Insurance giant appoints executive marketing leader to expanded role including customer experience
QBE Australia has promoted executive GM of marketing, Bettina Pidcock, to chief customer officer, the first such role to be introduced at the insurance group.
Pidcock joined QBE in February last year to head up the marketing team. In a statement, the company said her rise to chief customer officer was part of an organisational restructure that reflects work undertaken to become a more customer-centric company. She retains all the current marketing, communications and digital responsibilities under her remit, but also now gains oversight of the customer experience team.
The change in role commences immediately.
“Bettina has done a fantastic job in bringing a persistent focus on our customers and using data to drive decisions and better outcome,” QBE’s CEO, Pat Regan stated.
“The creation of this role will help us stay true to the changes we want to bring about to improve our focus on delivering exceptional customer experience.”
Prior to joining QBE in 2016, Pidcock spent more than four years as head of marketing for ANZ Wealth. She has also held various GM of marketing positions with InsuranceLine and St George, and was brand and marketing communications manager for MLC earlier in her career.
The trend towards appointing chief customer officers has gained ground in Australia over recent years as more organisations look to improve the way they deal with customers.
Other organisations to maintain chief customer officers with responsibility for marketing include AMP (Paul Sainsbury), Mercer (Cambell Holt), Foxtel (Mark Buckman), Suncorp (Mark Reinke) and SumoSalad (Lawrence Mitchell).
A company spokesperson told CMO the customer experience team of six will look at how QBE can develop new data-led propositions using human-centred design principles. The team have a diverse background including engineering, information technology and human resources, reflective of our diverse customer base.
"QBE's vision is to be the insurer that builds the strongest partnerships with customers," the spokesperson said.
"This move is the next step for our Australia and New Zealand business to build on the work that’s already been done, accelerate initiatives in the pipeline, as well as align with the broader marketing functions under the one customer umbrella. QBE will continue its ongoing digital transformation to improve the experience for both our customers and partners."
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+:google.com/+CmoAu
It's been an incredibly tough three months for the Star as it shut its doors and stood down staff in response to the COVID-19 lockdown. Yet innovation has shone through, and if the CMO, George Hughes, has anything to say about it, such lateral thinking will continue as we start to recover from the crisis.
For businesses and advertiser categories currently experiencing a slowdown in consumer activity, now is the optimal time to get started on projects that have been of high importance, but low urgency.
The effects of the coronavirus slammed the brakes on retail sales in pubs, clubs and restaurants. Fever-Tree’s Australia GM Andy Gaunt explains what they have learnt from some tricky months of trading
There is much talk about what VOZ will bring to the media industry. New ways to slice and dice audiences and segments. A clearer understanding of screen consumption. Even new ways to plan and buy. The most interesting result could be finding something many thought we lost - younger viewers, specifically the valuable 18-39s.
We would like to invite you to the Virtual Exhibition about IoT Trends in 2020, 7 - 9 July, organised by Must.We developed a new B2B matc...
hayfa
Want to master digital transformation? Stop thinking about your own problems
We have been trying to help our clients through this time. I think the important thing is clear communication! We also created some check...
Erin Payne
Is COVID-19 the right time for a positive marketing campaign?
Very good article Sagar. Congrats! It's exactly what we are doing at Dafiti and it's very important have you close to us into this journey.
Roosevelt Junior
Making Your Organisation Data-Driven [MYOD] - Data-driven marketing - CMO Australia
Corporates should be innovating to stay relevant and disrupt the market and collaborating with startups is easily the best way to go for ...
Diana
How your company can innovate its way through the COVID-19 crisis
Very welll written Sagar and gives an excellent overview for data strategy for an orgaanization!
Ritvik Dhupkar
Making Your Organisation Data-Driven [MYOD] - Data-driven marketing - CMO Australia