All I wanted to do was renew my car insurance
How this sync-up has happened I really don’t know. Whatever the reason, the two cars we have in the family both have their insurance renewal dates at the start of January.
It’s a job I loathe but having worked in the insurance sector I feel duty bound to refresh them each year, even if nothing happens other than the fact that I get older, which in-turn makes me less 'risky'.
The premium always seems to go up every year by at least one hundred quid.
I reckon that if I hadn’t ever changed insurers then it would be costing me about half a million pounds a year to cover an 11-year-old Mini.
There’s a new rule coming in this year which means that insurance companies can’t just crank up your premium for no reason. It has to be explained to you.
This can only be a good thing in my book. Unless of course the reason it has increased is you’ve got points or a speeding violation. No-one wants to be reminded of that.
Anyway, this preamble leads me to the first blunder of the year.
I’ve taken out an insurance policy with a company that uses ‘Live Chat’ online. There are no call centres and no-one to speak to.
It won’t surprise you to hear that the cover was not quite correct. It was not what I had purchased.
Don’t worry I’ll just ‘Live Chat’ the problem and get this sorted, I thought. They’ve got four-and-a-half stars on the trust rating. Well not from me.
The ‘chat’ highlights the complexity of getting irritated but only giving you enough space for the few words that can express it. Then there’s the pause. Then you see that the other person is typing. And then there's… nothing.
Then their response.
Now, I’m not a gifted typer. I’m not able to look at the screen and type. I am the person who looks up and sees that the entire last paragraph has been written with the ‘caps lock’ key on.
As the pingpong ‘Live Chat’ continues I start to imagine that the operator on the other side is taking it ultra slowly on purpose.
Perhaps they’re showing their mates what I’ve written and are all having a laugh.
Then I imagine that they’ve got a load of losers like me online and they’re having multiple conversations, reassuring other mugs that they’re ‘looking into it as a matter of urgency’.
It is obvious to me that this is a classic case of ‘looks good on paper’. What a great idea. Keep costs down.
The ‘Live Chat’ is available 24 hours a day which is incredibly useful if you wake up in the middle of the night and want to be irritated out of your mind.
It should be called ‘Live 24-hour frustration service’.
The beauty of speech is that it has the complexity of tone. It allows both parties to pick up on the nuances of frustration. It is a skill honed over thousands of years.
In my view to be listened to and to listen are the key qualities of good customer service.
But back to that chat room… it’s not until you’ve fallen for the worm of a few quid saved that you realise you’ve been hooked and there’s no easy way out of it.
I played with the idea of cancelling but knew I’d be ‘Live Chatting’ for the rest of my life to try to get my money back. I considered stopping the direct debit and heaven knows what else, but I now consider myself burned.
The first lesson of 2021 had been delivered with precision and that is that being able to talk to someone is important.
Human beings having a proper conversation actually works. People get each other and even if they don't, having an argument over the internet via chat-boxes is as unsatisfying as dark chocolate, low fat custard and soya... when you thought it was chicken.
I start to imagine that the operator on the other side is taking it ultra slowly on purpose