Exciting times for ICBL

ONE OF THE NEWEST members of the ICBL team is Camille Pereira. Having joined ICBL in April 2022 as senior vice-president sales and marketing, Pereira is no stranger to the insurance industry.

With more than 20 years of distinctive experience, spanning many companies and Caribbean territories, Pereira brings a wealth of diverse knowledge to ICBL. Her most recent post was as vice-president of business development for a regional insurance company.

One of her main goals has been to grow ICBL’s customer base. For Pereira, it was a pleasant surprise in terms of the loyalty extended towards ICBL after all these years by the customers and the employee base.

“It’s nice to have a loyal customer base,” said Pereira, She added. “You also have a new group, a new age group coming up; they just do things differently. In terms of my own studies, it’s important to also keep up to date with what’s happening on the market. It is a new customer experience out there, we have to embrace the new demographic and think—what are the needs and the wants of this younger generation?

But I was actually thinking about when I did my first degree — Instagram and Facebook didn’t exist. You learned about the four P’s in marketing; there is so much more now to marketing and customer experience today.”

For customers, ease of doing business is important.

“As a Caribbean people, sometimes we still love to come into the branch and see our familiar faces and so forth. But the experience and reduced wait times for our customers is key. So, the least number of steps that you can do for these customers to enhance their experience and reduce wait times is important.”

In order to get all these experiences aligned, ICBL employs a cavalcade of people that work together seamlessly in order to provide their customers with an experience unlike any other. ICBL is a composite company; they sell both property and casualty insurance (P&C) and life insurance. Though similar, these are different in terms of the selling and marketing of these groups.

ICBL has a back-office support team with several functions that support their online queries. Customers contact ICBL via social media and that is something they will continue to enhance and support because of tech-savvy customers. The Internet penetration in Barbados is very high. Customers can make contact with us at any hour in the age of the Internet and ICBL monitors these trends to respond appropriately.

“Although we have our branch office, with COVID, the landscape of our customerfacing operations have changed. We have one main head office right now, so the key is that we really optimise that team to perform at its best so that when a customer comes in, they can leave quickly,” said Pereira.

She added, “We have our life sales team. These are what we call our relationship builders. They are the ones who will form long-lasting relationships because life, as you know, is a long-term business. It’s about engaging that customer for the next couple of decades. We want you, we appreciate you, and that’s where the agents come in.”

Today, ICBL knows that there is a need for synergy in sales and marketing.

“ICBL has really formed a great team where marketing works hand in hand with our sales team; it’s very collaborative and they are aligned. Both teams work closely together to ensure that we send the right message out to our valued customers ensuring we enhance our customer experience at all times.”

For Camille Pereira, “We are excited to actually get the public on board with our 45th anniversary celebration. Our CEO has made sure that all the executives were aligned with the vision of embracing the future. It’s important to have a mix of creatives, especially the young ones, because they are creative in bringing the future forward. Forward thinking will ensure that we continue to embrace the future and chart ICBL forward to be the leading insurer in Barbados.”