How Zego redefined their customer experience
Zego is an innovative UK-based insurance company with almost 150,000 active customers. With over 70 million policies sold, they have become a leader in the UK’s motor insurance sector. In 2021, Zego was valued at more than $1 billion.
Industry
Headcount
Customers
150k
77%
25%
60%
Challenge
Before we partnered, Zego encountered three critical challenges that were constraining their customer support operations and threatening their growth trajectory:
Limited self-service capabilities
Customers were left almost entirely dependent on human agents for even the most basic of inquiries. Without the ability to resolve themselves, customers were forced into lengthy phone queues, driving up operational costs while creating frustration through extended wait times.
Scalability constraints
These emerged as Zego’s growth began to outpace its support infrastructure. Their reliance on human agents created a bottleneck that risked either compromising service quality or unsustainable increases in headcount to meet demand.
Deteriorating response times
Compounded by the absence of after-hours support, slower responses became inevitable as customer volumes increased. Together, these issues made maintaining - let alone increasing - customer satisfaction an ongoing battle.
Ian Kershaw
VP of Customer Service, Claims and Fraud
Solution
Zego discovered Gradient Labs through a referral from an existing customer. The team was quickly sold on partnering to transform how they support customers.
We began with a targeted proof of concept that allowed Zego to experience our platform's capabilities for themselves. We spent time understanding Zego’s unique business, the pain points in their existing customer journeys, and the most critical touchpoints for us to lean into together.
Introducing Alex, Zego’s new support Agent
Together, we launched an AI Agent called, "Alex".
Alex speaks to customers 24/7 across live chat and email, enabling them to get help when they need it most, no matter the time of day.
Alex handles multiple (technically unlimited, actually) customer conversations at once, and has removed key concerns around scalability as Zego continues to grow.
Alex leverages knowledge and APIs from across Zego’s complex platform, allowing customers to act independently and confidently, with the right amount of information and context.
In total, Alex makes obtaining help much faster and easier, in an intelligent, empathetic, human-like manner, something that was of critical importance to Zego - and many of our other customers - from the outset.
How Alex works with human support teams
Importantly, Alex has also become central to the work of Zego’s human agents, and particularly in other areas across Zego’s operations ecosystem where processes have not yet been automated.
Zego uses Alex to gather policy details, capture information about new quotes and policy changes, and undertake claim status checks, all in real-time, giving human teams the context and head start they need to act on key information quickly and more effectively.
The evolution of Alex
Ongoing collaboration is at the heart of our partnership with Zego, and as a result, Alex and our AI capabilities are constantly evolving.
Through some of the newest tooling we’ve built at Gradient Labs, we’ve been able to use Alex to automate more and more actions on behalf of Zego.
Alex can help Zego auto-generate procedures based on observed conversations between Zego customers and its human agents. Through this mechanism, Alex suggests the most impactful data points and actions required to create fully automated end-to-end process flows that solve the most pressing and effort-intensive customer issues.
In only a matter of weeks, we’ve tested and enabled Alex to manage and resolve more complex, data and action-oriented processes, allowing for greater levels of self-service and customer satisfaction.
With Zego, we’re optimising and maximising automation.
Results
Within just a few months, our partnership has delivered impressive and measurable outcomes.
Happier customers
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) rates have increased significantly from 61% to 77%, demonstrating the immediate impact of the improved experience.
77%
CSAT
More efficient operations
Call volumes have dropped by 25% as customers find it easier and faster to resolve their issues through smarter live chat interactions.
25%
Call volume reduction
Quickly improving AI performance
When we initially introduced our AI capabilities, the resolution rate sat at 41% (we refer to this as the Day 1, out-of-the-box rate). Within two months, we’ve been able to optimise our Agent to a 60% resolution rate, and rising. Through a bespoke roadmap we’ve generated, together, we have plans to increase this rate to 90% by the end of the year.
60%
Rising resolution rate
Digital adoption success
Digital claims reporting increased from approximately 37% in March to 50% by May, showing customers' preference for the new self-service options, even for complex use cases.
50%
Claims now self-served
Greater customer visibility
We’re able to provide customers with real-time updates (e.g. on their claims), reducing follow-up contacts and improving customer confidence in the process.
Conclusion
The partnership between Zego and Gradient Labs demonstrates how thoughtful AI implementation can enhance rather than replace human service, creating a support experience that scales efficiently while maintaining the personal touch that customers value.
