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Peter Martin-Simon
Chief Customer Officer at esure Group
Charting the Marketing AI Roadmap: Optimizing Acquisition, Retention and Advocacy
About Peter Martin-Simon
Peter Martin-Simon serves as the Chief Customer Officer at esure Group, a Motor and Home insurance company, where he oversees a diverse portfolio of responsibilities. His role spans from core insurance fundamentals of pricing and underwriting to data analytics and data science, emphasising the strategic use and management of data. Additionally, he spearheads the company's strategy and transformation efforts, digital sales channels, and marketing, underlining his crucial role in steering the company towards growth and innovation.
How are you and your organisation getting ready for using generative AI in marketing, and what big problems are you running into?
As part of our recent game-changing transformation journey, we've moved from old legacy tech to a highly flexible, scalable cloud-based platform. This also brought in a single data platform, which is really important for getting the basics right. We turned off the legacy systems at the start of this year and moved all customer data to the new platform. We now work with one set of tech and data, bringing in innovative customer engagement tools. Basically, we've built the core setup needed for using AI, which is probably the hardest part for any company that's been around a while.
We've also made and implemented at scale generative AI tools that talk straight to our customers. These tools summarise chats with customers, capturing the key information, and make them easy to pick up for all our customer service colleagues, informing future interactions with each customer.
The third bit is about getting our team ready culturally and mentally, building truly leading capability to harness the potential of generative AI, often by working with other companies and learning from other industries.
"Basically, we've built the core setup needed for using AI, which is probably the hardest part for any company that's been around a while."
"Our disciplined approach to analysing data in real time and showing the business value of our work has been key."
How are you handling the hype around generative AI to focus on the real benefits for customer marketing?
Managing the hype is key. We've been really structured in our approach, making sure our basic setup and first pilots are solid and well thought out from the start. We've focused on the real work, not just the flashy bits - things like managing data, setting up the basics including governance, risk and control frameworks, and getting good at prompt engineering, which is crucial for generative AI. Our disciplined approach to analysing data in real time and showing the business value of our work has been key. When the team starts to see potential savings, better customer experience, or higher response rates, things start moving on their own. Feedback from working with top tech firms has shown we might be the only UK insurance company to have put in place generative AI tools at such a high level of quality and scale.
What parts of GenAI's potential in marketing get you most excited?
We're looking at this in two main ways. First, generative AI means being able to work with data in real time, letting us respond instantly. This gives us an exciting chance to understand customer feelings and behaviour better through richer data and insights. Right now, we look at feedback, customer complaints, and all kinds of inbound chats. Because of our top-notch setup, we have real-time sentiment analysis, giving us deeper insights into what customers are asking. Second, we want to use generative AI to add creativity to our marketing, allowing for super-personal messages and suggestions. For example, as we plan our brand campaigns for the year, we're using generative AI to make mock-ups that better showcase the ideas before investing in production spend and agency work. This lets us make quick changes and build tailored messages, whilst gathering consumer research feedback on multiple variants, which is exciting and ultimately delivers a stronger end result both for our business and our customers.
"This tech lets us give more exact and personal service, making the customer's experience better, whether they're talking to us directly or through our chat agents giving better answers."
Can you give examples of how you see GenAI making the customer journey better and adding value?
I see generative AI totally changing things at different stages of the customer journey. First, in explaining products and showing how they're different, generative AI can guide customers through buying by highlighting key features and differences between products. For customer service, generative AI could totally change the game. Instead of just telling people to check the website for what's covered, generative AI can give specific, personal answers by looking at the customer's product and explaining it in a way they get. This tech lets us give more exact and personal service, making the customer's experience better, whether they're talking to us directly or through our chat agents giving better answers.
When handling claims, generative AI can make a big difference in how we support customers, giving tailored advice and help to customers based on their specific cases. Overall, generative AI could seriously improve every bit of the customer experience, from first questions and buying to service queries and claims handling.
What advice would you give to marketing leaders who are starting out with generative AI?
My main tip would be to stay grounded and not get too caught up in the hype. It's key to focus on the basics, like making sure your data is high quality, your data platform is solid, and your basic setup is right. These things are critical for using generative AI well and for the long haul, not just the initial buzz. Another big point is the importance of measuring things carefully. It's crucial to set clear metrics for testing and trying things out, making sure any success can be directly linked to generative AI, not other outside factors. Lastly, it's important to realise that generative AI needs a shift in skills for customer and marketing teams. This means knowing tech better and being open to thinking differently about how it changes things for both customers and the industry. So creating a culture of upskilling and development across teams is key to bringing generative AI into marketing plans successfully.
About esure Group
esure Group is one of the UK’s leading providers of Motor and Home insurance products through the esure and Sheilas’ Wheels brands. Founded in 2000, esure Group have the scale, heritage and expertise capable of inspiring the trust and confidence of their 2m customers, combined with the entrepreneurial mindset and agility of an insurtech. esure Group are focused on using industry beating technology, insights and data, alongside fantastic customer service, to deliver more personalised experiences that meet the evolving needs and expectations of customers.
To find out more visit www.esuregroup.com
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