Customer experience: Cigna creates brand loyalty and lead to competitive advantage

Khaleej times exclusively interviewed Lianne Braganza-D’Sylva, chief marketing officer at Cigna Insurance Middle East and Africa as part of the CX Evolve 2022 thought-leader interview series

By Staff Report

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Lianne Braganza-D’Sylva, chief marketing officer at Cigna Insurance Middle East and Africa
Lianne Braganza-D’Sylva, chief marketing officer at Cigna Insurance Middle East and Africa

Published: Mon 1 Aug 2022, 3:39 PM

Last updated: Mon 1 Aug 2022, 3:40 PM

Khaleej Times is all set to host the launch edition of the CX Evolve 2022 Summit, scheduled on August 25 in Dubai. The summit will engage new strategies, case studies, in-depth panel discussions, and joint strategies that could be implemented towards creating a frictionless CX Journey. Avaya sponsors CX Evolve 2022 as the Technology Partner, Oracle, Contentsquare, and Majorel are the Gold sponsors, and Zoho has partnered as the silver partner.

Khaleej times exclusively interviewed Lianne Braganza-D’Sylva, chief marketing officer at Cigna Insurance Middle East and Africa as part of the CX Evolve 2022 thought-leader interview series. As chief marketing officer for Cigna Insurance Middle East & Africa, Lianne is responsible for reinforcing Cigna’s customer-centric approach and market growth through the development and execution of strategic brand marketing, digital initiatives and the Customer Experience program across the Middle East and Africa.


Based in Dubai, Lianne is an integral part of Cigna’s executive team and has played a pivotal role in setting up the marketing function, which has elevated the Cigna brand and maintained it as the company went through an acquisition. Lianne is a strong advocate of Cigna’s core mission to actively contribute to the sustained well-being of individuals and societies around the world.

To this, she adds a personal commitment to furthering the cause of diversity in the workplace. She sponsors the Women Influencing Networking chapter in the MEA region. The resource group builds support networks, provides mentoring, and finds resources to help women advance in the workplace.


What has been your most significant CX achievement in recent months?

We have been able to build an end-to-end customer journey map and conducted customer research to build importance and satisfaction scores for each touchpoint in the end-to-end customer journey map while at the same time organising internal workshops to align relevant business stakeholders with a CX improvement vision. While doing the same, we ensured that the leadership team was aligned to the CX mission resulting in the introduction of the CX function across Cigna’s International Markets portfolio. Another achievement has been providing customers with the ability to access free doctor consultations via their Cigna self-service applications.

The top challenge that keeps you awake at night, and how are you solving that?

These challenges include how we keep facilitating continuous and meaningful tracking that highlights how the business is performing against our CX vision. How do we keep bringing together data crumbs from multiple silos to communicate a coordinated CX narrative and score? Simultaneously, finding the right balance between CX and digital security ensures customers feel secure while enjoying the best possible experience when engaging with the brand. As we progress, we need to deliver smaller incremental CX wins while challenging ourselves to ‘think big’ and deploy larger CX initiatives that positively change or largely influence how customers engage with us. The constant pursuit is the challenge of leveraging the AGILE delivery philosophy without losing sight of the big picture and monitoring what moves the needle.

Over the past years, the CX landscape has dramatically changed. How much has it changed in your perspective?

The CX landscape has witnessed changes in a big way. In the rapidly evolving global environment, which is always connected and hyper-localised, the trust between consumers and the brand is beyond sacred. As a leading brand with a global presence, it has become imperative to be more proactive: backed by data-driven predictive insights to better control and manage CX, which would create brand loyalty and lead to the much-required competitive advantage. Delivering customer value has become the key in this hyper-digital world.

How do you see the future of CX, and what challenges need to be solved to reach that “elusive” next level in CX?

The shift from CX to BX [Business of Experience] is an interesting trend to watch out for. The BX offers a more holistic, customer-centric approach: This means shifting away from trying to sell products people do not want to analysing data to fulfil unmet needs. BX is about using that customer data to reinvent a product or service and create something meaningful – solving human needs around a purpose. Once the data crumbs are pulled together to clearly highlight what the customers want, CX will start influencing product strategies. The challenges that need to be solved would be to respond to the list of unmet needs with agility.

Is CX being overrated or not getting the attention it truly deserves? Why? What should organizations do or instead not do towards getting better RoI?

CX is a new function that requires time to prove its value in corporate boardrooms. In cases where it may not be getting enough attention, organisations might want to consider articulating the ‘CX problem’ via internal data crumbs and bringing the voice of the customer to leadership teams. Ineffective tracking/analyses could mean leaders are left in the dark regarding customer feedback. Long-term intervention with consistent tracking could prove the value of CX via improved referral-based new business creation and retention.

What is your message to fellow CX community?

The perspective has rapidly progressed from a narrow customer service focus to creating experiences that matter and ultimately add to the bottom line. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for better experiences, driving brand loyalty and creating a competitive advantage. In short, CX has become the differentiating factor. Ultimately knowing your customers, investing in long-term relationships, and providing tailored, customised experiences along the customer journey by combining cloud experiences with artificial intelligence have become imperative to succeed.

— business@khaleejtimes.com


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