This is a long detailed blog for people in the insurance industry – health warning: you’ll be bored otherwise. The messages are:

1) Customer effort, both physical and emotional, is in the detail of the journey, hence I’m sharing this as feedback not criticism.

2) It may be complex to do but marketing promise has to be met with operational detail that makes it simple for customers.

3) Sales and service go hand in hand when buying decisions are made.

4) In this category, you can’t make up for the price of the product with so-so service. And no one in this category offers Amazon like service.

5) Most of the customer effort is systematic to the company rather than the workforce.

Please share  your thoughts & comments. I must see if we can do one of our self serve audits on this sector this quarter

Stardate 15111. Trying to give someone my insurance business through last week – multiple cars by 17th Jan. Should it be so hard?

I’m only fishing because NFU are incompetent at claims handling. 1 year later, a car park prang which witnesses reported is not resolved – the issue being a very poor lack of process. Made worse by duplicate, uncoordinated process with legal cover company DAS. So I don’t feel I should reward their excellent sales office by being loyal. Not after their initial quote was way over the odds – seemed like a try on, but was actually just poor details. It came down by 40% on asking. Still 40% over the price of a competitor quote.

I know Aviva have started doing multi car so I tried their site. There’s a discount, but no website process so I moved on. Too hard to do one car at a time.

Admiral are known for introducing multi car and have a website that handles multi car so I tried that. Entry was easy. Alas it didn’t work completely so I had to call earlier in the week. I got a handsome quote but the office was shutting at 9pm so he couldn’t close the deal. Good follow up email linking me back to my quote. But next day the website didn’t work again. So I called. I learned it doesn’t show you details of the quote anyway eg what the excess is. The agent couldnt access my quote because the last person hadnt logged out if it. Long hold whilst supervisor is asked to get other person out of it. No success. We give up – he cant do anything. They follow up by phone next day, I’m busy. I try website again – still doesnt work. I phone. Last agent didnt log out – I wait, I hang up. So I’m still looking. Can I bear ringing them again?

Stardate 14111. OK its Friday so I better sort it out. I mailed my concierge service the request on Weds as they have a great broker they rate – no contact centres they say. I call the broker contact – on voice mail. No response so I’d better start looking.

So I thought of people I know. LV have a good reputation for low contact rate and low customer effort inside the industry. I went to the website and there’s no multi-car function so rather than enter all the cars one at a time and then see if they could link them I phoned. Very short IVR routing, straight to the point. Very poor, long winded regulatory message to follow. Here’s the conversation:

“How can I help?” “Your web site doesnt seem to have a multi car function?”

“No but I can help – what car do you want to insure?” “As I said its multi car.”

“Sorry yes. We don’t do muti car. (Silence) “. I give up.

Very low effort. No business prevention officer. Speedy. Must get onto the next caller who may want to buy something. Doh !

Ok, next – Just tried the RAC site. No multi car process. Good FAQ showed me I can insure more than one car but one policy each. So that would be 4 quotes and 4 sets of paperwork. Looked for phone to call anyway but can’t find one.

OK, next – try the Meerkats – Comparethemarket.com – It will only take me into a single car quote and there’s no search function to see if they do anything else. Not so simples.

Ok, run out of people I know well, so I google “multi car insurance”. Looks like DirectLine and Moneysupermarket are the next stops. The Directline link page explains a discount but the site looks like a one car process. Ah well I’ll try. Start with the first car. Apart from not letting me say my phone number is a mobile ( it has to be day/evening/ talk type) the input is pretty slick. What’s different is they have a claim category for outstanding no fault claims which is handy. But then….What’s this you have to have a tracking device otherwise you cant get a quote. I give up. Haven’t even started on the other cars. Why didn’t you say that at the start!! Not so “direct” and no chance of carrying that route on.

Ok, next – Moneysupermarket from Google. The google link page explains multi car but has no facility for doing it!! I go to the car insurance page and start. Different – car first. No multi car process. I start but it tells me to enter a valid reg number – I have derrrr. I try again with capitals and spaces and it works. Scarily it tells me my car valuation – which is rubbishly low. 10 mins later and I’ve got the single quote done but there is no feature for multiquote in the process and all I get is back where I started – LV is the lowest quote. And I am really low energy now and not going to work though this for 3 more cars.

In this middlle of all this an Alex Vantwout of DAS calls to talk about the outstanding claim they’re just picking up after 6 months. He gets an ear bashing as he can’t hear feedback and it reminds me why I’m bothering to look around and not just defaulting to NFU.

Come on Peter – sort it now – busy weekend and week ahead so there wont be time to sort it out.

So on the saga ran in the car through the afternoon – whoops that reminds me, I forgot to try Saga. The broker goes through all the details by phone. Tries to reach me, the concierge tries to reach me. I eventually get back to them but they still dont have a quote but say they can get one Monday afternoon – but insurance runs out at noon Monday so I suggest earlier.

I tried Admiral again from the car. I guess & press 1, 1, to avoid endless messages and it works. The quote isn’t locked out this time and I get the answers to questions I wanted swiftly and a follow up email so I can conclude over the weekend if I want.  Well handled Lisa Chapman. I ring my daughter as she’s used Admiral and she says they’re pretty good.

Stardate 17111.First thing this morning I need to resolve. I go to Lisa’s email from Admiral but there’s no web link to conclude on after all. I try and old link and the website doesn’t work again.Work, as in real work, needs to be done so I leave it til much later, as I know it’ll be hard yards on the phone – obviously their preferred channel as the number’s on the email twice..

Later I call the NFU sale office to give them the last chance to keep the business. In a meeting and wont be out for an hour – that’ll be too late. But he does call straight back, we compare and email, he rings back. Reading my earlier text, I’m wondering why I let them try again. It’s the thought of more paperwork for a new supplier. Just shows how much a good sales person could do in the branch network. And how much the thought of hanging on to a call centre can put you off. They tried, called back and couldn’t get near the Admiral price. The broker didn’t ring back this morning. The di is cast.

I try the Admiral quote and the website still doesn’t work, so I call, press 1,1  and guess what – the quotes not been logged out and he has to get help to access it. Groooan. I hang on and it’s sorted mercifully quickly. Prad goes over the details again as I glaze over to a welsh accent heavy enough to give Indian call centres a good name. We complete and he sets me up for the possible customer survey.

Job done? I doubt it and wait to see how well the paperwork rattles through the system next.

All I wanted was a “best service is no service” renewal or purchase for some high value business. I was quite happy to do the work myself. Nobody could do that.