Axa’s director of customer intelligence Darren Cornish gave a fascinating glimpse into how clients use internal staff communities to improve business.

Cornish explained that in his previous role as director of operations at Aviva – formerly Norwich Union – his main duties revolved around reducing staff costs and encouraging customers to use online facilities, which would in turn help the firm cut down on wages.

Then came social media and he became ‘chief blogger’, deciding to provide workers with content (almost) as interesting as what they looked up online when they finish work.

Cornish started a blog on the company intranet which aimed to engage and gain insight from the firm’s staff. He quickly attracted readers when he talked about a story in the national press about Norwich Union “quoting customers unhappy”.

Laying down the gauntlet to call centre workers, Cornish vowed to run naked around Norwich if the firm could improve its customer satisfaction performance by 19 points.

Unfortunately for him, when performance points were totted up 18 months after the article first appeared, it was time for Cornish to get his running shoes on – and not much else besides.

The blog had other successes too, with Cornish explaining how it was used to change the company’s policy over replacing child seats after an accident. A call centre worker – who was also a Norwich Union  policy holder – had an accident and was told that her child seats were not covered by the policy. After venting her feelings on Cornish’s blog, it attracted the attention of the CEO, who agreed to change the firm’s stance and assured her that in future child seats would be replaced if needed.

That change alone led to more satisfied customers and in increase in new insurance policies once word hit the market place, said Cornish.

The power of communities isn’t all about the bottom line, however, as Cornish’s last example demonstrates. After a long and “crappy” day he arrived home in a bad mood, at which point his children informed him that a “cuddle train” would make everything better. The resulting photo of said “cuddle train” went straight on the blog, with Cornish telling call centre workers that “after a crap day we all need a cuddle train”.

Eight workers at the Dundee office were soon at it – complete with photos – and not before long Cornish got word that calls from an Indian call centre were being re-routed to the UK. The reason? A 375-strong cuddle train outside the office….