Archive for the 'insurance' Category

In order to optimise self service or channel shift, there are a couple of simple places to start in a “Best Service Is No Service” solution: a) identify the customers’ need in the customer language and b) just test the journey and its variations.

A good example yesterday, phoning my insurer to add a car. The web site was not simple but I could eventually find the tiny “already a customer” area amongst all the sales messages. There was then a specific option for “adding a car to an existing policy” with a specific number to use. So far so good – I think I’m getting somewhere.

Then I hit the the IVR on that number. Long standard message that’s unnecessary, followed by choice which is evidently the main menu off the main number: sales, service, claim. A complete waste of my time finding and using the option against my need.

I pick the option for an existing customer. I then get the long standard message repeated again ( so there probably used to be a routing from that number I was given to this point – now wrongly routed obviously). I then choose the one for existing customer over new quote pending and something else I don’t recall. I then choose the add a car option.

So the IVR was well enough designed, few levels, obvious choices. Hopeless standard messages.

I get answered by someone in customer services who eventually says he cant add vehicles and I need to ring the sales line and gives me an 800 number to try. I’ve used it not long ago and know they don’t like doing anything but new sales ( spot the incentive scheme in overdrive).

So I go round again with the “direct” number. I end up in the same place, this time with an offer of a transfer to sales. I question them – “so to get to the place to add a car to an existing policy I need to deny I’m a customer?” – “yes, that’s correct”. No other comment – he’s obviously numb. So I do it again( surely I pressed something wrong) and this time take the transfer and start the add a car process ( which finishes some 90 mins later – another story).

The moral of the story is whether direct lines, IVRs or a combination, you have to travel and test the journeys and fix the details. Otherwise its dumb. Good start on web site, no facility to do online, wrong number, ok IVR design, wrong routing, 3 calls and 1 very long experience at the end of it. A LOT of customer effort, and a lot of cost to that business. No wonder the price was incredibly steep at the end of it and the twitterati are slagging them off.

Customer effort, IVR, customer experience design, insurance, self service, success factors, the best service is no service | No Comments

5pm in an airport Sunday. Started work at 1.30 and in 3 hours work I have achieved very little.

a) Not started on real work tasks

b) Eventually downloaded all email attachments to prep a board meeting next week after some resends and an hour of waiting. Not had chance to read any.

c) Not booked car parking for next week – no log on ability on main screen and I know if I try to book it will reject me as my email address is already in use. So I have to book, fail, then log in and book again.   (Gatwick)

d) Not printed air tickets for tomorrow (Easyjet) as access failed after trying my passwords. So tried for new password and but email hasn’t come so I suspect it was a site error rather than password error. Trying later shows this to be so. Tried tweeting them as no route through help to resolve.

e) Not entered supplementary details for another air ticket ( Easyjet) for next week so I can print them – why does France want my passport details, its not Spain or Portugal – looks like a lazy process for flying abroad.

f) Tried at airport and failed to make macbook connect with phone as bluetooth connection is failing.

g) So couldn’t connect to personal bank and pay bills and make Jan 31 tax payment.

h) Cant connect to business bank and make authorisations that have been waiting since Friday as it kicks me off half way through

i) Cant update to blog – saved text til later.

j) Cant update weekly work and comms tasks in work wiki

h) Cant download and read the research papers I need for tomorrow.

i) Cant get into Twitter, Linked In and Facebook to check and update

I did manage to renew my travel insurance – well done Multitrip – an actual low touch service. Fished out email from a month ago. Clicked on link which had my sign on & password below it. Copied password and entered site. Chose renew. Checked all cover features ( and could have selected/deselected each feature. Entered card details. Renewed. Choose to print papers or just leave online. Very little customer effort and really well thought through.

Contrast this process from first direct to pay my tax bill this evening when I got home ( and yes I’m a fan and dont like slagging them off but heh its been a long day…) I make the payment online, it  insists I phone them to confirm after making payment on line. Fair enough but when I have to done so to confirm, they insist they ring me back tomorrow to do it again. I tell them thats dumb but if they insist if they do that then its after 1.30, on my mobile and with a good reason why. Two minutes later the same guy tries to get thro by mobile which has zilch signal at home. I call them again, pass security again and they say they still need to call me back again. They haven’t got my home number so I give it them. They phone me on it – so how secure is that.  I go through security again and get no more info than on the first call. Talk about dumb. I gave the poor lady feedback. Directly.

I sometimes feel my internet time is at a premium between meetings, at airports, interrupting just being at home. At home in Kent, or in County Down, in the office, or through my mobile – I rarely get a fast service anymore ( and yes, all checked, it isn’t the laptop or software). Last week I travelled all the way from London to Bristol without getting any service fast enough to download the last minute papers for the meeting I was going to – its no better by mobile.

So here I am another 75 mins later. And still not started work.

Customer effort, customer experience, first direct, insurance, self service | No Comments

Aviva’s Big Picture campaign is a great piece of marketing. Lots of the latest thinking in marketing brought together: emotion, engagement, story telling, charity, change the world, word of mouth.

You’re asked to send in your picture and story and if chosen you may get your picture on a large building somewhere in the world. And a £1 will get donated to a worthy cause – cue pictures of school children and third world underprivileged on behalf of Save The Children. The web site shows a huge picture on the side of Sea Containers House by the Thames – this picture strangely applies in Paris, Singapore and Warsaw, Delhi and Mumbai links as well – obviously didn’t get that far yet. Multiple full pages in the London papers I’ve noticed over the past few days too.

But when you look at it more carefully, is there something missing from this brilliant marketing campaign?

£250,000 in donations in total. against what must be tens of millions on the campaign? The balance of interest is evident.

Save The Children don’t mention the campaign on their site. Was anyone thinking about them, or just about Aviva?

The “rules” page says “This page has been created for a wide audience and although we’re an insurance company, that isn’t intended to be the focus here.” The language is interesting – audience vs community.

You can’t post comments at the website, only vetted posts. The Facebook page doesn’t let you comment unless you’ve posted a picture, neatly filtering the dialogue. Is there any genuine interaction going on here. The posts are sooo complimentary. The site is at pains to say its not about Aviva, But how can Aviva hear its customers talking to each other about the issues of Save The Children?

Maybe one or two features of great marketing are missing – transparency and a genuine interest beyond the brand

What would this campaign look like if Innocent or Ben & Jerry ran it? Give the tens of millions to the charity and spend £250k letting people make videos of what it does. Give the wall space to Save The Children and let them spread their message with a small cred for Innocent in the corner. Get the same impact without spending the millions and concentrate on making a better return from their pensioners rather than their shareholders?

Send me your challenging thoughts please

21st century marketing, Aviva, charity, honesty, insurance, viral marketing | 1 Comment

The insurance industry is a perennial favourite for generating stories about bad customer experiences. Particularly car insurance, and especially policy renewal.My wife’s car insurance is currently up for renewal. For many years we, like lots of others, had used and trusted a broker to secure us a ‘good deal’. This despite the fact that we moved 100 miles away from them more than 20 years ago!Again like lots of others, the Internet has now replaced the broker for our research, or at least to find confirmation that the renewal quotation we have received from the current provider is competitive. As a I work within customer experience, I naturally offered to do the work, and surf the web. As a marketer, I am also observant of smart advertising – and went straight to a price comparison website. On this occasion, comparethemarket.com.The process of entering all our details into the many pages was straightforward and I quickly got lots of quotes! A number of them were significantly cheaper than our current provider and I chose one that seemed particularly appropriate for our needs – by no means the cheapest but offering the better overall value.Satisfied with the experience, I was surprised to receive a phone call a few minutes later resulting from my visit to the website. The agent calling offered me the possibility of an even better deal, as a result of one insurer wanting to speak directly with me.My reaction to the opening part of the call was a mixture of shock and anger. Shock that what I understood to be the source of the best deals (the website) might not be – completely undermining the comparethemarket.com proposition. At that moment, the first reputation died.The anger resulted from feeling hoodwinked. I realised that somewhere along the way I would have agreed to being contacted – but it had not been obvious. And the speed at which it had happened so soon after visiting the website only compounded the sense of somehow being betrayed. The information is actually on the home page, only in very small font at the very bottom.Back to our story. The agent checked some details that I had entered in the web forms and then offered to put me through to this particular company that was so keen to have my business that it wanted to speak to me immediately. I declined when the name of the company was mentioned, as they have a poor reputation in my mind.Incredibly, and by an amazing coincidence, there was a second firm also ready and waiting to talk to me – Allen and Allen (I presume The A&A Group Ltd). By now, professional curiosity had kicked in and I was keen to see how the whole process would be concluded, and so I agreed. It was explained that there was no ‘cheesy’ or irritating hold music, but there was a long silence before a new voice came on the line.The silence was broken and news was not good. What the agent actually said was that no-one was available and  could they call back later? But what I heard was the death rattle of a second reputation. Incredible! Here I was, a living, breathing prospect on the point of purchase (a perfect opportunity you would have thought) and no-one was available? Except of course the guy who spoke to me no-one was available … only he couldn’t sell me insurance!Our passion is to help clients stop doing ‘dumb’ things to their customers – and believe me I was, by now, very very passionate … just not in a good way.When reflecting on the call, I realised that the original agent had not identified the company that they were calling from – I had assumed it was comparethemarket.com but a little more digging on the Internet suggests that it was probably LeadX Ltd (a comparethemarket.com trusted partner). Frankly, based on my experience, I wouldn’t trust them. Others seem to view them in the same negative light – a third reputation bites the dust.I realise that I am only a single customer and it is very unlikely that any of the companies are interested in my feedback,  but if anyone from comparethemarket.com wants to talk to me about this, then please get in touch. I know you know my phone number.  Killing three reputations in single phone call really is quite an achievement.17/7/09 update – just received a follow-up call from LeadX, so they obviously have not read this blog!

WOCAS, complaint, customer experience, dumb things, insurance | No Comments

Full marks to organic food delivery company and National Customer Service Awards winner Abel and Cole. When friends Marcus and Emma’s house burned down recently Abel and Cole were the only firm to exclaim “blimey that must be awful !”. The only ones to really recognise what it must have been like.

Norwich Union came up smiling too having sorted everything out quickly and easily.

The fire brigade came out of it pretty well having wrapped the downstairs in plastic before the water damage could do its worst

Hindisight to share?

• Luckily the laptop started after being rescued with most of the photos on it; dont leave your back up hard drive in the house as its likely to burn down with the laptop.
• Take photos of the interior of your house for insurance purposes
• Your possessions soon add up to more than you think

The irreplacable?
Old family photos without copies and the odd picture here and there

Abel and Cole, customer experience, insurance | No Comments