What you need to know

• Medibank was once a meme for poor service in the health industry, generating more than 60 per cent of the sector's complaints. 
• But a decade-long focus on customer experience, what it calls its customer obsession, has driven a 66-point turn around in NPS.
• Over the decade, the role of the CX team has evolved as it has become better at making the case for CX investments, and it now sees its role as helping to differentiate the brand.
• Looking ahead, Medibank wants to extend the notion of NPS by introducing what it calls journey NPS (jNPS).

Nine years ago, Medibank Private was recording a negative 20 NPS. Worse, its long-suffering members were responsible for more than 60 per cent of industry complaints.

Speaking on a panel at the recent ADMA Global Forum, Medibank Chief Customer Officer Milosh Milisavljevic said, “We had a lot of our frontline teams who did not like engaging with customers, and we couldn't do basic tax statements during the financial years. It was a very different point in time.”

What a difference a decade of “customer obsession” makes. Not only has the organisation turned its NPS around, it's now looking at new ways to measure the way customers view its performance.

In its latest report, Medibank achieved an NPS score of 46, up almost 6 points, and easily exceeding the benchmark of >35. According to the financial report, Medibank is now introducing a new measurement it calls Journey Net Promoter Score (jNPS) in FY25, which it says aims to provide deeper insights into customer experiences across various interactions with the brand.

According to the investor pack Medibank prepared to accompany the release of its latest financial results, the introduction of jNPS is expected to enhance the understanding of customer journeys, focusing on how well Medibank meets customer needs during these experiences.

The investor pack notes, “We are evolving the way we measure customer advocacy to better understand our customer journeys. We will capture and analyse the outcome a customer was trying to achieve, which will then create actionable insights for experience improvements. In the future, this transition will enable greater insights across digital channels and expand and capture health journeys.”

By FY26, the new mix of NPS measures, including both jNPS and sNPS (service NPS), will provide a more robust understanding of customer advocacy and experience, the company stated.

It has set itself an NPS target average across sNPS and jNPS for FY25, aiming for a score of >15, which will indicate a strong focus on customer satisfaction and engagement. Given sNPS is currently 46, that also tends to suggest Medibank is not expecting a great first result from jNPS.

And indeed, Medibank is waiting until later in 2025, after it has seen the first numbers, before setting the benchmarks for 2026.

None of Medibank’s success over the last decade was accidental. Instead, it’s a function of a philosophy that it calls “customer obsession” which has driven CX thinking for over nine years. Speaking at ADMA Global Forum, Milisavljevic told attendees the business changed to a mindset where everything starts with the customer.

“At that time, we really designed the turnaround program around the customer, and the shifts we wanted to have in our relationship with the customer,  then how that translated to the commercial results," he said.

To the CX team's credit, they progressively improved, “getting better and better at reinventing how to think about the economic case for investment in the customer as with every two and three years we have transitioned to different parts of this endeavour.”

Better CX is not simply about a stronger better line, Milisavljevic insisted. “In health, we know that customer experience matters generally, but we also know the more consumers feel in control and empowered around their health, the better the outcomes are.

“For us, it’s really meeting the consumer where they are, their unique individual needs, but then bringing the organisation to the customer." For Milisavljevic, that stems from that customer obsession and mantra turnaround begun nine years ago.

There is also a recognition inside Medibank CX is an important differentiator.

“The role of the CX team is changing to be leading the differentiation, building that trust, connection, the emotional hooks. And challenging the category to a large extent, so we can figure out how we stand out. Then for us, we are reorienting our teams to customer journeys," he continued.

Milisavljevic also stressed the need to align customer and employee experiences. “The more your employee experiences align with the target customer experience, the better you do. So the role of CX at Medibank is growing to meet that market differentiation cut through, while also bringing the rest of the organisation along.”

Measurement

Milisavljevic said Medibank has been consistent in its approach to metrics when measuring the impact on advocacy, brand preference and differentiation.

"Covid was a little bit of a wake-up call because we had a Team Australia feel and larger corporates had the benefit of the doubt. Now that's fading pretty quickly, and so the concept of trust and confidence has increased in what we measure both as a differentiator, but also something that strengthens our relationship with customers and allows us to do more with the health."

He added Medibank's planned changes to NPS as, "The next horizon of improvement in what we measure."