Ask Dr. G.

Dear Dr. G.: Our marketing geniuses have come up with a campaign touting our online services. In fact, they want to claim we are the easiest insurance company to do business with online. Help! We do have an online presence, but frankly it's no better than the rest. How can I improve our service like overnight?

–Desperate in Duluth

Dear Desperate: Your solution is easier than you imagine. It brings to mind a bald and weeping thirty-something tennis player lamenting the fact his professional career is over. Mr. Agassi (who probably earned more money in one weekend at the U.S. Open than Dr. G. earns in a decade) introduced us to that quaint euphemism: "Image is everything." Loosely translated this means: "Reality is what you claim it to be." And that brings me to a lesson about technology I learned a few years ago.

I was to speak at a conference hosted at a hotel that billed itself as the "most technologically advanced hotel in the world," but the advanced technology thing got my interest. It was absolutely essential I had broadband Internet access during my stay and was assured by the hotel I had nothing to worry about. When I was shown to my room, the only apparent evidence of advanced technology was an Ethernet cable with a standard RJ45 connector and a remote-control device for the window blinds. I am going to guess the window-shade thing was the hotel's claim to fame, since network cables were pretty much commonplace.

At any rate, I had broadband–or so I thought. I fired up my laptop and discovered the network cable was dead. Either the whole network was down, or the cable in my room was bad, or the other end of the cable needed to be reset in the switch room. A quick call down to the front desk was met with disbelief. I was told the problem was certainly my fault and I would need to call tech support. My protests indicating I was an IT professional and knew my way around a network were met with derision. I was told I had to call technical support, which would notify the hotel if its equipment might be to blame.

By now it was late and I desperately needed broadband access. I dutifully called tech support–a call center in Montreal that supported hotel customers throughout the known world who were having difficulties accessing the Internet. Once again, I vainly explained I knew what I was doing–that the cable was in fact dead, that not only did I know how to get a command prompt and type "ipconfig" but I actually knew all the parameters.

Forty-five minutes later, I was told there perhaps was a problem with the hotel's network. I begged him to inform the hotel it had a problem. Another 40 minutes passed, and the night maintenance man arrived at my door. He was sporting a tool belt carrying everything from a toilet plunger to a small sledge hammer. He also had an ancient 486 laptop, which he was going to use to check out the problem. I suggested my laptop would serve the same purpose, but that was not in his plan.

While we waited for his computer to boot, he pulled out the handwritten notes that explained what he needed to do to check the connection. The secret was to boot the computer–plug in the Ethernet cable and see whether the light on the port lit up. When it didn't, he confirmed what I had known three hours ago: The cable was dead. Hallelujah. While I held him captive, I once again called the front desk and demanded I be moved to a room with a working network connection. I was told there was no other room available and the day shift probably could fix it in the morning.

Which got me to thinking. If you call yourself the most technologically advanced hotel in the world–or the most technologically advanced insurance carrier–you don't need to do anything else. We could save a lot of money on IT services if we just work a little harder on our image. After all, image is everything. So, confidently stride forward with the assurance you are the easiest company to do business with online. Who would dare challenge that assertion?

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Readers are invited to send their questions to Dr. Gigabyte at gigabyte@tdmag.com for response in this column. Letters are for purposes of exploring insurance IT issues only and may or may not be contributed by any particular individual.