Does your agency provide good service? Do your companies provide good service? How do you know? One way of finding out is to put yourself in your customer's place. You may be surprised (and saddened) by what you find.
As many of you know, I enjoy restoring older cars. Upon completing a `67 T-Bird recently, I had it professionally appraised for my insurance since I intended to drive it on a regular basis. Shortly after my agent submitted everything, I got a letter from the carrier stating that they would insure it for less than half the appraised value.
Aggravated that I would have to take time to contest this, I called my agent for guidance. He said, “You'll have to contact them directly and appeal the decision. They will probably require that you take it somewhere for a Vehicle Damage Assessment. But you have to do this yourself, I can't do it for you.”
Well after two letters and several messages left with the underwriting department, I had not been contacted and two weeks had passed. I tried calling once more and was amazed to get a live underwriter on the line.
“This is great,” I said, “I've been leaving messages but nobody has called back and I want to appeal the stated insured value you've placed on my car.”
“You've left messages?”, he queried, “Who did you leave them with?”
“I don't know, just your voicemail system.”
“Well, let me check into that. I don't want to jump in on something that somebody else may be working on.”
Seeing where this was heading, I immediately called myself a liar and said I hadn't left messages with anyone and he could therefore service my problem. He finally gave in and left me holding for about five minutes while he looked up my account.
Upon returning to the line he said, “Judging by the appraisal and the photo, this car would appear to be worth more than the amount we've decided upon. BUT, we really aren't in the business of insuring specialty vehicles like this. We like to insure regular cars. So, there isn't really much to talk about.”
“If you're saying that you aren't interested in insuring this car for its actual worth (far less than the insured value of my other “regular” vehicles), maybe I should look for another company that wants my business.”
“That's up to you”, he replied.
“Well, I imagine my agent would be interested in knowing how you feel about my business,” I snapped, “Let me talk with your supervisor!”
Long story short, the underwriter and the supervisor finally told me that I could request a Vehicle Damage Assessment...but it could result in a lower value than the one I was contesting. I retorted that if I was worried about that I wouldn't be requesting it in the first place. So they checked their scheduling and told me to take it to such and such a body shop for the appraisal. The conversation was over, but I was not in a good mood.
A week later, I drove to the appointed body shop grumbling to myself. My thoughts were centered on the ridiculousness of paying for a professional appraisal, when the value of my car was going to be determined by some mental caricature I had of a “pot-bellied, dust covered body repairman walking around the car with a dust mask hung around his neck."
The reality was far different. The appraiser was an employee of the company who specialized in appraising specialty vehicles and definitely knew his business. The body shop locale was just a convenient location to his office for doing such work. We had a nice chat while he appraised the car...and he was amazed at the my experience with the underwriter.
Shortly thereafter, the insurance company revised the value upward and the case was closed. But, I still have the perception (based on their failure to acknowledge my letter and calls, and the attitude of the underwriter) that the company really doesn't give a darn about my business.
Under the same circumstances, how would you feel? Or, better yet, how would your customers feel? A far better scenario would have been for my agent to have conferenced me to the company while he remained on the line as I made my request. A little bit of assistance can go a long way towards preventing problems and losing customers.
Jack Burke is the president of Sound Marketing, Inc., host/producer of Audio Insurance Outlook, editor of ProgramBusiness.com newsletter, and author of both Relationship Aspect Marketing and Creating Customer Connections. For more information, please visit http://www.soundmarketing.com, call 1-800-451-8273, or e-mail jack@soundmarketing.com.
Copyright 2002 by Jack Burke. Used with permission.