HCF raising the bar on Australian customer service standards
Sydney, 30 September 2014 - HCF, Australia’s largest non-profit health insurer, has achieved one of the highest scores ever awarded in Australia against the International Customer Service Standard (ICSS), a global benchmark of customer service excellence and performance to international best practice.
HCF’s ICSS accreditation score this year was the fourth-highest score ever to be awarded by authorising body, the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA).
CSIA’s Head of Certification and Research, Sam Blaxland said: “HCF have achieved one of the highest results in the 17 years that the CSIA has been operating. We’re delighted to see HCF recognised as a customer service leader in Australia and positioned to build on this success. The result must be celebrated as proof of HCF’s internal excellence, and ongoing commitment to members and staff.”
In its customer service report card, the CSIA praised HCF for implementing research, programs and initiatives to improve both customer experience and business outcomes.
HCF’s score reflects its proactive and innovative approach to customer service, with the CSIA singling out specific initatives such as the engagement of crowd-sourced research platform Kaggle to produce an algorithm to help HCF predict and pre-empt potential membership lapses.
The CSIA was also impressed by the quality of customer research undertaken by HCF, and praised the fund for arranging independent audits and introducing the Raw Innovation program to address the challenge of embedding knowledge gained from research throughout the organisation.
HCF’s Managing Director, Shaun Larkin, said of the accreditation, “HCF is not only proud to be the only Australian health fund to achieve accreditation to the ICSS, but also to have significantly improved our results and set such a high standard for certified organisations in Australia. As a non-profit fund our main priority is providing quality service for members. This recognition from the ICSS validates our continued investment in customer care.
“Achieving re-accreditation has meant continuing to build on our excellent customer service processes across HCF operations, and this has a direct benefit to our members.”
Accreditation to the ICSS follows a stringent assessment process, including evaluation of customer service across HCF’s outward-facing and internal business units.
