LT – B2B customer satisfaction research

JLT Specialty provides specialist insurance broking and risk management services to clients in 14
sectors. Whether it’s ensuring a satellite launch or a shipload of valuable cargo, JLT can arrange
cover. JLT Specialty is part of the JLT Group, a company with offices in 40 countries and more than
10,000 employees.
I would totally recommend Circle to anyone else who is looking to carry out a B2B research
project. The team are brilliant and offer very clever insights, as well as being really easy to work
with"
The challenge

In an environment where other brokers have access to the same insurance products, personal
relationships are a critical differentiator. JLT can only thrive if their clients see them a trusted
advisor. Recognising this, they engaged the ideal b2b market research company, Circle to carry out
a complete audit of client relationship health with the aim of:
 Identifying what really matters to clients
 Determining how JLT Specialty performs in each of these areas
 Identifying what JLT Specialty does best and areas for improvement
 Gauging client loyalty and understanding how to boost this further
JLT Specialty’s management wanted the research to really get under the skin of what made clients
tick and provide a tool to enhance business performance, not simply a set of customer satisfaction
statistics. It was essential that the research could be used as the basis for a set of clearly defined
and measurable actions which would enable JLT Specialty to maintain and improve its customer
service levels.
This global research project was run firstly in the UK and the survey platform was then extended
to carry out a similar exercise with JLT’s Asia and Australia divisions, whose management teams
saw the benefit of the activity which had been carried out in the UK.
Our approach

Step one was to engage with key stakeholders within the business – primarily Account
Managers who hold client relationships. Any actions derived from the project would require their
involvement, so it was essential they were on board from day one. It was also important to
establish their views on client relationships and on what they believe matters most to these clients
so that these beliefs could be tested.
The next stage was to develop an online client survey, asking intelligent questions that quickly got
to the heart of the matter. The survey invitation was preceded by a communication from the
relevant Account Manager to ‘warm up’ respondents and was carried out using our sophisticated
online platform. This includes features which optimise the respondent experience and therefore
response rates, e.g. mobile optimisation and auto-saving so the survey can be completed in
multiple settings on multiple devices.
The survey covered a wide range of questions exploring areas such as JLT’s performance in
different respects, levels of customer loyalty and of course JLT’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). To
ensure that questions explored the most pertinent aspects of client service, they were developed
from initial engagements with the account team, our longstanding knowledge of JLT and our
extensive expertise in B2B customer satisfaction research. They also reflected learnings from
previous qualitative research we conducted for JLT into ‘what matters most’ for clients.
On completion of the survey, we used a statistical technique known as Regression Analysis, which
looks for correlations between overall satisfaction and unusually high satisfaction in relation to
specific aspects of the relationship. This technique identifies what really drives client satisfaction,
and it usually challenges the received wisdom about what matters most.