Customers To Insurers: Don't Call Us
By Daniel Hays
NU Online News Service, March 29, 9:29 a.m. EST?An online Internet survey of insurance consumers has found that most prefer to pick up a telephone to contact their insurer, and if the phone service is unsatisfactory they are ready to switch insurance providers.
Mobius Management Systems of Rye, N.Y., which commissioned the survey, said that 94 percent of respondents indicated they would switch carriers if phone customer service were consistently bad.
"So many insurance customers said they would jump ship, but, it's not that easy to jump ship," said Greg Jones, a representative for Mobius.
Mr. Jones said the response was very assertive, but, he noted, "It may be an empty threat. We just don't know."
Insight Express of Stamford, Conn., polled 300 adult consumers online, he said.
Two-thirds of respondents say they still prefer to handle their contact with insurers over the phone. Seventy percent of insurance customers polled said they are unwilling to pay per call for customer service. Ninety-one percent said they would not pay an extra fee for VIP phone service.
Fifty-seven percent of insurance customers in the survey said they hate getting automated phone voices, and 55 percent said they hate being on hold for even five minutes.
Mobius said that despite gains in Internet-based customer service usage, "the message is clear for insurers–pick up the phone, or the customer will hang up on you."
"The customer base is entrenched with the idea of phone service for customer service," Mr. Jones added.
He said many consumers obviously find that their needs are too specific to have them answered by the prepared responses on the "Frequently Asked Questions," or FAQs section of a Web site.
"So they have an entrenched system. The question is, how upset will [customers] get before they go elsewhere?" Mr. Jones asked. He noted difficulties consumers might have with a telephone answering system that involves navigating a complicated series of touch-tone responses, only to reach a live employee who requests a repeat of some of the information already inputted.
Mobius said the survey was conducted to gauge opinion of customer service across industry lines. The company said its large insurer clientele includes John Hancock, Equitable Life, and Southern Farm Bureau Casualty. Mobius develops software that supports customer service initiatives.
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