Olga Reznik, Chairwoman of the Managing Board of Compensa Life Baltic States, Tallinn, Estonia
What interests you about your customers, Ms Reznik?
Reznik: What an easy question – their satisfaction of course! Although it is not always that simple. We (Compensa Life) operate in the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. You might think that there would be no major differences between these countries, but one does in fact encounter slightly different mentalities. Here in Estonia, for example, and as you will also find further north, we are calmer and tend to be more reserved when talking. As a result, we often prefer to conduct advisory meetings at a distance, via media such as the Internet and telephone. Things are a little different in Latvia and Lithuania, where a personal meeting is needed to come to a good conclusion with our customers.
But do you want to know the real reason as to why customer satisfaction is so critically important to me? It is because communities in the Baltic states tend to be relatively small. News spreads like wildfire by word-of-mouth. A satisfied customer can easily generate five new customers. An unhappy customer, on the other hand, can cost up to 15 new customers.
“A happy customer can easily generate five new customers.”
One thing therefore became clear to me quite early on in my insurance career and that is that trust and satisfaction are not just marketing buzzwords. And I admit that there are times when you have to work hard to earn that trust. My colleagues and I were recently visited by a potential foreign corporate customer. In order to win the customer over to Compensa, we literally had to present new insurance alternatives one after another for an entire month. But it paid off in the end. He now trusts us and we have gained another satisfied customer.