Mobile phones and insurance policies.
I like NEITHER. Yet renewal time comes around and we dutifully spend hours on web sites to ‘compare the market’ and get great prices.
So this morning, after a mammoth web-surfing session I rang KWIK FIT Insurance Services to tell that we were not renewing our existing policy because we had found a better price and insurance coverage elsewhere. I was put on hold while they transferred my call to someone who could ‘cancel down’ their renewal quote.
In fact I was transferred to someone who was trained to stop me placing my business elsewhere. He asked me why I hadn’t rung them for a quote as they can offer better deals over the phone than they do over the net!
Not what I wanted to hear!
Mobile phone companies are the same. They only offer you their best deals once you have already decided to place you business elsewhere!
Bad psychology and bad business!
So – in spite of all the recommendations to use web-based comparison sites to get the best deals and safe money – the best bet is to use those sites to find the best deal you can – and then ring up call centres and haggle to see who will beat the deal!
Hardly model customer service though is it?
So much for progress.
If you read my HP rant then you maybe interested to hear how it finally got resolved! Eventually they told me they would issue me with a letter to authorise the seller to replace the machine. Yippee! Then two days letter I got a call from an engineer telling me he was outside my house wanting to repair the machine! I am the other side of the city about to go into a meeting. No-one has mentioned this change of plan to me – or that the engineer was coming!!
Eventually without any further dealings with call centres I was able to get the engineer access to the machine and he replaced the motherboard. Should be back in busniess soon!