A Perspective on 4 Years of Experience in Insurance

Three months isn't a long time really, a quick Google reveals that three months is a reasonable amount of time to give a new idea a chance, to assess a situation, product deployment or the effect of an event. It seems that three months is  a de facto minimum for gaining perspective.

In that regard I'm quite pleased to be writing this blog entry three months on from leaving The Company. The Company can now be revealed as Norwich Union Insurance. I worked there for four years, commuting (painfully) from Ipswich, then Chelmsford and finally spending my last 6 months walking to work from a kind friend's flat. In that time I progressed from graduate scheme new-boy, through customer experience consultant to Usability and Analytics manager and final to User Experience Architect. I then felt, and as it happens it was kind-of mutual, that it was time to move on.

I have a very high opinion for what NU are trying to acheive. The old way of selling insurance has gone, a new way - pile it high and sell it cheap online, has also begun to die and the newest way - bring back the advice, quality and protection, is emerging. Unfortunately all this has meant that the back-end systems and processes have had to adapt fast and when you're rooted in 18th Century Norwich rather than the agile origins of telephone insurance in Croydon (Direct Line) this is easier said than done. At the end of the day, re-skinning a website, courting the increasingly highwayman-like aggregators and affiliates, and ultimately making your volume product unprofitable was not going to cut it. 

But: The systems are changing, the processes are being fixed by a team of genuinely visionary people that exist from bottom to top in the organisation and this takes time. A major internal IT project has, for example, crippled the agility of the business for the last two years and sucked every Exceed developer out of Europe but - coming out the other side - NU will be better for it.

Customers want, and expect today, to be able to see why their insurance is as expensive as it is, to change it at will - add drivers, upgrade courtesy cars, change addresses when they want. More importantly though they want to know that when they need their cover that claims will be dealt with courteously and efficiently. Sadly, despite countless initiatives and a huge amount of desire and investment, this still isn't working. Whilst TV appearances for the fraud team create great frothy PR, this dissolves away quickly and what is left behind is the kind of raw, unfettered and persistent displeasure visible on The Review Centre.

They're still listening, I know, and initiatives like Zuzzid and a thoughtful consolidation and partial u-turn on the use of Asian contact centres for the most difficult service requirements will, ultimately, help. A new dawn is coming (almost certainly with a re-brand and the final sweeping-aside of the regional marque) and with that I hope for my passionate friends and former colleagues that the company returns to winnning ways.

For me, my life has re-located to london, my role to one of the UK's brightest digital agencies and I look forward to blogging more about Ux, IA and the myriad of socio-cultural ephemera that has always interested me and burns that little bit brighter in the world's most creative city.

Unwrapping Apple's Packaging Moments of Truth

Regular readers (if there are any left after this ridiculous hiatus) will know that despite my vocational specialism in web user experience, my desire to comment on an array of customer experience issues is a recurring theme of this blog. Something which I have never touched upon until now is packaging design.

Inspired by a Design Critique podcast I wanted readers to consider the experience of owning rather than consuming a product. More often than not User Experience Architects (UEAs) like me will pour insight and design into the choosing and purchasing of a product or service. We sometimes refer to these as ‘moments of truth’. Experience design shouldn’t stop there though, because the experience itself doesn’t.

In the podcast they discuss the packaging of an iPod (the 1st generation Nano as it happens) which I also own. Where this resonates with me is the fact that I didn’t purchase this product, it was a Christmas gift and as such I didn’t have the purchase experience; my first interaction with the product was to unwrap the box. At this point I’ll skip to the end; the box for my Nano sits proudly on my shelf. I haven’t retained the box for some perfunctory purpose to store the Nano again when I come to move house. I don’t keep it so that I can put the Nano away every night either. I keep it because, in itself, it’s a beautiful little piece of design that is worthy of display.

That morning when I received the gift I remember distinctly being impressed with the occasion of opening the packing. The box opens like a book, or perhaps a limited edition CD, the iPod was recessed into the box and encased in a cellophane wrapper so I could see it clearly and see its virginal newness. The tape that stuck the cellophane wrappers down was printed in an established Apple typeface, the whole package (and I use the word literally and metaphorically) was an example of minimalism and lean design. It almost seemed a shame to ruin it by actually getting the iPod out. However, once having done so it remained intact and thus it remains on my shelf.

And I’m not the only one who was impressed. All over the web you’ll find blog posts, flickr photosets and suchlike documenting the arrival and unpacking of their iPods and other Apple consumables. Apple are thinking experientially about ownership, about the loyalty that owning one of their items creates. Hence why so many of their consumers are brand advocates. This is a wonderful example of marketing extending into ownership to create or strengthen a positive opinion of the brand.

Maybe this is not by design, but by accident. Maybe it’s the result of over-design; a marketing and design team that just don’t know when to stop? Who knows how much this packaging actually costs Apple. Is it the most cost-efficient packaging? Does it protect the item better than the usual bubble wrap and polystyrene? Is it environmentally ethical? To answer some of those questions we might well look at the 2nd generation Nano. This came packaged in a polycarbonate case, reducing the overall size of the box but retaining two core factors – clarity (the item was visible and did not require a cover photo - the item’s form factor was immediately obvious) and secondly, durability (the Nano was safely surrounded by shatterproof plastic). I can’t comment on the environmental aspects sadly but I’m sure Apple’s site has the answers.

Now this may seem a bit vacuous, after all we’re talking about the box for an MP3 player, but perhaps the type of device actually goes some way to explaining the effort Apple have gone to. Would you keep the packaging of, say, a new razor, if it was stylishly designed? Almost certainly not. Your MP3 player is not just a device to be used to perform a needed function, it is more personal than that. It reflects your style and your taste, it’s a personal accessory, a luxury item, a nice-to-have. Of course size helps here too – your new 50” Plasma might say similar things about your success and style but it’s a bit more impractical to store the box for that on the shelf. We need to look at items that compare in terms of cost, size and personal association, and for items that are similar we nevertheless find a dearth in experiential packaging.

I find it’s always worth putting a comparison alongside to illustrate the point even more clearly. Consider an alternative packaging style for consumer electronics, the clamshell. These hugely frustrating ultra-sonically sealed packages have no clear opening and require the consumer to cut them open. These are borne out of a fear from the manufacturer that their item, a highly portable and valuable product, will be divorced from its packaging and stolen. Their products are less popular and compelling than the iPod, Apple can afford to solve the theft problem not by introducing a clamshell but by ensuring customers have to ask for their product, they’re generally not left out on the shelf. Asking for the product only adds to the sense of luxury and exclusivity. Once again Apple have solved a problem in a way that enhances the user experience.

It’s certainly worth taking the time to listen to the (albeit lengthy) podcast over at Design Critique where Tim unravels these kinds of issues in some detail. The podcast discusses a fascinating paradigm of allowing non-dextrous patients (i.e. the arthritic) access to their medication whilst preventing the same medication from being accessed by highly-dextrous children. This problem and its leftfield solution is one which would prove to be a great interview question for aspiring UEAs

It Pays To Answer Customer Emails

Online shopping isn’t all about click through, promotions and abandonment. It’s about the interaction between user, customer and business.

I’ve been looking to get a new jacket for winter. Commuting, and specifically walking between stations and waiting for connections, can be a chilly affair when the temperatures drop. I’ve done plenty of research offline and online. I’m a ‘brand advocate’ of The North Face (TNF) and spent time looking at both their US and Canadian sites to find the latest gear. I ordered catalogues from Cotswold and Snow & Rock and I spent time in stores like Blacks, Venture Sport and Field & Trek. Eventually I settled on the Plasma jacket, it wasn’t showing on the TNF site for Europe (it was still showing summer gear in October…) but thanks to Froogle.co.uk, I saw it was appearing on several online stores but I was nervous that I would be getting end-of-line 2005/6 stock as we’re in a transitional season.

I had good service last year from Snow & Rock and I liked their extensive and well-produced catalogue but they didn’t have the item showing in stock. Cotswold I wanted to give a chance to as I visited their store in Betws-y-Coed last year and was impressed. Finally, Venture Sport were the only company showing the jacket as available in the colour I wanted – and they’re local with a branch in Norwich and helpful staff…

Cue a salvo of identical emails to their various customer service addresses. All sent at the same time, last Wednesday. I received just one response, from Venture Sport two days later telling me the key information: The item is the latest version and the current stock wait time (7-14 days). It was friendly, succinct and useful. If I’m being picky I’d have liked a tighter delivery/stock estimate but other than that, spot on.

As a result I’ve just spent nearly £200 with them on the jacket and as of today (6 days later) I’ve still had no response from any of the others. The shopping experience wasn’t without its faults - I did get instant confirmation emails but there were three of them (two merchant receipts and one with registration details) but I was so pleased to finally be getting on with the order that I didn’t really mind too much. I was even able to add some additional delivery comments to ensure it reaches me through the complicated post system at The Company. When it does arrive I plan on spending even more money with them on a few additional clothing items … their prompt, friendly and efficient service has paid off. All because they responded to an email.

Leaving Logs ... And Checking Them

Though I've had a good old moan about commuting in the past, I'm pleased to say my displeasure with the operator and subsequent criticism never developed into the scatalogical. This deranged individual has, however, served to highlight another curiosity, the British fascination with salacious and sordid news. The BBC's popularity tracker inevitably gets dominated by such stories on slow news days ... I'd love to see Auntie's server logs to see how deep into the site people go once reading stories like this, almost as if they're the hooks that get visitors in to the rest of the news content.

TrainBlog.co.uk - picking up the baton

Recently I announced a self-imposed amnesty on blogging about the appalling customer service I had experience on 'one'. However, I am happy to pass the baton to these guys, TrainBlog.

Produced by Norwich-based agency Soup, train blog is a centralised repository for commuters' displeasure and, I suspect, the vast majority of that will be local. Interestingly, you can (in a very 2.0 way) add your comments by texting.

(B)log-in and see what other people have to say. Over to you....

National Customer Service Week

Just a short post to direct people to the National Customer Service Week website ... some of my 'favourite' non customer-orientated companies are listed on the participating organisations page.

You Pay For Swedes, You Get Turnips

Regular readers will be aware of my evident joy at laying-in to ‘one’ for their dreadful customer service. I enjoy it because, to some extent, it’s easy to poke fun at their efforts. Today is a different story. For years I’ve told anyone who would listen (and several who weren’t interested) that everything Swedish is great: design, usability, lifestyle. Reading back over past blog entries you can even see me spouting off about Ikea.

Up until the weekend I’d only been a drop-in visitor to Ikea and my impressions were favourable. (I should, at this point, clarify that I’m referring to the Ikea store at Lakeside, Thurrock). I’d managed to wander through the showroom, pick-up minor items and – with my brother – select and buy a self-service chest of drawers which he assembled with no problems. This weekend my experiences were wholly different.

I’d had a fraught couple of visits in the proceeding weeks trying to determine what we needed for our new flat in Chelmsford. We made the mistake of going at the busy peak times at the weekend so, for that, I couldn’t blame the store. On Sunday we got there early, early enough to have half an hour of quiet browsing before the tills opened and the crowds began to build. This is where things started to go wrong. I’m going to break this post up into sections because there’s loads to talk about.

:: The Experience vs. Aspiration
Take a look at the catalogue and you’ll see the items in store set up in show-home situations. Generally these seem to be large lofty apartments or grand drawing rooms with acres of space to fill with rack upon rack of storage solutions. Take a typical catalogue page and itemise everything on it, it would costs thousands to re-create those looks and most of the people that visit the Lakeside Ikea are lower middle-class Thames Estuary dwellers with little sense of design. Not a problem in itself of course but it starts to chip away at the aspirational image you hold in your head of your clean, simple, Scandinavian life-styled room. In all honesty it’s more likely that you’ll recreate a Basildon New Build. Secondly, but related to this point, the images and the showrooms in-store show a level of co-ordination and order impossible in the real world. Few people can present an open clothes rail in their bedroom kitted out with just shades of white and brown. This, of course, makes you buy into an idea but feel let down when you get it home and your room doesn’t look the same. It’s hard to take furniture apart, put it back in the package and bring it back (particularly if it only cost you £45 and you live an hour or more away), so people don’t and Ikea keep the money.

:: The Quality & Consistency
Say you wanted to create a co-ordinated look in a bedroom with matching furniture. Ikea would recommend you select a range (in our case Malm) select a colour and away you go. This doesn’t work. One look at the units side by side show that inconsistencies in the production of the product’s veneer mean that one mid brown is generally quite different from another mid brown. You have to select a shade where the colour variations are easier to disguise, in our case Oak veneer. Again, in terms of quality (and I know the place is supposed to be cheap) take a look at a sofa like the Klippan. It looks great in black in the catalogue and on the website. Go in-store and you’ll find the cover fits so loose it looks like a tatty student room day-bed. The furnishing equivalent of the Big Mac reality not matching the photo on the menu board.

:: The Shopping Experience
We wanted to buy a sofa and a bed (amongst other things). We picked up a product sheet for the bed, which ostensibly listed all items we’d need which – I assumed as it wasn’t clear – that we could pick up from the self-service warehouse. For the sofa I assumed this worked the same That is to say we’d locate it in the warehouse and check it through the till before going to the delivery point. Nowhere was I told that this was a ‘full service’ item and that we’d have to arrange the order in the showroom first. I found that out only by the time we’d got down into the warehouse via the showroom maze, requiring my fiancée to scramble back to the upper levels of the showroom to do so. In addition, when scooting around the warehouse on my own looking for the bed I’d discovered that the mattress wasn’t there, so we’d have a bed – which we’d have to pay to get delivered – with no mattress. We’d have to wait for the mattress, come to visit again and pay another £50 for delivery. Likewise, the bedside tables we were after weren’t in stock … and, by the way, it’s no good suggesting a stock-check before you go if you need to go to work out what it is you want! Finally we got everything on the list and checked out through the tills, over £700 lighter …

:: The Delivery/Fulfillment Experience
The delivery was on time, just after 8am today in fact. The deliverymen dropped the sofa but said nothing to my better half (she’d seen it from the window and hoped they’d mention it). They went through the items and we realised we’d bought the wrong colour bed, evidently picking up the wrong parts sheet from the display. Our fault entirely but the delivery guys wouldn’t take it back for us, neither could we arrange for it to be collected. We’d have to hire a van and take it back (another £50) and pay again to have the right one delivered (assuming it’s in stock when we get there) at another £50. To further compound the issue they told us we’d need fixing brackets – which weren’t on the parts list for the bed. Again, it’s down to us to return to the store to collect these (presumably at a cost).

:: The Customer Service Experience
Being new(ish) to the process I’d hoped that Ikea would show some compassion and support us in returning the items and resolving the orders especially given that we’d spent over £700 there (which must be higher than the average customer), but they couldn’t care less. To resolve the issues will require (assuming some stock unavailability) several trips, at least two hire/delivery charges, petrol and hours of travel time. Probably totalling a couple of hundred pounds. Why can’t Ikea assist in any way? Perhaps at least arranging a redundant delivery van (which, after all, must return from deliveries empty on most days) to at least return the stock or allow us to at least hold the correct colour bed to ensure we don’t waste a trip returning to get the item we have actually paid for. I appreciate it’s not their business model to hold items and so on for cost reasons but – on a case-by-case basis - there should be more after care.

:: We’re not in Sweden Anymore
The trouble is the business hasn’t translated like-for-like from Sweden. It’s staffed with bored Essex teenagers and poorly trained customer service staff. As you walk around you begin to think about how basic and cheap it feels not that it’s customer centric, design orientated, stylishly functional and simple. Ikea in the UK has not got the Swedish friendly air about it other than in the marketing copy and catalogue imagery. When the in-store experience fails it fails badly and the fulfilment has seriously dented the brand’s image. So much so that I’m writing this entry.

In Sweden they can process online orders. I bet they could bend over a bit to help me were I to make a couple of novice mistakes like I did here. Just imagine if, when we’d called them today, the Lakeside store had said “fine, sure mistakes happen and seeing as you’re obviously keen on our products [based on the order value] we’ll ask one of our returning delivery vans to collect your items and we’ll hold an Oak coloured Malm bed for you for 48 hours”. I’d have been delighted and I’d be blogging about that instead. It would have cost them probably £50 but increased the likelihood that I’ll spend several hundred pounds in there again by a factor of ten. As it stands I’m more likely to go round the corner from home to Habitat, spend 25% more and be sure to be taken care of.

There were just two good moments on Sunday. One young warehouse lad who dashed off to get a trolley to help the missus with a mattress and a short bearded chap in the sofa team who said he’d raise a query with head office about why the Ektorp sofa had feathers in the fabric version and foam in the leather.

I’m writing to Jens Johansson in his role as manager at Lakeside in the desperate hope that he can inject those Swedish social principles back into his workforce and acknowledge that cheap products really shouldn’t mean shoddy customer care.

Technorati: Ikea + customer service + customer care

:: Similar rants about Ikea's customer service