On broken boilers & moments that matter
Customers need their banks and financial institutions to be there for them in the moments that matter. Get these right each time, every time — and they will have loyal, grateful, and evangelising customers for life.
My boiler went on the blink at the start of December.
I was quite relaxed about it, being a premium customer of one of the country’s leading Home Insurance providers. What followed over the next few weeks is a case study in everything an organisation can do to get the basics horribly wrong.
I had to call in several times to follow-up on my request with an average wait time of 40 minutes. On each occasion, I had to identify myself again and regurgitate the history of the incident.
I was finally told a gas engineer would be with me in 24 hours. He didn’t show up. There was a mix-up. I was reassured an engineer would be with me before 5pm the following day. We waited and waited. It got to well past 8pm and the contractor remained elusive.
We were left in the lurch, with limited information and no proactive follow-ups.
There were multiple cold handoffs between departments and sub-contractor firms with no feedback loops.
No empathy, no urgency.
With a cold house and a young family and the days passing by, I was forced to take matters into my own hands and seek alternate tradesmen. Notwithstanding their spectacular failure, there was limited flexibility on the part of the insurance company. Instead, I was faced with robotically rigid adherence to policy
When I raised a formal complaint, empathy followed a few weeks later and the complaint was upheld, but if I was expecting a proactive offer to retrospectively cover any monetary damage, I was to be sorely disappointed.
The point here is not a subtle one.
Banks and financial institutions are focussed on digital innovation. There is much talk about one customer view, omnichannel harmonised experience and digital sales and servicing enablement. Shiny mobile interfaces and wow experiences in the metaverse.
But in all this razzmatazz, they often lose sight of the basics: Sensible policies, a customer-first mindset, ownership, accountability, and communication.
I don’t need my bank or insurance provider to be my friend. I need them to be much more. I need them to be there for me when it matters most.
These are the moments that matter.
Get that right and you have a loyal, grateful, and evangelising customer for life.
