allianz segments are at the top of their respective regional markets more than 50% of the time.

Of course, this factor has always played a role. But it has become increasingly important because customer satisfaction, or even annoyance, is much more visible in the world of Instagram & Co. than it used to be.

We constantly measure whether our performance is as good as it should be. It's not enough for employees to hear once a year how high customer satisfaction is. We want to collect feedback at every point of contact with customers, so that employees experience the reaction directly. If there are only three or fewer stars out of five, we try to contact the customer again to understand: What was the problem?

Of course, you can't overdo it. What's more, all companies are working on this issue. You have to stay ahead in the race.

With 4.5 out of 5 stars, you start to attract customers. You're really successful when you're at the top. The people who give you top marks say: That was so great, I'll have to tell my friend about it straight away.

I'm only really satisfied when all our customer contacts are enthusiastic. We are on the right track – but there is always room for improvement. On the traditional grading scale, I put us between a 1 and a 2+ when it comes to customer satisfaction.

This is the digital interface. We are very good there. We invested early on, and have many tools at our disposal. We have websites for each agent that can be customised, but which are integrated into the group's website, so that their offers are fully embedded on the agent pages? We also support the agents intensively with their social media presence. For example, we now have over 4,000 agents with their own Facebook page, and over 2,000 with an Instagram presence. Also important: we completely reorganised our customer portal „Meine Allianz“ in 2018. Registration figures for the portal and the Meine Allianz app have risen significantly since then. More than half of registered participants regularly use the app, which has a very good rating of around 4.5 stars.

Mmm, that is a difficult question. I would say that the effect is more multiplicative. An example: Without satisfied customers, you still won't be successful with the best digital interface and a very well-known brand. You have to be vigilant in all disciplines, and this also applies to Allianz.

There is a deeper reason for these nuances. If we do anything wrong, our success to date quickly evaporates into thin air. Very quickly. This was not so extreme in the previous analogue world.

Yes, but especially for the insurance industry. When I sell you an insurance policy, I'm not just selling you a promise of benefits in ten years' time, but in the best case I'm conveying a feeling: Wow, now I'm covered. This feeling is particularly strong when nothing uncomfortable happens. Even if only minor things go wrong, for example if you can't reach anyone on the phone, you feel insecure.

The insurer should gain visibility. To achieve this, we use active customer contact much more than before. Not just anywhere, but in the respective target group with exactly the offer that is relevant in the situation. The triad is: Which person needs which offer in which time window? This sounds trivial, but it is very difficult.

For example, we have a really great offer in supplementary dental insurance. We can score points with it. But you still have to be visible against the competition. Now the question is: If I want to attract younger people, where can I find this group? What magazines do they read, what channels do they use, what sports are they interested in? We really have a lot of data at Allianz to answer these questions.

But we use it much more precisely. One example: Three years ago, we started sponsoring beach volleyball. After twelve months, someone from management came to me and said: I never see that, it's completely invisible. That's true for you, I said, but you're not the target group either. My kids, on the other hand, called me and praised me: Dad, that's really cool what you're doing.

We identify people interested in our products via sponsoring contacts, internet presence in certain forums, classic search engine advertising, or search engine optimisation. The task is to bring Allianz into play.

For example, customer acquisition via the map function on mobile phones works very well. If you search for „insurance“ there, we pop up. The trick is that the potential customer can then call us directly.

Yes, if our rating is very good. Then we are also well placed in the search masks of the browsers, and the interested parties actually come to Allianz indirectly via the maps. It's amazing how many calls land in the agencies directly from this map tool.

In addition to the stars, people look at the number of reviews. Our top agency has 5 stars with 487 feedbacks.

On the map display, in addition to the option of calling directly, there is also the function of displaying the route or switching to the website. More than one million contacts per year are made in Germany via these three channels. The prerequisite for closing a deal is that the subsequent process works from start to finish. If, for example, the agency's opening time is not right, it's over.

This basically applies: If I can't manage these support chains, then the customers will be lost along the way. The adverts we broadcast on TV with Günther Jauch also have to match the website. And the agency representative must also be familiar with these adverts, and know how best to respond to targeted enquiries.

Anyone who leaves their contact details on the Allianz website because they want to know something about musical instrument insurance, for example, must not wait for days to hear from us. The call must actually come within the next few minutes, from the representative who is familiar with this specialised topic. We can do that.

The customer is informed immediately that we are processing their enquiry. At the same time, we send this as a message to the representative's mobile phone, who can call the customer directly with one click. Regardless of how the customer comes to us, we have to manage this personal matching. Then growth will also succeed.

Allianz now wants to look more closely at the number of customers. Turnover is of course also a relevant factor, not least for the capital markets. But there is also the question of whether the substance is there. Growth in the number of customers is one indicator of this.

For the current year, property insurance has already recorded customer growth of over 100,000 customers.

Price is only one element of relevance. Of course you need competitive products. But you don't always have to be the cheapest, the price-performance ratio has to be right.

If you don't overdo a personalised approach, it leads to more business. You just have to do it in such a way that the customer says afterwards that it was helpful.

Insurance checks, for example, have proved their worth. I don't think it makes sense in the insurance sector to use plate advertising mechanisms such as „Here is Allianz, please buy“.

We try to anchor this in our service centres. When a customer calls, we can offer them further advice straight away.

Let's say you call Allianz with the message: I'm moving house, please make a note of the new address in your system. Then I can say: Great, I'll take it, have a nice day. Or I can say: Take the opportunity,
what about your household contents insurance? Do you want to adjust the sum insured? Customers appreciate this kind of attention enormously, and satisfaction is immediately higher.

Of course, there is much more latent demand in the world than we are serving. We could use more leads for our sales organisation.

We try to ensure that this does not increase our sales costs. It has to make economic sense. This is only possible if the agent is also involved, as they gain new customers in return. For example, our agents pay for a lead. We try to offer this more favourably than on the market, where insurers can also buy leads. So that in the end everyone wins, customer, agent and Allianz.

Do you mean positively or negatively? I am an optimist: We help people to feel secure, that is extremely relevant, and in the digital world we are going to be even more successful with our agents.