Contact Centre
How Honey Insurance delivers the sweetest customer experience
Angelo Azar is Chief Operating Officer of Honey Insurance, a rapidly growing home insurance business that has become an industry role model for both customer and employee engagement.
In this exclusive interview, Angelo explains how Honey is delivering results.
The Australian Financial Review named Honey Insurance a Customer Champion. What does it mean to be a Customer Champion?
Being named a Customer Champion by the AFR is an incredible honour and a testament to the dedication of our incredible team at Honey Insurance. For us, being a Customer Champion means it’s ingrained in every single person here to place the customer at the absolute heart of everything we do. It’s not just about efficiently resolving issues; it’s about proactively anticipating customer needs, building trust through transparent and empathetic communication, and consistently exceeding expectations. It signifies a commitment from our people to creating seamless, intuitive experiences, leveraging technology like AI to personalise interactions and empower our customers.
Ultimately, it’s about fostering genuine, long-term relationships where our customers feel valued, heard, and supported, not just sold a policy – and our team is passionate about building those connections.
Can you describe what makes Honey’s product and service proposition different from other home insurance companies?
Honey Insurance stands apart from traditional home insurance companies because of the brilliant people we have driving a blend of proactive protection and customer-centric innovation, all underpinned by technology. Firstly, we’re not just reactive, waiting for something to go wrong. Our smart home sensors actively work to prevent incidents before they happen, offering tangible value and peace of mind – this is driven by a team obsessed with proactive solutions.
Secondly, we’ve redesigned the entire insurance journey to be radically simple and transparent. From our streamlined online quote process powered by AI, which minimises customer input, to our straightforward policy documents and claims process, we remove friction and jargon – and it’s our talented tech and product teams who make this seamless experience a reality.
Finally, and crucially, we blend this tech-forward approach with genuine human empathy and support. We believe technology empowers our caring and skilled customer-facing teams to provide even better, more personalised service when our customers need us most. It’s about modernizing insurance for today’s customer expectations, positioning Honey as a truly customer-centric insurance provider, and it’s our people who deliver on that promise every day.
What are the key use cases for AI you’ve identified in the contact centre and CX space?
AI is proving to be a game-changer for enhancing our contact centre and overall customer experience, and our innovative team is at the forefront of exploring these possibilities.
One of the most impactful use cases we’ve found is AI co-assisting our agents.
AI algorithms can provide agents with real-time information, suggested solutions, and even anticipate customer needs during interactions. This empowers our frontline team to resolve issues faster, provide more consistent service quality, and ultimately deliver a better experience.
Beyond agent support, AI-powered chatbots, developed by our tech specialists, provide instant, 24/7 support for common queries, freeing up human agents for more complex and emotionally sensitive issues. We also leverage AI to analyse customer interactions, identify trends and pain points, and personalise communication – a crucial insight provided by our data-driven analysts.
Finally, we’re exploring AI for sentiment analysis to better understand customer emotions and tailor our responses, ensuring empathy remains central to all interactions – and our team is dedicated to using AI responsibly and ethically in this way.
What’s your secret sauce for high employee engagement?
Our ‘secret sauce’ for high employee engagement isn’t really a secret at all – it’s about fostering a culture of purpose, empowerment, and genuine connection, built by the leadership team and embraced by everyone.
Firstly, we’re deeply mission-driven; everyone at Honey understands we’re not just in the business of insurance, we’re helping people protect what matters most. This shared purpose is incredibly motivating – it’s something our team truly believes in.
Secondly, we empower our team members at all levels. We encourage autonomy, celebrate initiative, and actively seek input and ideas from across the organisation – because we trust in the talent of our people. Thirdly, we prioritise open and transparent communication. We keep everyone informed, share both successes and challenges, and foster a culture of feedback – because we value every voice in our team.
Finally, we invest in our people. We provide opportunities for growth, development, and recognition, ensuring they feel valued and supported in their careers – because the success of Honey is directly tied to the growth and wellbeing of our people. It’s about creating an environment where people feel they are making a real difference, are trusted to contribute, and are genuinely cared for within the company – and that’s the environment our team has built together.
What are your top priorities in 2025?
Our top priorities are centred around three key pillars: Customer Experience Evolution, Strategic Growth, and Operational Excellence.
On the CX front, our customer-obsessed team will be deepening our use of AI to further personalise and preempt customer needs, exploring proactive outreach strategies based on customer interactions with Honey to make engaging with us even easier and more pleasant, and refining our omnichannel communication to ensure seamless transitions across touchpoints.
For Strategic Growth, our ambitious growth team is focused on expanding our reach into new customer segments and potentially exploring adjacent product offerings that align with our customer-centric mission.
Our efficiency-focused Operations team will be laser-focused on driving further efficiencies through automation and data-driven decision-making, ensuring we can scale sustainably while maintaining our high service standards.
Ultimately, 2025 is about solidifying our position as a leading customer-centric insurance agency and building a foundation for continued, responsible growth.
Which KPI(s) are you laser focused on?
While we track a range of important metrics, our North Star KPIs, the ones our entire team are laser-focused on, are Net Promoter Score (NPS), alongside key Customer Experience (CX) efficiency metrics that technology helps us drive.
For us, NPS isn’t just a number; it’s a direct reflection of how well our people are living up to our promise of being a true Customer Champion.
High NPS indicates we are delivering on our core value proposition – providing simple, proactive, and genuinely helpful insurance experiences.
Furthermore, we are intensely focused on CX efficiency metrics like channel of choice adoption, first point resolution rates, and reduced customer effort scores..
Technology, particularly AI, is crucial in driving improvements across these efficiency metrics, ensuring we provide effortless and effective support across our customers’ preferred channels. We believe that by obsessively focusing on NPS and these technology-driven CX efficiencies, all other key business metrics, like retention, referrals, and ultimately, sustainable growth, will naturally follow – and it’s the collective effort of our team that makes this vision a reality.
It’s about keeping the customer voice front and centre in every decision we make and using their feedback and data to continuously improve and refine our offerings.
Last updated on: March 13, 2025
