Esther Pichardo
Zurich (Spain)
Chief Customer Officer
At the Qorus–NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2025, Sabadell Seguros won bronze in the GenAI Innovation of the Year category for VoiceIQ—a GenAI-powered platform, made by Zurich, that analyzes retention calls to enhance agent–customer interactions, improve service practices, and strengthen customer loyalty while reducing churn. Esther Pichardo, Chief Customer Officer at Sabadell Seguros, tells us more about VoiceIQ and the impact of their win.
Can you introduce yourself and tell us more about your role at your company?
My name is Esther Pichardo, Chief Customer Officer at Sabadell Seguros. Together with my team, I lead initiatives to enhance the customer experience across all touchpoints and improve persistency. We focus on communication, engagement, and retention strategies, ensuring that every interaction is tailored to our customers’ needs. We also gather feedback to continuously improve our products and services, always aiming to build trust and deliver a positive experience for our policyholders.
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What made you most proud of the winning project? What was your greatest achievement in making it happen?
With AI retention powered by Voice IQ, we’ve transformed how we understand and act on customer conversations. Previously, we could only manually review about 3–4% of calls. Now, we analyze 100% of them in under a minute. This leap in capability has allowed us to make smarter, faster, and more personalized decisions. What makes me most proud is how this innovation has directly improved our retention success by nearly 20%, while also empowering our teams with actionable insights and, day by day, a much better understanding of our customers. It’s a testament to the power of technology, collaboration, and a shared vision for customer-centric innovation.
What is the most important thing you would tell someone considering embarking on a similar project?
Start with your customers. Identify the moments where AI can truly add value—whether it’s personalizing services, anticipating needs, or improving response times. Use real data and feedback to guide your design, and ensure the solution is transparent, secure, and easy to use. Most importantly, treat innovation as a journey. Test, learn, and iterate. The best ideas often come from listening to your customers and your team.
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What’s coming next for the project?
We’re already building on the momentum. VoiceIQ is now helping us optimize agent assignment, identify top-performing scripts, and apply behavioral economics techniques to improve retention arguments. We’re also using it to train lower-performing profiles and run A/B tests in our Retention Lab. The next phase will focus on scaling these capabilities and integrating them into more areas of the customer journey.
What would you say to companies that might consider entering the 2026 Insurance Innovation Awards?
Go for it! It’s a fantastic opportunity to showcase your work, gain visibility, and inspire your team. Focus your submission on the real-world impact of your project—how it solves a problem, creates value for customers or society, and what makes it truly innovative. Use data and examples to back it up, and don’t forget to highlight the people behind the success.
What does this award mean to you and your innovation team?
This award is a powerful recognition of our commitment to innovation and customer focus. It validates the hard work of everyone involved—from data scientists to frontline agents—and reinforces our belief in using technology to serve people better. It’s also a motivation to keep pushing boundaries and exploring new ways to deliver value. For us, it’s not just a trophy—it’s a milestone on our journey toward a more intelligent, human-centered way of working.
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