Do Your Processes Give Your Customers Away?

Today I was given away. Not expensively, not cheaply, but freely. I was tossed into the garbage like an empty milkshake.

But I wasn't an empty milkshake, I was full. I had plenty of juicy milky goodness. So why was I thrown away? Because they didn't care and they didn't ask so I wasn't given an opportunity to tell them so that they had the opportunity to try to keep me.

Today I called AAMI to let them know that I wanted to cancel my home contents insurance with them. After a few confirmations and a few clicks I was told "that's all done for you, you'll receive a refund of your policy by mail...thank-you for calling AAMI..."

There was no "why are you leaving?" There was no "how can we help you to stay?" There wasn't even the slightest hint of curiosity as to why a customer with three AAMI policies would suddenly cancel one of them. Here was as obvious a moment of truth as you can find, and AAMI failed spectacularly.

The reasons for this are clear - staff are disconnected from the customer experience. They have become robotic and unable to think. They have no incentive to try to keep a customer. They just do their job and think "it's not my problem".

In an age where big business throws millions of dollars around trying to persuade us to join them, I find it a tragedy when they give us away for nothing.

- TPN

Comments

[Robert]

...but the process engineering was a credit to their designers. You were treated courteously, the confirmations and clicks happened with speed, and the whole experience blew your socks off! And there's more... The AAMI assistant is smiling broadly because his/her KPI of "Number of Customers Exited per Hour" is going up and he/she is in line for the Employee of the Month Award and a free Cinema Voucher! The other KPI is going down which is good: "Number of Minutes Wasted Talking to the Exiting Customer".

:-P

[The Process Ninja]

Robert - thanks for the comment - you touch on another really important point and that is whether the right things are being measured. I am sure you are 100% spot on with regard to their KPI's. KPI's by their nature aren't bad they are often just badly executed because we don't consider the customer experience (inside-out vs outside-in).

[Annon]

You got one bad customer service rep out of many great reps. It's sad to read this because I work along side these guys and most of them excellent with their customers.

[The Process Ninja]

Hi Annon, your comment actually backs up what I was saying. Good process is about ensuring consistency and quality - your comment highlights that there is a variation in the quality of service - why? The answer is that for whatever reason the process has failed. There are always "good reps and bad reps" in every company, but good process helps to ensure quality no matter how good or bad the staff are. Great process helps to identify problems and to improve processes to align to customer needs and wants. I assume you work for AAMI and would love to know what the correct process was - and if you are truly a customer centric organisation I presume I'll be receiving a phone call????

[c.]

In my experience the procedure normally entails the customer service rep asking of the customer their reason for cancelling their policy and exploring avenues that may better suit both parties i.e changing address or looking at other forms of cover. Unfortunate that you experienced this lack of concern from one of AAMI's customer service reps. As a holder of multiple policies with the company I can say that three times now they have found alternative solutions to my cancelling a policy, although I do believe that if the information is not asked it should be volunteered as there are always two parties to the transaction. Maybe it should be them receiving another call.
-happy aami customer.

[Data-Devil]

Sadly it not only happens there, but also in the workplace. I left my last employer after 8.5 loyal years.
Our super massive HR department did not even call me in to say "how can we hold on to you" or "why are you leaving" or even "what can we improve to make it better for the next person"
Really sad to see, and for just a couple of minutes they could have fixed some issues that would have helped them going forward, but alas, they will now not know the folly of their ways. Why have a HR dept?

[The Process Ninja]

A great comment Data-Devil - sad but true unfortunately. I have had 10-15 roles in the last 10 years and have never had an exit interview - why not? I have no idea! It's the simplest form of process improvement. In my experience every HR dept I've ever had the mispleasure of dealing with have been totally inept. I'd sack the lot of them!