International Process and Performance Institute

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there... and the company takes that motto very seriously.

While it may be surprising to find that State Farm as a company believes very strongly in the unique and important purpose of insurance – the ability to mitigate the impact of unforeseeable and uncommon events by aggregating the risk over a large “pool” of people – this is exactly what they do believe. It makes sense, is a valuable service and stands alone as a business case, yet few insurance companies operate that way anymore.

So for State Farm customers, when something “bad” happens State Farm is “there” with incredibly simple “processes” for getting whatever happened put to rights.

You know the whole “good neighbor” thing comes from times past when a family would suffer a tragedy such as their house burning down. Their neighbors would take the distraught people into their homes then organize a “house raising” to get the family back into a new home quickly through the combined efforts of many.

State Farm still retains much of that mindset, and their customer processes are very streamlined – often imposing no extra activity on the customer or even taking steps to reduce the activity the customer must do to restore things back to the way they were.

When contrasted to one competitor, State Farm’s homeowner claims policy had 3 Moments of Truth while the competitor had 13. Which process do you think you would want to “experience” when you’re trying to get something fixed on your home?

Other effects? Elapsed time competitor, 21 days. Elapsed time State Farm 48 hours. Cost (to the customer): Competitor 300% greater than State Farm. Cost to the company: State Farm 400% less than the competitor.

It's an important example that teaches a powerful lesson. Done right, reducing Moments of Truth will increase customer satisfication while dramatically reducing the cost to the company. Think about it. What else can you do that dramatically improves the customer experience WHILE reducing the cost of deliver to the organization?