Paragraph rants, what if

Attempted to use some voice to text stuff and it produced some really odd paragraphs. Reinterpreting them a bit below;

Is your marketing plan simply to produce enough content aka noise, so that one or more algorithms will help people “find” you? I am not sure that, as a strategy, this is much more than hedging your fear of not knowing where the next deal is coming from. Hope is not a strategy, nor is relying on things you do not have control of, like algorithms.
The family was on a walk on a nice local path. On occasion, you would find benches. In this case, we were a half a mile or so into the walk and there it was, the same bench but covered in advertising. Cool, you sponsored a bench. I like it. But do I need to see your phone number in the middle of the woods? Do you like that you are interrupting people during leisure time? How many people walk with a pen and paper? Oh wait, maybe they’ll take a photo. Exactly, now I might have found a customer who was strolling on a walking path. Might be time to figure our who your customer actually is. Then, decide if you actually want the person who knows nothing more than that they saw(were interrupted by, your advertising.
Measure yourself against whoever you want. But, falling into the trap of thinking your NPS or JD power score, matched against your industry, matters, think again. If you have a call center, who has THE BEST call center. Period. Maybe you need to be more like Zappos. Saying you are the best call center in an industry not known for service is not a great idea.
Get back to helping people buy insurance. Sure, Jim Rohn, Harvey McKay, Tom Hopkins, etc. all had very lucrative sales training, motivational, type careers. You might as well. But, on the other hand, while you are producing marketing videos and blogs the industry is suffering, Your brain power and time are diluted away from the problems that need solving.
Empower the people!! Had a couple of really nice exchanges with call center people lately. But, they inevitably fell flat. Why? Because these wonderfully empathetic people were not empowered to do anything. They simply had to perform their task, their step in the assembly line. Such a shame.

09.14.13

The real cost of a claim is

much more than the money you are given.

10:00 Thursday, August 22nd my car was hit. I was deemed 100%, not at fault and only suffered a small cut and a few hours of soreness. This is being written 23 days later and my car is still in the shop.

Yes, I have a rental and have had it available since the day of the accident.

Yes, I have no out of pocket expense for this accident since I am not at fault.

No, I am not terribly pleased with this whole claims process.

See I have consulted with a few hundred claims and know how to handle them but I missed the worst part when there are no physical injuries of course. Cars can be fixed or replaced. In most cases, people will heal. But I did overlook the immeasurable and uncompensated annoying part that goes along with claims.

It sucks to not have your car.

Yes, that is a bit petty since I do have a nice enough car to drive around but it is not my car. My driving habits have not changed, I have not changed my usage, I’ve just enjoyed it much less. See there is something to be said for this situation. See your home/rental/condo policy has loss of use coverage which basically provides living expenses if you are displaced from your home. Now within that coverage, I am aware of claims adjusters having a little leeway when it comes to what they pay out. This coverage pays for a hotel or even a place to rent but it also compensates for meals if you need to eat out and the cost exceeds what is normally spent. I’ve personally had a claims adjuster work with me to pay for a hotel in a different city since we were to be out of the house anyhow.

What is the comparable thing for auto insurance? I’m not looking for much, just a little something to acknowledge the inconvenience. Maybe Geico sends me a $20 Starbucks card with a little note;

” We know this is annoying, hang in there your car will be ready soon…” Of course, it would be funny if they wrote “Sorry the dopey kid we insure chose to test his 0-60 time while coming out of a Dunkin Donuts. Have a coffee on us”

Just a little something to be a bit more human. After all, this is not a transaction, you actually have had an impact on my household. Either way, I think I’ll start doing this for my friends.

Just some thoughts, do with them what you like.

08.30.13

by The Insurance Bill

Enterprise part 2

DISCLAIMER;

Mistakes happen.
I make plenty of them.
I really value time and may have an unfair advantage and/or extra motivation in this category

So I thought I was done when I wrote this letter to Enterprise yesterday. Then minutes after writing it Enterprise called and said they should not have given me the car I had, could I please swap it out. I replied to this message at about 10:00 a.m. We agreed they had a comparable car **honestly the Ford Fusion may be fancier than the Chrysler 200 but it is not an upgrade** and we agreed that we can exchange cars at 1:00 at my home. Simple enough, mistake happened, I said no problem I would be happy to help and went about my day.

Now it is 12:30 and I am home. Car seats are removed and the original car is in my driveway ready for pickup.

Now it is 1:05 still no Enterprise.

Now it is 1:15 so I call. After sitting on hold for several minutes I am assured he is 5 minutes away.

Now it is 1:35 I call back pretty annoyed since I will now be late for my 2:30 and was told there was an accident on an adjoining road and he was on his way. **

Finally 1:55 and the driver arrives. Here are some observations;

1. People are late all the time, it happens. CALL Most humans will understand. But call even when you think you may be late. The only call I received was at 9:30 when I was asked for help.

2. OWN your mistakes. Not once did I feel any genuine empathy for the time I allowed you to steal from me. Remember I was helping you fix your mistake.

**3. About that “accident” Most accidents that hold up traffic involve the police and sometimes fire trucks and ambulances. My home is .2 miles from the main rd and .9 from the fire station. I heard nothing BUT the driver had a full iced tea/coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Could be coincidence but this is just north of my home and actually out of the way if coming from your location.

4. About the driver, if you are employing anyone you have a responsibility to help them develop. Why would you send a college graduate out with jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap on. Like it or not image is very important. Then again you gave me another car that is overdue for an oil change.

Now what, right to Twitter and Facebook. A very quick response via Facebook and I was told someone would call. Earlier this afternoon they did. I suppose 24 hours from an incident is not bad. I think the only way this person could have cared any less is if he actually said I really don’t care I am just calling because I was told to… When your managers have no ability to empathize it makes sense that their reports have none either. He claimed to know nothing about what the actual problem was and I had to explain it. During our chat he actually gave more praise to the manager who gave out a sold car, lied to me and made no effort to make things better than he did to apologizing and making me feel better.

No genuine thank you, no random “gift” no direct compensation for my lost time/productivity, NOTHING. Just another lost opportunity and another hour of my life gone.

Now I will spend the next two weeks or so in your rental. It would be great if you could try as hard as your commercials say you do. Aw well.