NU Online News Service, Feb. 21, 11:00 a.m. EST

Six insurers were among a total of 40 businesses named as this year’s Customer Service Champions in a report released by J.D. Power and Associates.

The Westlake Village, Calif.-based global marketing information services company released its latest report, titled “Achieving Excellence in Customer Service.” The report is aimed at helping businesses understand and recognize which industries, besides their own, provide the highest levels of service, which would help these businesses elevate their own customer service standards.

“To be good in any industry, it makes sense to look at the best practices across industries,” said Gary Tucker, senior vice president of global services and emerging industries at J.D. Power and Associates. “Every day, consumers interact with companies from a myriad of industries. Invariably, they compare the quality of these service experiences. Industries and companies should be doing the same if they expect to keep pace in today’s increasingly competitive environment.”

According to Mr. Tucker, companies that have successfully weathered the economic storm are those that have in place a business strategy of service excellence and recognize that delivering high-quality service is a powerful differentiator in the face of changing market conditions.

Based on customer feedback, J.D. Power and Associates indentified 40 brands as Customer Service Champions. Among those were six insurance companies. They are:

• Amica Mutual Insurance
• Auto-Owners Insurance
• Erie Insurance
• Farm Bureau Insurance of Tennessee
• New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance
• USAA Insurance

Those that received this year’s designation were among the top 5 percent of more than 80 evaluated brands based on their performance in five key areas.

• People
• Presentation
• Price
• Product
• Process

“Today’s consumers expect companies to do it all and have the right people, the right presentation, the right price, the right product and the right process,” said Mr. Tucker. “Brands identified as J.D. Power Customer Service Champions are getting all of these things right. Some are even outperforming the best of their peers in meeting heightened customer expectations.”

J.D. Power noted that during the past decade, average satisfaction scores for service-oriented industries have remained flat, unlike in product-based industries, for which satisfaction has improved steadily. In addition, across all service industries measured by J.D. Power, gaps in satisfaction between the highest- and lowest-performing brands have increased considerably between 2003 and 2010.