The insurance industry is diverse and highly competitive, with providers and intermediaries facing constant pressure to raise standards, improve customer experience, and meet strict regulatory requirements.
Mystery Shopping with Customerwise gives you the clarity and evidence you need to improve performance, support compliance, provide excellent customer experiences, and compete more effectively.
Who We Help
We support a wide range of businesses involved in the insurance industry, including:
- Insurers and underwriters, where we monitor and test the level of compliance among retail partners and resellers.
- Specialist and general B2C and B2B insurance brokers, where we assess their own teams' performance and conduct competitor mystery shopping, including pricing, service standards and regulatory compliance.
- Resellers, such as car dealerships, retailers and travel agents, where we test levels of FCA compliance within sales processes.
- Comparison websites, where we evaluate the response times and delivery standards of their partners.
We test a variety of different channels (e.g. telephone, online, in person) and manage multi-step enquiry processes, often incorporating video and audio recording.
We have experience across a variety of insurance types, including holiday, life, car, gap, boat, pet, funeral, health, home warranty, gig economy, B2B insurance policies, and insurance for specific valuable items.
All Mystery Shopping data (including supporting files) is delivered to clients through our online reporting platform, SASSIE, with user-friendly analysis tools, hierarchical access and customised dashboards.
Alongside a wide range of Mystery Shopping approaches, we offer a unique suite of additional services like in-moment feedback, all designed to add value and help you improve performance. Everything we do is built around your requirements, with flexibility at the core.
Schedule a discovery call or call now on 01392 984224.
Testimonials
Tamsin, Hannah and Lucy have truly excelled in supporting our compliance audit needs. Customerwise’s industry knowledge has been instrumental in building a robust mystery shop framework tailored to our newly established compliance audit requirements. Their responsiveness and friendly approach have made collaboration seamless and enjoyable. Their proactivity and openness has helped strengthen our governance processes by providing real-time information from their wide-ranging network of mystery shoppers who are able to fulfil a number of briefs. I highly recommend Customerwise to any organisation seeking a reliable partner in mystery shopping and compliance audit solutions. Their dedication and skill have made a significantly positive impact on our operations.
Allianz
Customerwise have delivered a series of FCA compliance-related projects for us, involving both mystery shopping and customer interviews. These outcomes have been instrumental in our approach to Consumer Duty and the path our business took.
They have worked with us to co-design the approach in each case, the required level of management information to prove a concept and have made helpful suggestions throughout the process. The standards of execution have been consistently high. They made sure that mystery shoppers were thoroughly briefed with appropriate scenarios, and that a unique phone number was used for every enquiry. The interviews have also been skilfully handled. They’ve ensured our reporting has been structured to show everything we need to see. They’ve also been great to work with, highly responsive and flexible, evolving the programmes as our needs have changed. We would highly recommend them.
Holiday Extras
Ceta Insurance
Mystery Shopping Services for the Insurance Industry
How it works
Whether you are testing your own teams, those of a reseller or partner, or investigating your competitors, the way the data is delivered to you is usually similar.
Each enquiry, or enquiry process, generates an individual report, based on a report template developed and agreed with you. Reports are usually divided into journey stages, with relevant questions, scoring and, usually, narrative feedback fields.
All Mystery Shopping reporting is delivered via SASSIE, our online reporting platform, which provides tiered access, tailored dashboards, and user-friendly tools for tracking performance and spotting trends.
Supporting files, such as audio recordings and video footage, are available to view directly within each individual enquiry report.
Common focus areas for clients who are assessing their own teams or those of their reseller network include professionalism, clarity, compliance with FCA rules, and the ability to identify and support vulnerable customers.
There are a number of channels, types, and approaches to Mystery Shopping applicable to the insurance industry…
Telephone Mystery Shopping
We can test how your team (and/or your competitors' teams) handles telephone enquiries, from initial contact through to follow-up.
Audio recordings are normally provided, allowing you to verify (and prove) the findings, and review both strengths and areas for improvement.
Telephone Competitor Mystery Shopping commonly focuses on gathering pricing data as well as intelligence on service standards and regulatory compliance.
In-person Mystery Shopping
Our shoppers can visit brokerages, retailers and other relevant businesses in person, following realistic customer journeys. Each visit is carefully planned, with our mystery shoppers thoroughly briefed to ensure credibility.
With "report-based" Mystery Shopping (especially in the absence of any audio recordings or video footage), agreed output will normally include highly detailed narrative feedback, explaining what took place and what did not.
Report templates are usually designed to help assess service quality, compliance, and opportunities to improve the customer experience.
Online Mystery Shopping
Online mystery shopping can cover web forms, live chat, email enquiries, social media and even video chat interactions. We assess the speed and quality of responses, clarity of information, and how well teams handle complex or sensitive queries.
This service can help identify inconsistencies or delays that could affect conversion rates and standards of compliance. Online stages are often covered alongside other channels.
Multi-stage Mystery Shopping
Most Mystery Shopping programmes in the insurance sector involve several stages. For example, submitting an online enquiry, receiving a phone call in response, receiving a quote confirmation in writing, and then a follow-up email or phone call (or both).
The purpose is to reflect realistic customer journeys and to cover all channels that are used by real customers, tracking each step from first contact to follow-up, to give you a complete view of your enquiry process and highlight opportunities to improve consistency and conversion. Multiple journeys can be set up and tested, either on an ad hoc or ongoing basis.
Video Mystery Shopping
Where required (and where permission exists), we can arrange covert video recording of in-person interactions, giving you direct and detailed insight into how enquiries are handled, including expressions, body language and physical surroundings. Likewise, video chat interactions can also be recorded where required.
Audio-recorded Mystery Shopping
Audio recording provides a strong alternative when clients don't wish to use video Mystery Shopping for whatever reason. Audio Mystery Shopping still provides detail and clarity around the all-important conversations, including how staff identify customer needs, disclosures, and other compliance aspects. These recordings support transparency and allow for more effective coaching and quality assurance.
FCA Compliance (including ICOBS) Mystery Shopping
We deliver Mystery Shopping programmes to test adherence to FCA Principles for Businesses and the Insurance Conduct of Business Sourcebook (ICOBS). Our approach helps you identify compliance gaps, demonstrate oversight, and ensure customers are treated fairly, with clear, compliant communication at every stage.
Other Compliance Checks
We also assess whether businesses are meeting both regulatory and contractual obligations, ensuring alignment with insurer requirements and industry standards.
Kaizen Action Plans
The Kaizen Action Plans feature, within our SASSIE reporting platform, helps you manage and track the resolution of issues identified either through Mystery Shopping, or through audits. When a qualifying issue is found, stakeholders are automatically alerted and invited to discuss, agree, and record remedial action within the system. This helps ensure that feedback leads to real improvement, and that remedial steps are documented for future reference.
Competitor Mystery Shopping
Competitor Mystery Shopping projects or programmes can be used to gather intelligence on pricing, service, and compliance standards within a single competing organisation or across many. We help you benchmark your offering, understand your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and identify ways to compete more effectively.
Schedule a discovery call or call now on 01392 984224.
Other Services for the Insurance Industry
We offer a selection of services in addition to Mystery Shopping, all focused on helping businssses to improve performance.
In-moment Customer Feedback
In-moment customer feedback solutions give you the power to capture immediate, relevant insights from clients and visitors. A range of feedback collection methods can be used, including physical feedback terminals, prominent signs with QR codes or NFC technology, and digital invitations sent by SMS or email. This flexible approach makes it easy for people to share their thoughts at the exact moment they interact with your business.
The real value is in how this feedback can drive meaningful change. It helps you enhance customer experiences, allocate resources more efficiently, and control operational costs. With all responses automatically processed and summarised, you receive clear, actionable insights that support smarter, more effective decision-making.
Consultancy and Reporting
We work with you to interpret findings, spot trends, and identify priority areas for action. Our consultancy is flexible and hands-on, supporting you from insight through to practical improvement.
Customer Interviews
In-depth interviews with customers provide honest, detailed feedback on their experiences, helping you understand what matters most and where improvements can be made.
Real Call Listening
We can systematically review genuine outbound and inbound customer calls, offering an objective assessment of quality, compliance, and the handling of complex or sensitive situations.
Data Collection
For clients needing a broad market view, we can gather large volumes of data, such as quotes for specific insurance products, to support your analysis and decision-making.
Open Audits
Our open audits of physical locations focus on practical aspects such as the presence and clarity of point-of-sale signage, the availability of disclosure notices, health and safety information, the appearance and upkeep of physical premises, and whether key policies are easily accessible to customers. Audits can be used to check almost anything that needs to be checked in-person and openly, or that can be checked in that way.
Website Competitor Studies
Our website competitor studies give you a clear, practical comparison between your own website and those of your chosen competitors. We recruit genuine human testers who match your required demographic, ensuring that the feedback is directly relevant to your target audience. These testers follow realistic enquiry journeys on both your website and competitor sites, documenting their experiences at each stage, from initial navigation to making an enquiry or requesting a quote. This process provides you with structured feedback on usability, clarity, and the overall appeal of each site, as well as insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your digital presence compared to others in the market.
Customer Survey Deployment
We can manage customer surveys for you, making it easy to collect structured feedback and keep all your data in one place.
Why Choose Customerwise?
- Established 2016, MSPA Elite Members (MSPA members since 2018)
- Extensive experience with insurers, brokerages, and resellers
- Bespoke, flexible programmes tailored to your goals
- Fully customised reporting and dashboards
- Switched-on, committed, and proactive account management
- Unique range of additional services, including in-moment feedback
Next Steps
Ready to raise standards in your insurance business? Get in touch today to discuss how we can help you improve compliance, performance, and customer experience.