Acquiring new customers is a major challenge… but retaining them over time is the really hard part! Groupama does it by providing a local presence, maintaining good quality relationships and mutual insurance services and guiding customers throughout their first year.

The aim? To ensure that our new members know they are now part of a community, and are not just “customers” who have taken out an insurance policy. By leveraging Groupama’s mutualist values, we intend not only to retain our members and sell them more products, but also to make them want to get involved with their local mutual.

The five-step guidance offered throughout the first year:

• Step 1: an introduction to mutual insurance given by the sales rep when the policy is taken out
• Step 2: a digital communication one month later, promoting Groupama’s mutual insurance DNA
• Step 3: three months after the policy is signed, intensify the mutual insurance message during a meeting to generate up-sales and cross-sales
• Step 4: local mutuals organise a welcome event for their new members, run by the administrators and the sales teams.
• Step 5: courtesy call by elected representatives and/or salespeople during time allotted to the branch to invite new members to the local mutual’s AGM and/or the sponsored walk event.

The key success factors are:

• Training salespeople in presenting the Group’s values and its mutual insurance as part of their sales training, making a solid connection between sales and CRM approaches.
• Management involvement in corporate and operational chains to embed this approach.
• Involvement from elected representatives during joint local mutual and branch activities.
• Roll-out of the five steps to ensure consistency and effectiveness
• Identification of original venues away from the branches for new member events
• Regular management and monitoring of development KPIs (the induction experience must create value)