A avaliação da qualidade do serviço fornecido pela "Nova Allianz", na área dos seguros de vida

: a perspectiva do agente

Abstract

This study aims at assessing the impact of Life Insurance, in the iberian project of the Insurance Company Allianz Portugal, in the point of view of the insurance agent. The iberian project aimed at making the most of economies of scale between Portugal and Spain and redefining the existing relationship between the company and the agents. Besides that it has renewed the whole supply of Life Insurance products that are sold in Portugal. In order to collect data from the agents, a questionnaire based in the Servperf model was chosen. Through that questionnaire the agents assessed the five key dimensions that form that model, namely Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy in the service that is offered by Allianz in Life Insurance. The researcher also studied the way that assessment might be influenced by the geographical distribution of the agents, the time they have been working with the Company and their volume of production in the latest year. For reasons connected with the geographical area where the researcher works, the scope of this study was limited to the agents who are linked to the offices of Santa Maria da Feira, Porto, Vila Nova de Famalicão e Guimarães. The results of this study revealed that in a global way, the agents’ assessment of the service that is offered by the Company in Life Insurance is positive. However the quality dimensions Responsiveness and Empathy got lower results. In those dimensions there were two topics that were negatively assessed by the agents. They were “Allianz does not tell its customers exactly when services will be performed” and “Allianz does not have your best interest at heart”. The researcher also noticed that the assessment of these topics was influenced by the agent’s seniority in the Company and that the assessment by those who had been working in the Company for a longer time was more negative. The results showed that the negative assessment of those topics was connected with the deep changes caused by the iberian project. In a process with such a deep change both in procedures and products, problems connected with Responsiveness are likely to happen, namely those associated with time limit management. As to the topic related with Empathy, its negative assessment was connected to the decrease of frequent contacts with the commercial network in the first months of the project. The low assessment by the agents who had been working for a longer time with the Company was caused by the fact that a previous work experience with Allianz had made them more demanding. As a suggestion to improve the negative results of the topic connected with Responsiveness it was recommended that a further questionnaire should be made to the agents in order to find out with more detail where the main problems with response readiness are. The researcher also suggested that time limits for response to the customers’ requests should be created. As to the topic connect with Empathy, an increase of visits to the agents, especially the senior ones was recommended as well as a focus in the agents’ training. The dimension Assurance was assessed in a very positive way. For that reason the recommendation was that the Allianz workers should try to keep up the agents’ confidence and feeling of security. Employees were also advised to go on being courteous and polite, as these two features were assessed in a very positive way in this study. Finally the results showed that Tangibles and Reliability were assessed in a positive way, especially the feature related to the employees’ way of dressing in Tangibles and the feature that defines Allianz as reliable in Reliability. It was also recommended that the Company should keep those attributes. The limits of this study were shown and suggestions for further research are put forward.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rui Sousa (Supervisor)