It is a truism that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. The key is knowing what you need to measure so that you can manage the right things.

Insurance differs from other products and services in that customers pay in advance even though they expect and hope they will never need your products and services.

Most customers expect to make regular payments and never receive anything in return from you. The downside of this customer expectation is it may make these customers harder to retain because they find it difficult to see the value and they are likely to have more immediate needs.

Except for issuing renewal notices more than 90 percent of insurers worldwide do not communicate with their customers even once a year. “20 to 40 percent of our customer base will not receive a single communication all year” said Oliver Börner, principal business solutions manager for global customer intelligence at SAS.

And while how you respond at key moments of truth like a claim are key factors in retaining customers, if a customer never lodges a claim you can’t rely on your swift claims process to give them a reason to stay with you. So what should you measure?

A global Bain & Co survey found that while customers rank quality as the most important factor across every insurance sector, engendering loyalty in your ideal customer goes beyond offering them a quality product. Loyalty leaders please their customers at every touch point, from claims to routine interactions like lodging a change of address or responding to queries.

While you may think of each interaction as discrete, customers see them as steps in an overall journey that determines whether their needs are met. That’s why it’s so important to measure customer satisfaction at every step of the insurance journey, from visiting the website for the first time to satisfactorily concluding a claim.

2. Don’t tinker, rebuild