We at MiWay recently experienced an unexpected but pleasing purple patch. On 4 October we were announced winners of the Ask Africa Orange Index Survey for Service Excellence in the Short-Term Insurance category, and on 5 October we were declared winners in two categories of the Deloitte Best Company to Work For survey, namely the winner of the Financial Services – Insurance category, as well as overall winner of the Medium Company Category.

Both surveys are prestigious and coming out tops in them is quite sought-after. The quality of previous winners is a clear indication that we have a lot to smile about. The Orange Award is based on random public opinion, whilst the Deloitte awards are based on the views of a randomly selected sample of MiWay staff. It seems, therefore, that we have both happy clients as well as happy staff!

To say we were over the moon would be a euphemism. In one sense, we didn’t expect it because we’ve only been in existence for just over three and a half years. In another sense, winning these awards confirmed to me the validity of a long-held belief, namely that results follow from doing the fundamentals right. It is more important to do the right things than doing things right. Put another way, effectiveness is more important than efficiency. First prize, of course, is to be both effective as well as efficient, to do the right things right. It is my conviction that if you do the right things right for long enough, you will win on the scoreboard. This is true for most things in life, but of course there is the odd exception: take for example the Springboks’ loss against Australia in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup. The Boks were better at doing the fundamentals right, yet they lost on the scoreboard……sorry, I’m digressing…..

At MiWay, we work incredibly hard at creating a corporate culture that drives the right behaviour. In essence, we strive to create and encourage a cultural space wherein our staff can be happy and because they are happy, they provide the level of awesome service to our clients that we aspire to. We want to build a world-class business and in order to do that, we need our people to perform according to world-class standards. This is only possible if their work environment – the corporate culture – enables and encourages world-class behaviour. Culture drives behaviour. Whilst it is indeed possible to drive behaviour in the short-term through a variety of incentive schemes, only a healthy, positive culture will ensure long-term sustainable performance.

Our culture is based on four simple values, namely freedom, attitude, energy and accountability. We have various programs in place to create and promote this values-based culture. We keep it current and relevant on a daily basis, e g if a staff member (we call them freedom fighters, because they fight for our clients’ freedom by saving them time and money) receives a compliment from a client on our website or a consumer website such as hellopeter.com or on Facebook or Twitter etc, we make a hero of him/her by forwarding that compliment via e-mail to the rest of the staff. The recognition that flows from that simple deed, is immense. Another way of keeping the values current and relevant, is the samurai sword floating trophy that is awarded on a weekly basis to the freedom fighter who was the best example of the MiWay culture in the preceding week. The basis for this award is peer nominations and motivations. The power lies in the fact that the freedom fighter is recognised and celebrated by his/her peers! We don’t throw money at the challenge of creating and promoting our culture. Instead, we make heroes of ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

This might sound easy, but it takes commitment and focus and hard work from everyone, from the leadership down to the cleaning staff and proverbial “tea lady”. When it comes to the values, we are all equal. Every team member is a co-custodian of the values, which means he/she takes accountability for living the values on a daily basis as well as ensuring that the other members of his/her team also comply. We all clearly understand that only a joint effort by all will ensure the survival and longevity of the MiWay values-based culture.

Having said this, the role of leadership should not be underestimated. A fish rots from the head, and to quote something Paul Harris once shared with me: “mediocrity casts a shadow”. I agree with John Buchan when he says “the task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already”. The leaders need to set the example, walk the talk, and provide the inspiration!

In case this all sounds a bit too serious, we also believe in having fun. As with the MiWay brand, we try not to take ourselves too seriously. The world we live in is serious enough. Our industry is known to be a grudge industry. We try to put a smile on our clients’ faces, which in turn puts a smile on our own faces!

And, if you think about it, it’s not rocket science. Simple things, like keeping your promises, are often all it takes to keep your clients happy. I love clients who complain, for two reasons: 1) they often provide you with valuable information about what’s wrong in your business, and 2) if you fix the problem properly, you often find that you’ve gained a client for life.

We are far from perfect. We still get it wrong on too many occasions. We still make basic errors that can and must be eradicated, but I suppose we get it right more often than we get it wrong. To quote Carveth Read: “It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong”. I think we get it vaguely right. But we certainly haven’t “arrived”. We are acutely aware of the danger of complacency …

In conclusion, we won’t allow these accolades to go to our heads, but we certainly allowed ourselves to celebrate. We popped some champagne … and then we got back to work again!

Kind regards,

Life at MiWay is progressing really well. We have managed to weather the credit crunch storm, built a strong desirable brand, gained critical mass and all our operational processes are running like clockwork. The most pleasing of all, is the fact that the business has reached break-even on a month-by-month basis. All this has been achieved in a highly competitive market and in tough economic times.

We have reason to feel satisfied indeed. The most amazing part of our journey so far, however, has not been the obvious profit drivers of premium income, expense ratios and loss ratios, but rather the unexpected bonuses that flowed from some of the unique features we built into the design of the business model. The serendipitous windfall I want to focus on is the special relationship we have with our clients and the benefits that flow from that.

When we sat down to plan and design the business model, we recognised the fact that we live in the age of the consumer as well as the age of the internet. This has profound consequences for any business that plays in the service industry, because the consumer today has much more power than 10-15 years ago. Due to consumer websites such as hellopeter.com, the consumer of today is armed with the power to reach thousands, if not millions of internet users with his/her complaint/compliment. The implication for service organisations is obvious: there is no place to hide anymore. If you mess up, the whole world will read about it on the web. The days of sweeping bad service under the carpet, is over. The flipside of the coin, however, is that world-class service gets rewarded by clients posting compliments on those same consumer websites.

With this in mind, we decided to embrace the reality by being pro-active and allow our clients to post comments, good or bad, on our own website where the whole world can read it. We did this for two reasons: firstly, to give management quick feedback on where the bottlenecks and problem areas were – unhappy clients are often the greatest source of learning – and secondly, to drive the right behaviour amongst our staff. Our advisors quickly realised that poor service is punished by a complaint, whilst good service is rewarded by a compliment. And, of course, it is much more desirable that your friends and family read positive things about you on the web rather than negative things!

It took a lot of courage to take that step. I am not aware of any other company in SA who make their client comments transparent to the world. Just imagine the consequences if it blew up in our faces? After all we were just a start-up, with all the associated growing pains, which made us especially susceptible to errors and lapses in service standards.

We were in for a surprise! We created a service culture second-to-none. Our people are driven to deliver the kind of service that would solicit compliments, not complaints. We have by far the highest compliment ratio on hellopeter.com. I specifically mention this website, because it is totally independent and widely used by consumers. It also provides a “league table” that allows quick and easy comparisons with our peers. At the time of writing, MiWay enjoyed a 75% compliment ratio on a 12-month rolling basis. Our closest competitor was sitting on 41%, whilst the industry average was 29%! This is truly amazing, and certainly a victory for transparency and good old service excellence. Refer to the League Table (to the right) to see the current standings.

The lesson to me is that although it might require courage to do the right thing, it is often rewarded beyond expectations. Another truly amazing fact, is that as far as I know, MiWay is still the only company that allows their clients to post comments, good or bad, on their website. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

We are very aware of the fact that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We have to live up to these high standards set by ourselves every day.

We appreciate the willingness of our clients to share their experiences of our service with the world via the web. It inspires us to continue going the extra mile and to set new standards.

Kind regards,