Saturday, 21 February 2009
I posted on 11th January in my blog, an outline of the 'bad' experience I received due to an auto-renewal issue with my AXP Insurance policy - which inadvertently didn't "auto-renewal".
Well I complained initially as I wanted to avoid a repetition of this issue to the other members of the public, as an AXP employee it was my duty to protect the Blue-Box (AXP brand).
I don't think the Insurance team initially thought too highly of my complaint, as they tried to brush me off with a 5% discount for a discounted-Staff premium which was originally £39.90 anyway - so the "refund" was for about £2. Hmmm a pretty insulting gesture if ever I called one! Anyway, they did also honour my claim for a refund of the roaming mobile call to get the policy force-renewed, all of £21 - ha!
Anyway, I accepted the gesture of goodwill!
On 3rd February, I called the Insurance Customer Services team and commented that I didn' receive my paperwork. They duly raised the request for the documentation to be re-sent to me - they used the words re-sent as if my original documentation had been sent (inaccurate in my opinion!)
On the same day, I dropped a quick e-mail to the representative who sent me the earlier response to my complaint - with a simple message stating that "I had experienced another experience of appalling customer service as I had not received my policy paperwork". Short and sweet. This time, I got a timely response about 3-4 days later stating that they did feel it was "unacceptable" that I had renewed and paid my policy premium on 9th December, but the renewal documentation was only sent on 3rd February. They acknowledged that "they were aware of errors occurring in relation to policy renewals and documentation being sent" - obviously, accepting that there was extraordinary problems being experienced with the whole process.
Based on this, they accepted I had been inconvenienced again, and would arrange for a delivery of wine to be sent to me - which would take 7-14 days. They then considered the matter concluded and said that this was the final response that they would send me, and I would have to take the matter forward with the Ombudsman if I was still unhappy.
A week passed and no documentation appeared, so I again responded via e-mail stating this, and said "I couldn't consider the matter concluded until I had received my paperwork" - the cause of the latter part of my complaint, and noted that I found it very frustrating that AXP Insurance would want me to escalate this to the Ombudsman for something as lame as not sending me my policy documentation!
I decided to escalate this matter to the immediate team leader, and also her Director line manager - both duly have subsequently intervened and acknowledged that the whole matter was not dealt with well at all, and common-sense had not prevailed at during the resolution of the complaint as the representative could have easily checked my level of satisfaction throughout the case, and phoned me to check that the documentation had been sent! (She didn't by the way!)
Although the Director raised my point about how insulting I had found the initial 5% gesture, he wanted to bring into the mix the fact that I got my roaming call paid for, and the complimentary wine that was being sent to me (he also acknowledged that the Wine Supplier had also experienced some delays in fulfilling their order too! Ha!) and that they did not consider that they would need to extend the gesture further. I confirmed that I wasn't doing it for the money, but to ensure that they act properly and supported our customers, rather than trying to brush the matter under the carpet!
I hope the necessary people have been "spoken" to about this, and in any case I've now received £18-£20 of wine for my troubles!
Just a lesson learnt on how to better deal with customer complaints and ensure the customer is satisified as part of the resolution of a complaint. Quite important methinks! Only registered users can write comments. Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment 1.0! |