COS

NEWS

Nicolas Théry, Chairman of Crédit Mutuel, announces a bombshell: Crédit Mutuel will no longer issue health questionnaires for mortgages to customers under 62. Customers with serious and/or chronic illnesses will no longer pay a premium surcharge, and this will also apply to existing contracts (reducing the cost of borrowing for those currently paying premium surcharges).
One condition, however: you must be a loyal customer (main account with Crédit Mutuel for at least 7 years).

“Our loyal customers trust us, so it’s up to us to trust them,” says Mr. Théry.

Cost of the operation: around 70 million in lost revenue (30 million immediately).

Of course, there is much to commend:

• The benefit to customers: optimizing the customer experience and strengthening loyalty (so in the end, it’s a safe bet that the lost revenue will be more than made up for).
• The company’s consistency with its “mission” (cf. Crédit Mutuel’s status as a company with a mission), which aims to refuse discrimination (commitment no. 2).
• But I can’t help seeing it as a fabulous lever for internal hashtag#cultureclient. I can just imagine the employees of the 1,415 local mutuals receiving this decision from their managers. They won’t be able to tell themselves that their company isn’t really, sincerely concerned with maximizing customer satisfaction.
• A sort of “wow effect” experienced by employees who are inevitably pleasantly surprised by this “fine decision”.
• The fact that they have this in mind reinforces their “internal software”, a positive attitude that acts as a behavioral filter.

This is what we in the COS (customer orientation score) team call an “eruption of customer culture”. Like the lava of a volcano, it’s spectacular (1), spreads throughout the organization, to all employees (2) and leaves a lasting impression, remaining “present” for years to come (3).

If you have other examples of customer culture eruptions, I’d love to hear them.