The Budd Blog

Posted by: Peter Massey | 15.05.2013

It’s an open secret that colleagues Bill Price (US) and David Jaffe (Aus) have been preparing “book 2″. Over the last 6 months Bill has presented some aspects of the work in progress under a working title of “Back to the Customer Future” based on extensive interviews and research in several countries.

Last week at the Planning Forum event Bill and I shared a conversation with the audience about the heart of book 2, and the linkages to book 1 – The Best Service Is No Service.

The Best Service Is No Service was launched in April 2008 and, with thanks to Alan Mitchell, was covered that week by the FT; subsequently by most of the serious papers, industry and trade press.

In New Orleans in March at LimeBridge’s 20th global gathering, we discussed the relationship between the hypotheses for book 2 which David and Bill have developed. Subsequently Stephan Pucker proposed an excellent explanation, bringing together the principles and drivers in the 2 books. Book 1 being about what to do and book 2 being about the experiences created.

Book 1, The Best Service Is No Service, has 7 principles – in fact activities that one undertakes. Understand demand, eliminate dumb contacts, engaging self service, be proactive, make it easy to contact, listen and act, own the actions across the company and thereby deliver great experiences

Book 1 stays at the level of principles, showing just one or two hints of the dashboards, processes and tools we use to implement the “ecosystem” which underpins the Amazon growth model. It doesn’t go into the detail of implementation, but is rich in examples and cases to illustrate each principle, giving good and bad examples. At its core is the reduction of unnecessary customer effort and the growth and cost advantages this provides.

Book 2 comes in from a different angle. What are the drivers and experiences which customers and colleagues want to have if they are to feel that service & sales experience was brilliant? It is developing the theme in the last chapter of book 1. And it does this by explaining the feelings that lead to customer happiness. And indeed to colleague happiness. In fact any kind of relationship.

At the conference we explored these 7 drivers, first by giving typical examples and then by asking the audience to test the 7 drivers against their home relationships, their work relationships and lastly their customer relationships. The top level of these 7 drivers is shown below. There’s a more detailed mind map which my colleague Ian Morton developed available on request.

What was interesting was that people could apply each principle to each situation rapidly and there weren’t any gaps identified (and if you spot any do get in touch!). What people liked most was the simplicity – it was instantly possible to understand whether or not the experience existed.

What is less simple is what to do about it if it isn’t. In practice leading back to establishing the right ecosystem through the work in The Best Service Is No Service with systematic listening and cross functional action.

So why the working title of “Back to the Customer Future”?

Everyone can quote examples of corner shops with excellent sales and service experience. The issue is scaling that experience as companies grow. Ever since Taylor wrote about the industrialisation of work at the turn of the last century, braking down work into functions has been the norm. In fact it was a product of its time, when the north eastern states were massive importers of people, who didn’t yet speak good English and therefore industrialisation or de-humanising work was appropriate. Unfortunately it has spread and stuck ever since. What legendary businesses do is recreate that corner shop feeling at scale by joining up their sensing, listening, understanding and action into an active ecosystem that whilst complex in itself, simplifies what people concentrate on at work and simplifies what customers experience.

You can see more and join the wait list at http://www.budd.uk.com/TheBestServiceIsNoService-Book2.html

Best Service Is No Service, Customer effort, agent experience, customer experience, events, fast+simple, the best service is no service | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 13.05.2013

Seems like yesterday I was at the Planning Forum’s annual conference, now a major event with 600 people, 3 streams and a frustration of great things you have to miss when you’re presenting! In fact it was the week before but many things are still fresh in the mind.

If you were there – what’s stuck with you? (Please add your thoughts below)

I had the pleasure of developing two trains of thought with the audience: the first with Bill Price for the new book which I’ll cover in another blog. And the second for our third running of the Stop Doing Dumb Things Unconference with Jonathan Wilson. Alas Doug Shaw couldn’t make this one. We didn’t open this one wide open but kept it to a subset of the PPF audience.

We started with a wide open “what do you want to talk about” and developed a “world cafe” from there. Covering off a wide range of topics and groups, our objective was to let people experience a different kind of work conversation. One where they said what the thought, listened openly and were not time limited. Broadly the topic was engagement, something which ran as a theme throughout the conference as a whole.

The group conversations developed and people drew and shared their own conclusions rounding off with some paired conversations on “so what?”

As ever the visual minutes surprised and took everyone’s attention at the end, before being up to the main lobby for a wider audience to see. Word of mouth and a striking wall spread the word and the curiosity of “what’s an unconference?” deepened.

People who took part were unanimous that it was an outstanding experience. Just shows how powerful creating great conversations can be! Get in touch if you want to know more.

And here are the visual minutes in their new home down at DAS – Anita volunteered to continue the conversation back at the ranch!

customer experience, dumb things, events, listening, people, well-being | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 13.04.2013

I make no apologies for printing this Amazon shareholder communication in full. It’s rich in its simplicity on short v long term decision making and its investment in customers ahead of any need to do so. And fascinating to see the consistency with the 1997 communication shown below it.

To our shareowners:

As regular readers of this letter will know, our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best competitors. We don’t take a view on which of these approaches is more likely to maximize business success. There are pros and cons to both and many examples of highly successful competitor-focused companies. We do work to pay attention to competitors and be inspired by them, but it is a fact that the customer-centric way is at this point a defining element of our culture.

One advantage – perhaps a somewhat subtle one – of a customer-driven focus is that it aids a certain type of proactivity. When we’re at our best, we don’t wait for external pressures. We are internally driven to improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to. We lower prices and increase value for customers before we have to. We invent before we have to. These investments are motivated by customer focus rather than by reaction to competition. We think this approach earns more trust with customers and drives rapid improvements in customer experience – importantly – even in those areas where we are already the leader.

“Thank you. Every time I see that white paper on the front page of Amazon, I know that I’m about to get more for my money than I thought I would. I signed up for Prime for the shipping, yet now I get movies, and TV and books. You keep adding more, but not charging more. So thanks again for the additions.” We now have more than 15 million items in Prime, up 15x since we launched in 2005. Prime Instant Video selection tripled in just over a year to more than 38,000 movies and TV episodes. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library has also more than tripled to over 300,000 books, including an investment of millions of dollars to make the entire Harry Potter series available as part of that selection. We didn’t “have to” make these improvements in Prime. We did so proactively. A related investment – a major, multi-year one – is Fulfillment by Amazon. FBA gives third-party sellers the option of warehousing their inventory alongside ours in our fulfillment center network. It has been a game changer for our seller customers because their items become eligible for Prime benefits, which drives their sales, while at the same time benefitting consumers with additional Prime selection.

We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers. One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said, “We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon.” Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: “Amazon ‘noticed that I experienced poor video playback…’ And they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow…Talk about putting customers first.”

When you pre-order something from Amazon, we guarantee you the lowest price offered by us between your order time and the end of the day of the release date. “I just received notice of a $5 refund to my credit card for pre-order price protection. . . What a great way to do business! Thank you very much for your fair and honest dealings.” Most customers are too busy themselves to monitor the price of an item after they pre-order it, and our policy could be to require the customer to contact us and ask for the refund. Doing it proactively is more expensive for us, but it also surprises, delights, and earns trust.

We also have authors as customers. Amazon Publishing has just announced it will start paying authors their royalties monthly, sixty days in arrears. The industry standard is twice a year, and that has been the standard for a long time. Yet when we interview authors as customers, infrequent payment is a major dissatisfier. Imagine how you’d like it if you were paid twice a year. There isn’t competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we’re proactively doing so. By the way – though the research was taxing, I struggled through and am happy to report that I recently saw many Kindles in use at a Florida beach. There are five generations of Kindle, and I believe I saw every generation in use except for the first. Our business approach is to sell premium hardware at roughly breakeven prices. We want to make money when people use our devices – not when people buy our devices. We think this aligns us better with customers. For example, we don’t need our customers to be on the upgrade treadmill. We can be very happy to see people still using four-year-old Kindles!

I can keep going – Kindle Fire’s FreeTime, our customer service Andon Cord, Amazon MP3’s AutoRip – but will finish up with a very clear example of internally driven motivation: Amazon Web Services. In 2012, AWS announced 159 new features and services. We’ve reduced AWS prices 27 times since launching 7 years ago, added enterprise service support enhancements, and created innovative tools to help customers be more efficient. AWS Trusted Advisor monitors customer configurations, compares them to known best practices, and then notifies customers where opportunities exist to improve performance, enhance security, or save money. Yes, we are actively telling customers they’re paying us more than they need to. In the last 90 days, customers have saved millions of dollars through Trusted Advisor, and the service is only getting started. All of this progress comes in the context of AWS being the widely recognized leader in its area – a situation where you might worry that external motivation could fail. On the other hand, internal motivation – the drive to get the customer to say “Wow” – keeps the pace of innovation fast.

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Our heavy investments in Prime, AWS, Kindle, digital media, and customer experience in general strike some as too generous, shareholder indifferent, or even at odds with being a for-profit company. “Amazon, as far as I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers,” writes one outside observer. But I don’t think so. To me, trying to dole out improvements in a just-in-time fashion would be too clever by half. It would be risky in a world as fast-moving as the one we all live in. More fundamentally, I think long-term thinking squares the circle. Proactively delighting customers earns trust, which earns more business from those customers, even in new business arenas. Take a long-term view, and the interests of customers and shareholders align.

As I write this, our recent stock performance has been positive, but we constantly remind ourselves of an important point – as I frequently quote famed investor Benjamin Graham in our employee all-hands meetings – “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” We don’t celebrate a 10% increase in the stock price like we celebrate excellent customer experience. We aren’t 10% smarter when that happens and conversely aren’t 10% dumber when the stock goes the other way. We want to be weighed, and we’re always working to build a heavier company.

As proud as I am of our progress and our inventions, I know that we will make mistakes along the way – some will be self-inflicted, some will be served up by smart and hard-working competitors. Our passion for pioneering will drive us to explore narrow passages, and, unavoidably, many will turn out to be blind alleys. But – with a bit of good fortune – there will also be a few that open up into broad avenues.

I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this large team of outstanding missionaries who value our customers as much as I do and who demonstrate that every day with their hard work. As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. Our approach remains the same, and it’s still Day 1.

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1997 LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS

(Reprinted from the 1997 Annual Report)

To our shareholders:

Amazon.com passed many milestones in 1997: by year-end, we had served more than 1.5 million customers, yielding 838% revenue growth to $147.8 million, and extended our market leadership despite aggressive competitive entry.

But this is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established and large markets.

We have a window of opportunity as larger players marshal the resources to pursue the online opportunity and as customers, new to purchasing online, are receptive to forming new relationships. The competitive landscape has continued to evolve at a fast pace. Many large players have moved online with credible offerings and have devoted substantial energy and resources to building awareness, traffic, and sales. Our goal is to move quickly to solidify and extend our current position while we begin to pursue the online commerce opportunities in other areas. We see substantial opportunity in the large markets we are targeting. This strategy is not without risk: it requires serious investment and crisp execution against established franchise leaders.

It’s All About the Long Term

We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be the shareholder value we create over the long term. This value will be a direct result of our ability to extend and solidify our current market leadership position. The stronger our market leadership, the more powerful our economic model. Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.

Our decisions have consistently reflected this focus. We first measure ourselves in terms of the metrics most indicative of our market leadership: customer and revenue growth, the degree to which our customers continue to purchase from us on a repeat basis, and the strength of our brand. We have invested and will continue to invest aggressively to expand and leverage our customer base, brand, and infrastructure as we move to establish an enduring franchise.

Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies. Accordingly, we want to share with you our fundamental management and decision-making approach so that you, our shareholders, may confirm that it is consistent with your investment philosophy:

•

We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.

•

We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.

•

We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in those that work best. We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures.

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•

We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a sufficient probability of gaining market leadership advantages. Some of these investments will pay off, others will not, and we will have learned another valuable lesson in either case.

•

When forced to choose between optimizing the appearance of our GAAP accounting and maximizing the present value of future cash flows, we’ll take the cash flows.

•

We will share our strategic thought processes with you when we make bold choices (to the extent competitive pressures allow), so that you may evaluate for yourselves whether we are making rational long-term leadership investments.

•

We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture, particularly in a business incurring net losses.

•

We will balance our focus on growth with emphasis on long-term profitability and capital management. At this stage, we choose to prioritize growth because we believe that scale is central to achieving the potential of our business model.

•

We will continue to focus on hiring and retaining versatile and talented employees, and continue to weight their compensation to stock options rather than cash. We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner.

We aren’t so bold as to claim that the above is the “right” investment philosophy, but it’s ours, and we would be remiss if we weren’t clear in the approach we have taken and will continue to take.

With this foundation, we would like to turn to a review of our business focus, our progress in 1997, and our outlook for the future.

Obsess Over Customers

From the beginning, our focus has been on offering our customers compelling value. We realized that the Web was, and still is, the World Wide Wait. Therefore, we set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way, and began serving them with books. We brought them much more selection than was possible in a physical store (our store would now occupy 6 football fields), and presented it in a useful, easy-to-search, and easy-to-browse format in a store open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We maintained a dogged focus on improving the shopping experience, and in 1997 substantially enhanced our store. We now offer customers gift certificates, 1-Click^SM shopping, and vastly more reviews, content, browsing options, and recommendation features. We dramatically lowered prices, further increasing customer value. Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool we have, and we are grateful for the trust our customers have placed in us. Repeat purchases and word of mouth have combined to make Amazon.com the market leader in online bookselling.

By many measures, Amazon.com came a long way in 1997:

•

Sales grew from $15.7 million in 1996 to $147.8 million – an 838% increase.

•

Cumulative customer accounts grew from 180,000 to 1,510,000 – a 738% increase.

•

The percentage of orders from repeat customers grew from over 46% in the fourth quarter of 1996 to over 58% in the same period in 1997.

•

In terms of audience reach, per Media Metrix, our Web site went from a rank of 90th to within the top 20.

•

We established long-term relationships with many important strategic partners, including America Online, Yahoo!, Excite, Netscape, GeoCities, AltaVista, @Home, and Prodigy.

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Infrastructure

During 1997, we worked hard to expand our business infrastructure to support these greatly increased traffic, sales, and service levels:

•

Amazon.com’s employee base grew from 158 to 614, and we significantly strengthened our management team.

•

Distribution center capacity grew from 50,000 to 285,000 square feet, including a 70% expansion of our Seattle facilities and the launch of our second distribution center in Delaware in November.

•

Inventories rose to over 200,000 titles at year-end, enabling us to improve availability for our customers.

•

Our cash and investment balances at year-end were $125 million, thanks to our initial public offering in May 1997 and our $75 million loan, affording us substantial strategic flexibility.

Our Employees

The past year’s success is the product of a talented, smart, hard-working group, and I take great pride in being a part of this team. Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com’s success.

It’s not easy to work here (when I interview people I tell them, “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can’t choose two out of three”), but we are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren’t meant to be easy. We are incredibly fortunate to have this group of dedicated employees whose sacrifices and passion build Amazon.com.

Goals for 1998

We are still in the early stages of learning how to bring new value to our customers through Internet commerce and merchandising. Our goal remains to continue to solidify and extend our brand and customer base. This requires sustained investment in systems and infrastructure to support outstanding customer convenience, selection, and service while we grow. We are planning to add music to our product offering, and over time we believe that other products may be prudent investments. We also believe there are significant opportunities to better serve our customers overseas, such as reducing delivery times and better tailoring the customer experience. To be certain, a big part of the challenge for us will lie not in finding new ways to expand our business, but in prioritizing our investments.

We now know vastly more about online commerce than when Amazon.com was founded, but we still have so much to learn. Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency. The challenges and hurdles we will face to make our long-term vision for Amazon.com a reality are several: aggressive, capable, well-funded competition; considerable growth challenges and execution risk; the risks of product and geographic expansion; and the need for large continuing investments to meet an expanding market opportunity. However, as we’ve long said, online bookselling, and online commerce in general, should prove to be a very large market, and it’s likely that a number of companies will see significant benefit. We feel good about what we’ve done, and even more excited about what we want to do.

1997 was indeed an incredible year. We at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.

Jeffrey P. Bezos

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon, Leadership, culture, customer experience, future, learning, retail, the best service is no service | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 10.04.2013

I got a letter in the post this morning from a windscreen company. It politely told me that Admiral had refused to pay them because they (Admiral) said my insurance  cover didn’t cover windscreens.

So a first – asking me the customer to solve the payment problem between two businesses.

Given the company had been referred by Admiral and the guy had checked my insurance document before doing the work, I was sceptical. I found the old policy – I left Admiral after all the customer effort involved in dealing with them and their errors ( see previous blogs). Needless to say I was covered.

I called Admiral and gave them the details and asked them to sort it out with their supplier. I emailed the windscreen company to tell them Admiral were responsible and sorting it out –  cc’ing the deputy head of claims and asking that I don’t get to do the work going forward!

Hopefully I won’t……

Customer effort, customer experience, dumb things, insurance | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 10.04.2013

In a postscript to the last blog, I went away to Croatia the week after Easter. After a few days I thought my phone was quiet and checked – it wasn’t working.

Same story as New Orleans but without the warning texts saying it was going to happen. Borrowed phone and at least this time they removed the barring. Still trying to say I’m not cut off.

End of the line.

Customer effort, customer experience, telco | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 19.03.2013

Nice dumb things story from 3 today.

I’m in New Orleans at our 20th LimeBridge gathering. Very pleasant I’ve got to say. Someone asked me this morning if it was business or pleasure. Sharing latest practices with 70 degrees and live music on the side? Gotta be both!

I was walking to the lift when two things happened. I got a text from “3Limit” saying I was approaching my credit limit and offering me a number to call. With a vague memory of last year, I tried the number but didn’t get through the IVR before my wife phoned. Then the call got cut. I rang back. No calls possible – I guessed what had happened and tried to text to tell her. It bounced.

Hmmm. So I try the 3 number. No calls possible. Catch 22!

So borrowing a colleague’s phone I try the number and into the IVR. It’s a Samsung but easy to use – but it wont take 10 digits into the IVR without blanking the screen – a wacky one and I’m not sure why. Eventually I fail enough to get a opt out offer and speak to someone.

“How can I help you?” – “You cut me off”

ID done, they tell me I’ve not been “cut off”, only that “chargeable services have been suspended”……. light blue touch paper and stand back.

To cut a long story short, I’d spent £50 and my direct debit is due tomorrow. So they cut me off. Thanks guys. That’s a great way to get me to increase revenue with your company and to renew in 4 months time.

I have a vague memory of going to the effort of talking to 3 about it a year ago, in fact getting through to the credit head eventually. Wasted my time. Shan’t bother this time.

dumb things, telco | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 28.02.2013

Great example here of typical multichannel in a vacuum – flybe with their new onphone check in (ah but read the end bit…..it involves 3 too)

Announcements on the plane to tell you can use it next time you book online

Default option in online booking ( that’s a whole other story of just web usability and design!)

Text received the day before with information ( see pic from Weds)

Click the link and it takes you to an iphone app. But there’s no check in option. Best you can do is “view booking”.

That leads you to a log in so you have to enter your details. You cant copy the reference number as the iphone only lets you copy whole texts. So you have to flick screens, remember correctly and enter 3 fields ( hard to do driving to the airport!! ).

That then takes you to your booking, which isn’t interactive and doesn’t do anything. Dead end. You cant get your QR code on your phone to use at check in.

What happens next is interesting.

You go to the self service check in at the airport – last time it rejected me as checked in already and I had to go to the manual desk. This time they’ve added a facility that says I’m already checked in and do I want a replica print out. Yes. So they obviously listened to the feedback from the check in staff that said the text process didn’t work. But didn’t go to root cause.

Automating a problem isn’t the same as removing the customer effort.

So I went to the flybe desk and showed how the process didn’t work. Talk to the hand – we can give you customer services number. No thanks, it’s your problem, I don’t want to make it mine.

Listening is the key to multichannel design. It’s never finished and can always be improved.

And some testing upfront might have been an obvious thing to do.

Postscript: Ah not so simples…… another  text dated Weds for the flight Thursday arrived Thursday night, along with 4 voicemails from Weds. This text goes straight to the QR code, like the ones I get from Aer Lingus. It turns out the above was not the designed experience. So the feedback should really be aimed at my telco provider 3 !

Interestingly looking back at previous flights I’m getting two texts. The one without a link that works from “flybecom” and one that does work from “flybe” – so still some tidying up to do in the process. As well as training ground staff what the text/email QR process should look like

Customer effort, airlines, customer experience, customer experience design, dumb things, feedback, multichannel, self service, telco | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 21.01.2013

I was struck by two examples of customer experience surveys today. I don’t answer them anymore. Even professionally interested, it’s just an endless stream of requests – too much effort for anyone.

One was from Southern Water and “4Delivery Ltd”. Apparently they’ve been upgrading a sewage works some half a mile away. They are thanking me for my “cooperation” and hoping they have “met my expectations”…… And would I fill in and post the questionnaire with such questions as “I feft safe and not at risk of injury at all times during the works” (that I never saw) . Oh please!

The second was an email from my Land Rover garage Harwoods. They’re less interested in my feedback than my score – I suspect it affects their bonus!

“I would like to hear from you with regards to your vehicles recent visit to our service department, to confirm the level of service was all to an Outstanding level, and also that you are not experiencing any issues or problems since the visit.  If you could confirm this to me either by email or by calling me on 01732 353637 I would be most grateful.

You may receive an online questionnaire from Land Rover , it is very important to me that every customer can find the time to complete and send back, as the results reflect directly on our staff. It is hoped that your Overall opinion of Harwoods is ‘Outstanding’ and that you ‘definitely would’ recommend us.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for your time and cooperation”

Enough said. I gave them feedback, not a score. The Viz consultancy must have been at work in Land Rover’s customer experience department….

Customer effort, automotive, customer experience, feedback | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 21.01.2013

I can sense you falling asleep already…. but couldnt leave the story unfinished. Just going back to the proof of no claims discounts from Admiral (NCD).

I’ve been away for a few days and come back to a pile of post – ah it must be those NCDs. Doh – 5 separate envelopes! But on opening – no proof of NCDs. Just 5 identical letters asking a I confirm in writing I really do want to cancel and to send back my policy docs. I call and tell them to stop sending me post, and to check they really did cancel it ( see previous post about trust and credit cards) . Yes it’s cancelled. Good that’s that – dont expect me to write and dont write to me!

But on finding the policy docs, I notice they contain the NCD proof letter anyway – why didnt anyone say that earier in the process. And of course there were 3 out of 4! Aaargh. So off the 4 policy docs have gone in the post – to Axa.

Best Service Is No Service, Customer effort, Uncategorized, contact rate, customer experience, insurance | No Comments

Posted by: Peter Massey | 20.01.2013

So having bought  from Axa last week, how’s it going?

Of course first thing you have to do is confirm to them the no claims discount (NCD)- see requests to Admiral in the last but one blog “We appreciate your call”. Recap: they say they can only do by post, not email. They email them. But only 3 out of 4 of the NCDs. I call. In the post. Waiting.

My first interaction with Axa is to do what they say on the self serve portal and email them the NCD that I did receive by email.

It was rejected, an email coming back:…..”Thank you for your e-mail. We require your proof of No Claims Discount on a letter headed document……”

To which I emailed: “Why do you say on your portal to email the proof of NCD then and provide the email address !! ?”

I then phoned Admiral to get it posted (see previous posts).

And they today sent a chaser email today for my NCD. It offers I can send it by email:

“What you need to send us
>
> Your proof of No Claims Discount must:
> show your name as policyholder
> show the number of years No Claims Discount you are entitled to
> show the expiry date of your previous policy
> be issued by your previous insurer in England, Scotland or Wales
> be earned on a private car, company car, fleet vehicle, motorbike or mobility vehicle
> be less than 24 months old if earned on a private car
> be earned on a full UK or EU licence
> not be currently used to insure another vehicle
> You must be over 22 if you have earned No Claims Discount on a motorbike. If you have earned your No Claims Discount driving a company car, your proof must be on your company letterhead, signed by a director of the company or the fleet manager, and be less than 6 months old.
>
> The most simple way to prove your No Claims Discount is to send us your renewal invitation from your previous insurer – providing it meets all the above criteria.
>
> Alternatively, you can ask your previous insurer to send you proof of the No Claims Discount you have earned. This is a service they are obliged to provide for you.”

So I emailed that they’d rejected it by email and they replied: “……You can send your proof in by scanning the document and e-mailing it toncd@axainsurance.com,…..” No mention of logos and pdfs.

The point: the contact rate per policy has already risen to 6 contacts for them, 7 for me. This on a self serve policy.

It’s just to do with an eye for the detail – all this could have been avoided if the website actually says what is needed.

Hmmmm – who owns making the linkage between analysing the contacts around NCD and what it says on the site? Are they categorising incoming emails, does that categorisation allow them to see what’s happening, can they detect the snowball forming and can they identify and fix the root cause: a simple statement in the screen shots above and clarity of what emailing means to a customer vs what it means to them.

You cant run contact separately from online anymore.

Best Service Is No Service, Customer effort, customer experience, insurance | No Comments