The Right Way to Treat Customers

  • Eugene Lee

March 02, 2013

In the business world there is a common refrain, “the customer is king”. The point is that no matter what business you are in, whether you’re selling insurance policies or insurance software, customer satisfaction is paramount. From Guidewire’s founding until today, this principle has driven and continues to drive everything we do: build quality products, sell them with integrity, and help customers go live and transform their businesses. The launch of Guidewire Live has given us a unique opportunity to revisit our core value of customer success and examine how to apply it to this new venture.

You may have heard that there is no implementation project required to get started on Guidewire Live. It’s true. That’s because if you are live on a Guidewire InsuranceSuite system, you share a common platform and data model with many other insurance companies around the world. And, because we built that platform and data model, we are able to automate the data integration between InsuranceSuite and Guidewire Live. (Right now, it’s just for ClaimCenter but PolicyCenter and BillingCenter are soon to follow.) We give you the extraction program, you install it in your nightly batch schedule, and voila – you’re live. It’s that easy.

This has profound implications for customer success. It means we can provide customers with the data integration work into Guidewire Live for free. You, our customer, did the hard work when you implemented one or more InsuranceSuite systems. We like to think of Live as your reward. And because the integration work is done for you, you don’t need any external consultants. There’s no extra complexity or cost. We wanted nothing to stand between you and the business value of the apps now available to you.

While we’re on the topic of rewards, I should mention that some of the apps are also free– they are your birthright as a Guidewire customer. The paid apps come with a try before you buy option. And not just some stripped down, minimally useful, empty shell of an app either. On the contrary, your Guidewire Live evaluation period includes fully functional apps complete with your data already integrated. Use them as much as you want. Give access to as many people as you want. We wanted to give you everything you needed to make an informed decision. After all, being informed is what Guidewire Live is all about. And when it’s time to subscribe, pay only for those apps you want to use, one year at a time. No upfront risk and no long term commitments. Your job is to run your business. Our job is to make sure we’re helping you do that.

Free integration, free apps, pay only for what you want, no projects or consultants, and no long-term commitment. Seem too good to be true? Try to suspend your disbelief, at least for a week or two. By then you’ll be live and you can see for yourself. That’s how it works in the bizarre, wonderful world of Guidewire Live. We love it because we think it’s the right way to treat our customers. Enjoy yourself, we want you to feel like royalty.