Customer Impact report 2007

A word from our Chief Executive…

At AEGON, we’re committed to delivering a better financial future for our customers. That includes everything from the products we offer to delivering a friendly and efficient service during every phone call. As part of AEGON, Guardian Financial Services has a key role to play in this.

We’re a strong supporter of Customer Impact and its goal of improving customer experience in our industry. We played an active role in developing the scheme and were one of the first companies to sign up, making a public commitment to put you, our customers, at the centre of our business.

Our 2007 report

Every year, we produce an open and honest report to keep you informed of our progress. This is our second report for Guardian Financial Services. In it, you’ll find details of:

• our performance against our customer priorities
• our 2007 customer highlights
• our thoughts on the year ahead

I hope you’ll find the report clear and open about where we’ve improved and where we’ve still got work to do. We were able to change some things quite quickly while others will take longer to complete - but because we’ll be reporting every year, you’ll be able to hold us to account for our progress.

Looking ahead, it’s clear that your needs will change and your expectations will continue to rise, and we know we need to keep getting better. So I’ve appointed a new Director with specific responsibility for improving AEGON’s customer experience.

In my introduction to the first Customer Impact report last year, I said that successful companies are those that truly understand their customers and respond to their needs. We’re taking steps to make this a reality in AEGON, and Customer Impact is a valuable way for us to share our progress with you as we move forward.

As always, we’re keen to hear your views. If you have any thoughts on this report, or on AEGON in general, please get in touch at customer@aegon.co.uk

Otto Thoresen
Chief Executive
AEGON UK
June 2008

In our full report, we've included more specific details of what we've been doing and will do over the next year to improve our performance in all these key areas.