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the consumer in 2019 is incredibly demanding and I think I blame that on every other industry out there because I think insurance is one of the last bastions of mediocre customer service if we can take that as a broad Yoker that's already very good well you know I I aspire to mediocre you know that's that's in my goals now you know it and so it's it's a challenge for us because what we're not necessarily in control of the expectation we felt it would give us the best access to the strongest possible group of senior insurance decision-makers I think for the network that is built here you know whether it whether it comes from someone like Amazon doing a one-click or service you know service companies really delivering superior customer service you know the way that that Apple has moved into retail stores with what we thought the experience they bring there I think that for me is is both the challenge and something that gives enthusiasm to the teams because it sets the bar it sets the bar for all of us what's a single incident where you thought wow the customer really changed I'll come back to that let me ever think about that what was your view on the customer you have been here in Hong Kong for quite some time you are from here you are from the city how does the customer tick here and did he or she change also here yes I has always been been in the insurance industry since I graduate from the University and a long time ago and I would say in Hong Kong the customer and infected in Sue's market go through a few cycles and well at the way this early stage it was still in high interest rate market so so whole life and Darwin was the popular product and at that time the sales position is very simple so customer expectation is not a much to say hi images way and then come the investment in prada and the financial crisis prime the supplying crisis and the investor the customer has go through different cycles of the economy and then they have seen different products and each time a Prada cycle change customer expectation change nowaday with more and more information available through different media different platforms in fact customer has a really high expectation on not only instant product but all all kind of consumer product initial products and what I like the most popular channels and best practices when it comes to customer experiences in Hong Kong so where does the customer spend his time with and when is he really excited and buying and shopping experience wow I I think the the biggest wave of change I have seen in the past few years is people start to buying on Taobao maybe for the people who don't know what that is especially from from the best way to step out bow bow is that the biggest online purchase on my channel for for you can buy almost everything even including financial products and table is a China website but then you can buy it not only from China doing buying from Hong Kong the goods will ship from China Hong Kong and you can you can even buy it in the States and Europe take it all the way to to the whole world and that really change everything people's I I was always in Hong Kong Hong Kong is so convenient people don't don't need to worry about buying things even in the mid night I go downstairs and walk a few minutes I I can find in a store supermarket 24 hours and 21 meter know I can buy anything so I'm almost like insurance then agency is going to be like that one more question and concerning that and how is the buying process of an insurance then here is it also one-click buy liked about or Anna's on or do I need to wake from a policy of few weeks is it's a good question that maybe I say my villain and Newton can supplement in the instance in Hong Kong is still a traditional up to this moment majority of the ancients have sought through agents and brokers and intermediary banks are the channels and the process is very menu and human human reacted what does that mean manuals like how do I have imagined the situation here you can you can okay this have seen that I have seen in I think two years ago - in and - there is of office building next to this hotel which is hot which houses a few insurance company because of the typhoon some of the glass war broke and you see paper flying outside the window and there's a munitions company all right oh that hurts me what is it what is your perspective on this III think Arthur is true I think within the Asian context and going back to your original question about how the customers change I think that one of the are ha moments from myself was when I was working in Korea and we did some some some analysis on on who was buying products online and who was going to our agency force and what we actually identified was that a lot of people over the age of 55 were buying were buying online and a lot of people under the age of 35 were going to their agent and that was kind of in reverse of what we expected and a lot of that was to do with product complexity in that the the older generation had a much better understanding of their of their medical needs and their requirements and were able to automatically go through the underwriting questions without guidance but the but the younger generation who hadn't been through that experience before of buying insurance were really struggling a little bit and so that for us was it helped to understand the behaviors of both the consumer and the complexity of what we had been building but you both mentioned the agent and broker you know around the world and different ecosystems they play a different role but I think there's very strong in in most markets now we have you know internet coming up platforms you both mentioned different names and do you think the broker is dead or what is the future of the agent and broker as an organization we are wholly committed to the role of role of the agents we have a hundred fifty five thousand agents around the world and it's very much part of our lifetime partner strategy is how that agent interacts with the consumer now it might be that in the in the pnc product environment space that the products are a little easier to understand and so you can self buy but we still feel there's a very very key role for an agent in the buying journey in some of the more complicated products be they be they health or be they life products obviously we will equip equip the agents with specific digital tools like what are just in terms of financial needs analysis in terms of tools to help them realize what they're maybe saving up for they're you know how they know how they should budget but ultimately it's still a human interaction using a digital tool as opposed to necessarily trying to push the consumer into a digital channel and giving them only a digital choice that's not necessarily the way that we see their relationship with the consumer we think about being a partner which is sat side by side looking at a screen together and so we really do believe that that the agent has a very important role in the future Nia what do you say in the first facing city of Hong Kong yeah I think the agent and broker will continue to exist parallel with all the different channels I think over the past history the customer expectation changed and then the agents and broker role also changed and how and what should they do say for example I just mentioned in the early very early early stage the whole life and diamond high interest rate position agent and broker very simple theatres present the product sell the product when investment link product comes up agents and brokers become advisors financial advisors they have to equip themselves with knowledge now I have seen broken and agents using media not only for for selling but also customer engagement in Oslo Coonan how do they do it and name a concrete example what impressed you okay like we check which I'll use the most popular so so so social channel like just like whatsapp in Hong Kong a new row which has a very powerful tool that allowed you to broadcast marketing message and news to a group of people like subscribers and in China in Hong Kong many agents and brokers are using which had to broadcast to share information to obtain news to in fact to service do they see an uplift in sales when they do that yes I definitely see otherwise they will not be but to be fair I think the agents of broker become more 7th eyes so now they deserve certain segments yes so so what we we see the segmentation to in the West and what we also see and what I see and when we talk to agents and brokers there is a lot of super successful ones but doing it old-school was paper next and although that and they say you know all this new media stuff this is just not for me what would you answer then doing the exams from around here I I would say there they are alright but they are focusing on different segments different segments have different expectation and then different segments has a certain in the media to serve in fact we've done the research and obviously you know in many markets in Asia there there's a constant battle for the talent of agents to be attracted to certain industry owns companies so we've done a lot of work to try and understand what agents are looking for and we boil it down to what we call hallmarks which is definitions of quality you know and the four hallmarks that we thing agents are looking for number one is social visibility so how how are we enabling agents to be more social more visible on social media so that when a consumer at Friday at 9 o'clock at night types in on Google I want to buy a life insurance product do our agents appear in Google Maps where they are and how they can access that's number one paperless is another how good are we at supporting them with needs-based advisory and are we good at giving the agents leads you know they come to our website how do we enable that digital funnel that when someone says I'd like to contact an agent can we get them leads to support their business because that's that that's you know it is their business that's that they are SMEs and how do you do it how do you help the agent maybe somebody is in the mid-fifties super successful but see some problems on his customer before you hold how do you help them I think as Arthur says I think you have to align the segments that you're targeting the product that you have and and the customer experience that you want to build and yes you are right there'll be some some some segments of maturity where you know you can still meet them in Starbucks and fill out a form which is very very common in Hong Kong there's still a lot of paper but I think you know when you look at consumer behavior an experience in non insurance products the expectation is growing that that's not what they want they don't expect to be filling in paper that they expect to have a digital relationship and they expect to be able to have somewhat 24/7 access ability to be able to find an agent you know what one of the the you know I run a portfolio of markets and I still have one market that says you need to go online and to the contact us page and it says please call us Monday to Friday 9:00 to 6:00 and I'm like well Friday night Linda page from Europe just kidding it's one of its one of our countries and yeah and you have to say to them look you know if you're a consumer a Friday night 11 o'clock at night what's their next action it's not to wait it's to go to your competitor and try and see whether they can reach you as well so you know I think it's really important that you you have a really good understanding of the consumer you're trying to target and you build that experience that they're looking for ok now we are going to do with some really really dangerous thing we're going to ask your questions the audience just wrote and I would go actually and with the first one Neil is there any major difference you've seen in custom behaviour in Europe and Asia um yeah I mean what part of the the pain of my life in my role that I have my overlords are based in Italy and so that they don't really understand Asia very well they think Asia is a big lump of landmass and so you know I spend a lot of time trying to explain to them the social differences you know and I think I look at the Asian consumer as highly mobile and highly digital and then you know we are we have launched in market in Asia using whatsapp as a communication device the you know the Italians thought that was great and then I said I'm also doing it on WeChat I'm doing it on Kakao I'm doing it online and doing it on za Lo and their eyes just kind of glazed over because they didn't understand that in different markets the primary communication platform is very very different and I think you know when I look at our businesses in Europe there is very much a homogeneous E between kind of Central Europe the regulations are the same the currency is the same a lot of the consumer demographics are very similar here it's a very very different story are the biggest difference inside the ecosystem around here I think in in Asia we have many different countries and in fact of working-age regime in every countries are different very different some countries require further proof of some country that's not some country is licensed quickly some country very restrictive on licenses some country to monitoring very stringently some country just very relaxed I think each country in Asia is very different just to echo on on Neil and you have to look at it very differently and different market different customer totally and and then you explain to them that China is effectively you know in a collection of 32 different markets that you know just because you have an entity in Shanghai it doesn't mean you can go and open an office in Wuhan tomorrow and again you know it's it's part of the education that Asia is a very very fragmented marketplace the next question is what is the number one tech innovation for improving custom interaction and I would add my personal law note and is insurance actually a product that should be the customer should interact with or is it actually a low engagement product by itself so what what is the tech behind it what do you how you do it and it shouldn't be actually do it I think if you follow that logic through I think if it's true that for the most part if you look at customer interactions with insurance companies it is very low you know the number of contacts you would require to have with an insurance company in an ideal world depending on the type of product if it's a PNC product or a life product the I the idea a number of interactions is zero because you don't want to be in an accident you don't want to die so in ultimately you don't really want to have to contact the insurance company if I think about an innovation that has helped address that I think if you look at wellness solutions and and and and and specifically in with health insurance I think the ability for insurance companies to create a conversation with their clients so that there is a way to deliver that bond I think is one of the things I think has changed the dynamics of the insurance relationship so should we bond with the customer and how or should we do it I think it's up to the customer I mean you can you can put it out there to try yeah yeah I mean you can try right I mean if it's relevant and then then you'll help form a relationship you can't force these things like you know like any other type of a relationship you can't force it it has to be both it has to be you know both parties have to want to be there so for us it's about creating relevant content understanding what customers and consumers are interested in and hopefully that that helps drive abondon and you can see you can see that the difference in you know longevity you can see the difference in profitability between those that do have a strong bond those who are heavily promoters of the brand from those that aren't there are marked differences in in those behaviors and the profitability of those customers there's one question for Arthur from the audience and that says and das did a one-degree research also similar products in the insurance pays in Europe and oh well oh yeah yeah and and in fact UK is the I believe is the biggest patience market in the world yeah we when we develop our parents proud that we do make reference to UK product and other other countries as well but we try to also localized I believe insurance product need to be localized because every just as I mentioned every market is different customer expectation is different and for pet insurance particular we cover the medical expenses and that relate to how the medical service for pets are delivers so so we work on the Hong Kong wet clinics and set panel ship and develop products but we do make reference to two instance Polly now the markets yeah I'm on a personal note but I think is really exciting about pet insurance and is that is a super emotional product and you know that we have their connection to the next to the topic before and if you had two pet owners who has a dog I mean maybe you can ask you guys who has pets at home here and so ends up 20% I would say see and I would say you know they're you know love their pets and I know actually insurers who have the pet insurance not as a profitability driver but actually as an engagement vehicle and you know so that's super exciting and another question and we talked a lot about social about those different social channels videos exploding currently 50% of worldwide Internet traffic is video and but the insurance industry is really underrepresented in the West at least how is the role of video and insurance and agent and brokers here for us we look at we're investigating video as a way to help with explaining products I think consumers these days as you say you look at the the traffic and the internet usage and people are getting tired of reading and and then much it's easier to consume video so we're doing work to standardize a lot of our onboarding processes to use videos to explain language we mentioned earlier the hallmarks on the distributor side on the customer side language simplicity is a very key key thing that we measure what we did in Europe when we looked at the sophistication of our language it was at a level that only about 30 to 40 percent of the consumers could understand it was it was very complicated it wasn't particularly engaging so video gives us a really easy way and of course you know in certain markets like India where you have to have a welcome pack sent in the post which if you ever know India post is like it's it's not the most reliable and so video again helps bridge that gap between you know you just bought a product you want to understand the product and you don't have to wait three or four weeks for something to come through in the post which which will be written you may not understand very well so if it video is crucial for us in that and again it's one of those things of a consumer behavior which is which is changing and where as insurance companies kind of catching up with how consumer behavior is changing and leveraging it yes I I think we deal is becoming very very important part of users as well because people are not reading it anymore people expect to see new concept through videos and and for instance it's the same instance product is not an easy product to understand now and nowadays we can present a product idea through of free ministry do much better than a take off but tie pages I totally agree and you know I mean we are also known for videos but what I find quite striking is that and we still produce the as an industry advertisement for the evening TV for the analog TV nobody's watching that anymore that statistic that show for example in Germany the government TV is ever average ages over 60 and so nobody watches it anymore but they're still the commercial of the insurance agent and being promoted by by a branch so we pouring millions and millions millions still in marketing channels that don't work anymore what do you say to that I have not seen a single insurer going all-in on you know of social video what we've just been through a global process identifying a new media agency and and so part of that process was actually I wouldn't know what I we couldn't you know Cheryl I'll tell you who it is offline but but one thing they did do is they looked at media channels and their influence and so they've really come back to us with a refreshing look on all of our advertising spend in all of the markets and that's from from the large markets in Europe down to some of the Asian markets and I think that it's a fair point I think the the the marketer themselves has a certain kudos about wanting to be on TV because it kind of supports their own that their own career project and I've told reasons yeah I've done a TV ad and I think you know you look at production costs of TV ads are horrendous you can make things for digital much quicker much easier much simpler and much faster and I think you know you have to really have a good understanding of your customers if you don't then you will just default to TV advertising and I think that's that's a waste of it's not a good use of money okay yeah I totally agree I think that's to do the safest thing that looks safe now is not always the same thing and now that we'd be talking about agent and broker I think another interesting topic is at least in the West is how to ensure us manage and help the insurance their their brokers and agents how is it done right now and it's a question it's a long one how is it done right now you have people going into their cars drive into agents and brokers drinking coffee having talks about newest products and but that's not scalable so what we see it it sure us down there is and that they try to their agent and broker managers as a micro influences and they produce small content via Beth's podcast and whatever for their hundreds 150 agents and brokers is that something you see here too or our agents and brokers manage differently by the large carriers I think that's what we would let me call out the agent of the future which for some demographics might be here today it's not there for the base I mean no we're looking at platforms such as here so in sociable which allows our agents to be more broadcasters which i think is really useful the challenge from the head office point of view is is restricting the content and controlling the content that agents can broadcast that is a risk certainly when you get into some of the you know I have a story where we had an agent who had their they had my logo on their Instagram account and they were also selling ladies underwear off their own Instagram account and so you get into these brand issues on control and so you have to balance it because you don't want to necessarily dampen the enthusiasm of the agent who wants to broadcast but you do have to remind them that that they are a brand representative and there are certain things they shouldn't shouldn't do so there's a lot of training that has to go in for agents around how to use social media properly but isn't control actually dead in the times of where everybody can push a button and reach the world control is possible it's not dead and what are you experiences considering that sales channel there we we don't have much to share on this topic from one degree perspective because we don't work with traditional channels but based on my my past experience in in in other companies I I have seen that very interesting phenomenon um in terms of the marketing material every country's the regulator has certain requirement so so insurance company the company never they have to produce material which is regulatory compliance but then that's the essence not the things that agents wants so then agent sometimes they develop their own version but then then then the company has to try to manage that and imbalance the regulatory compliance and the marketing impacts I think that's very interesting we have an interesting question coming from the audience thank you very much for all of that between AI n customer interaction and I would like to rephrase a little bit it is Rai solutions chat pods and things like that and are they customer interaction or are they actually the opposite of it it's a great question I have a I have a very very personal view on this which is technology should be there to support a better human interaction okay and so I think some of the mistakes I've seen that I think are mistakes in the industry is we've been through this kind of cycle of digital innovation which has translated that into trying to push the human component out of the interaction we very much believe within our within our brand strategy that it's a combination of technology innovation and empathy and care and it's very hard to get empathy in a chatbot in a digital interaction so I think there's that there's a case for certain transactions can you you can enable the customer to self-serve and but for certainly in if you exactly if you imagine a claim situation or where there's a specific problem I was at an event in Singapore and I was I was I was trying to find the room and I was at NBS and there's like you know this massive digital board of all the rooms where all the conference's were and then there was a lady stood next to the board so I just went and asked her and so you know for all that digital technology of display it was quicker and easier for me and what I wanted was to find find the answer quickly so I think there's a role for AI to support what the customer wants but it shouldn't be used necessarily by the organization purely to drive their own objectives okay Arthur that's the opinion of the 188 year old company now I'm curious what the two year old company has to say about that one yeah we are we had the new nuyk nuyk it in industry I think that they say whoa quick question about iPods and I I don't think there is a definite answer about it but my my personal really is you can imagine in the past a customer go on the insurance website to tango a posture to learn about something now it's not about sure it's the the chat box but this certain things that the chibok cannot do due to so we will do the regulatory giving advice is something that the tripod should not be doing because this regulatory requirement of non-death so I would say it's not but uh as the technology develops it will become very close to a human okay that's one more question for you anther and I think it's a super interesting one not only for the ecosystem in Hong Kong it's about user acquisition costs which a four-inch attack around the world is a huge huge problem that's the reason why you see also the shift from B to C to B to B and B to B to C what is your secret on acquiring a customer to a humane cost I think we we have planned to do that we have we are still waiting for license to market our products but our feeling is we have to try every every different channels and media's virtual insurance is very new in Hong Kong and in Asia as well so no one has the success successful experiences to share with the market so we have to try and social media website everything has a different target segment like Facebook my my two kids are not using Facebook anymore so we have to try to identify which media suits which segment and then develop the strategy and the product for that particular segment I think you know my view and this I've been in I guess what we traditionally call direct marketing since since the early 90s and I think the biggest challenge is the reliance on attribution that it's that it's always the last touch point that gets all the glory you know I have I have some some products as you talked about hook products of pet insurance right for example so they're you know that they're gonna have really skinny margins and then the the you know the health guy will come in and clean up on a cross sell strategy where he's got very low acquisition costs and will be the champion because he's got you know huge huge margins but he's not giving the credit necessarily to the person that originally originated that that that customer and so you know I think as we get better attribution through through media and we recognize the fact that maybe that customer only through the funnel takes a long time and that you have to recognize the upstream work that's gone on it's not just about you know the very bottom of the funnel where you had a customer say I want to buy a product now well somebody might have been nurturing that relationship as we talked about earlier might have been nurturing it for a year to get them to a point to convert and so to me that's where marketers have to get more sophisticated to be able to fully understand where they've spent money in order to generate that that account for last two minutes I have two questions and to be answered super super quickly so when people here in the audience all I've say what could I learn from from us here today or from you what kind of tips would you give a carrier what should he do and start next week have a good understanding of who your customers that you're trying to target be very clear with your segmentation because I think from an experience point of view it can drive you in very many different directions and if you try and be everything to every man one of my favorite quotes is one size doesn't fit all it just fits the fat guy or and my quick answer is yes I agree okay that's a first question the second question before the organizers kill us how you Christopher is and the insurance industry in 10 years in in three words Asia number one okay applauding and for them all here free verse um number one Virginia alright thank you very much guys thank you very much give me a round of applause thank you much for your time thank you [Music]