Let me tell you a personal story.
Some years ago, my wife’s car suffered a collision. The damage was light, and my wife got away with the fright. The other car’s owner immediately acknowledged his responsibility. Still, I filed the case with our insurance company.
A few days later, an employee from the claim department called me. He wanted some more information on the collision, which I readily gave him. He was matter of fact. For him, it was one of thousands of losses he must deal with over the year.
I was not happy! I felt that my insurer did not prepare its staff adequately. All people should be trained to consider clients, internal and external, as VIPs. This is what we call client orientation throughout the organization.
When something does not live up to my expectations, I never blame the employee. The boss is responsible. So, I wrote a nice letter to the Head of marketing and sales and told him that his people should first enquire about the victim of the accident before asking technical questions.
I got a lengthy answer, probably written by a young assistant, who said in so many words that the company care for people only when the policy includes assistance services… It was signed by the boss.
Should I have written to the CEO to complain about this attitude? I dropped the matter and changed my insurer at the next renewal.
Now, this is not the whole story! Years passed and we now have chatbots to talk to clients, and we have the possibility to tell them to be patient, friendly, forthcoming and show a human approach.
They do it better than a harassed employee who just had a fight with his mother-in-law!
What we need, young people, are programmers who have the sensibility and sensitivity of an old family physician!
