CEO Michael Cameron says keeping Suncorp’s 9 million customers happy is a key plank of his strategy.

The insurer has a customer retention rate of about 80%, meaning it loses about 1 million customers a year to rivals. Retaining clients within the Suncorp family is a priority.

“At the end of the day… we shouldn’t need more customers to be successful,” Mr Cameron told a business briefing in Sydney last week.

“What we need to do is keep our existing customers happy, and that is not a new concept.”

He cites Apple’s business model – in which the technology giant prioritises customer needs over low-price tactics – as something Suncorp intends to replicate.

“It’s not about price value. It’s what I actually use my Apple products for, and that’s what I call non-price value, which is something I get every day from my Apple phone.

“We actually want to have deeper relationships with our 9 million customers.

“We want to meet more of the needs of our 9 million customers, and that is how we are going to achieve growth.”

Companies that rely mainly on price to compete are most likely to fail, Mr Cameron says.

“If you don’t have non-price value, you’ve only got price value, it’s a slippery slope.

“Your business model is not sustainable and there are a thousand stories out there of industries and companies that have tried to compete on price and are no longer here.”