The Process Ninja

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Process Ineptitude Personified

Insurance as a concept is not a difficult thing to grasp - so why do so many companies make a complete mess of it?

Yesterday I called around to get some quotes on a fairly niche insurance product - landlord insurance for a holiday rental property. Most insurance companies couldn't (or rather wouldn't) provide cover. But one who did was one of the major banks. Happily I used their online quote tool. After entering only my address details it instantly spat me back a quote.

Hmm...something not right there. Knowing what I do know about insurance and having completed other online quotes I knew that there was something wrong. Nonetheless I pressed on and was greeted with a screen which said something along the lines of "Oh you want an insurance quote, great, but this is all too difficult for our system to grasp so you're going to have to fill in a crappy form and someone will call you sometime in the future".

Confidence dwindling - but as their product looked good I pressed on and completed the online form. It gave me the option to enter my customer number (I have an account with this bank) which I thought was smart as it would streamline the application process.

A few hours later I had already signed up for another insurance provider (Ray White Insurance) who had provided me with some really good service.Still I was curious to see what our inept banking friends would do next.

At 11:30 am the next day (a mere 24 hours later! - too slow!) I received a call from the bank who proceeded to grill me about my account details: "what is your card number? What is your limit? What is your address? Do you have any regular payments? Where did you collect the card from?"

"Wait, is all of this necessary? - I just want to get an insurance quote" I replied to which I was told that it was necessary as the bank had called me and they needed to verify my ID (which I had no idea why they had trouble doing this since I knew very well what my address, card number and other details were). "What you'll need to do is to call us back."

"What????" I replied "But what if I wasn't a customer? How would I get a quote"

"Oh, you'd have to call us, we wouldn't call you".

So I take down the number I am supposed to call her back on and throw it in the bin. Or should I say, the "too hard basket".

So by all accounts this bank don't call people back to give them quotes. They also don't make it easy for current customers to take out insurance. They also don't have an online quote tool that works. They have created a process that suits themselves and not their customers, and the equation is therefore very simple - the customers will not buy - and that includes me.

- TPN 

From Now On When I Mention Any Companies in this Blog...

From now on whenever I mention a company name in this blog I will be contacting them to let them know what I am saying about them (unless, like fantastic holdings they have no means of being contacted). Whether it be good or bad they'll be told.

I'm doing this for a couple of reasons:

1. I don't think it's fair to criticise without giving them an opportunity to respond.

2. Likewise if I am saying nice things this feedback should also be provided so someone can pat themselves on the back and feel good.

3. Usually the responses from companies are either non-existant or hilarious "cut and paste jobs" straight from the bumper book of customer responses. We all need a laugh.

I'll be pasting any of their responses (unedited) into the corresponding post about them and supplying my own responses to their responses.

Look forward to some hearty laughs folks.

- TPN

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

Eat Your Own Dog Food

I worked for an  IT Company that had an IT helpdesk that was beyond helpless. I worked for a Telecommunications company where the boss created an atmosphere of fear and hatred. I worked for an insurance company where the staff would burst into tears. I worked for a bank with a stationery cupboard with no stationery in it.

If this is the way we treat our employees, how do you think our customers will feel? But no, we treat our customers like kings, right? But if we look upon our employees, no matter where they sit in an organisation, they all have (or must have) an end impact on the customer experience – we are all part of the chain that leads to the customer. Break that chain or pass the wrong message down the line and we do damage.

So when you come to work for a company that earns billions of dollars profit a year and you don’t have paper to write on, don’t have a cup to drink out of and the printer has been broken for a week, what is the impact? Do you turn up at work full of the joys of spring? Or do you brood and fester your discontent until it spreads like a slow poison?

For too long now businesses have been treating their staff like disposable assets, and in the last year or so employees have been taken advantage of more and more. Whilst many organisations have suffered, many still continue to reap huge harvests – but that doesn’t stop them from cancelling xmas parties and forcing “imposed leave”. So when you talk in fuzzy Marketing speak about how you are going to look after your customers, remember that it all starts within your gilded doors. If you can’t eat your own dog food then how do you expect anyone else to?

The tide is turning, the boats are waiting on the shore.

Are you going to be one of “them” or one of us…?

- TPN

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