Susan Kelly
“Have we ever just asked our customers what keeps them up at night, what concerns them about their health and well-being, and what they expect their insurance companies to actually do about that?”
Susan Kelly is Assistant Vice President of Customer Experience & Innovation at Wellabe and has built her CX approach around listening closely to what customers need. One question in particular has shaped much of her thinking: “What keeps them up at night?”
That thinking led to Wellabe’s Be Well Buddies program, which began with 25 customers paired with employees and has grown to roughly 1,000 participants. They are interviewed, surveyed, and brought into product development, giving Kelly’s team direct input before decisions are made.
Wellabe Rewards shows that model in practice. Customers helped shape its benefits, then beta-tested the platform while Kelly’s team observed how they used it. Their feedback has since pointed Wellabe toward wearable integration, more ways to stay active, and opportunities for social connection. Kelly describes the philosophy simply as “built by them, for them.”
Kelly’s work shows what listening looks like when it changes what a company builds. Customers help shape ideas, test them in practice, and influence what gets refined or scaled. For her, the voice of the customer is part of the decision-making process from the first question all the way through execution.
Wellabe is an insurance company focused on helping people protect their health and financial well-being through supplemental health, Medicare Supplement, final expense, and preneed funeral insurance. Founded in 1929 as American Republic Insurance Company, Wellabe now operates six insurance companies licensed across 49 states and the District of Columbia.