🏡 Home and Away – Live Case Study

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A few months ago, I wrote a ‘live’ article of 24 hours without water, which people seemed to like. So, I thought I’d do another one. This time, trying to sort out my home insurance…

This is all my fault. My obsession with having things neat and tidy and ordered led me to believe that I should try and align all of my insurance to renew around the same date. How neat is that! How easy to remember!

Reader, it is those things. But it also means each year, around March, I lose a day of my life trying to sort it all out. And this year was no different.

2024’s edition was triggered by a letter from my current insurer, kindly informing me my insurance was doubling from £500 to £1000. 

Here’s what happened next:

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The Missed Open Goal

I phone my current insurer. A friendly lady answered straight away. ‘I don’t want to leave, you’re good!’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do!’, she replied. It turns out, they’ve introduced a new way of working out premiums to include Home Emergency callouts. It turns out, not many other places do. 

With a heavy heart, I accepted I had to let that one expire (it has no auto-renew). 

So, where shall I look for my new insurance? First port of call, my car insurance provider. As I said, I like things to be neat and tidy, plus I need to renew with them anyway. If they can give me some kind of multi-price discount, then I’ll probably go with them. Easy.

This is where the fun begins. 

I go online, log in to my account, and try to get a quote:

Hmm. No obvious option. So I think, I’ll phone instead.

I call the number in my letter. It’s 2 pm on a Saturday.

‘Sorry, we’re closed right now. The fastest and simplest way is to visit our website. Goodbye’

It hangs up. 

Well, the website didn’t seem that fast and simple before but, sure, maybe user error.

I found a different route to getting a quote and started to fill in my details. Lots to like here:

✅ Pre-filled boxes

✅ Easy to understand questions

✅ Progression bar to know how far through the form I am

But then:

Right. So really not that fast and simple.

This is a new number though, and it promises to be open now, at 2:15 pm on a Saturday.

So I call.

‘Sorry, we’re closed right now. The fastest and simplest way is to visit our website. Goodbye’

Time to look elsewhere, then. 

And whilst I’m looking elsewhere for Home Insurance, I might as well look for Car Insurance, too.

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A New Home (insurance)

Off I go to Go Compare, or maybe Compare the Market. One of those. And it’s good:

✅ Easy to fill in information

✅ Pictures of locks to help you work out which one is which

✅ Great explanations of complex insurancey-things

They find me a great deal with a well-rated company, a massive £600 saving if I go for it.

I also found this ‘Contact Centre charge’ an interesting framing. Usually, this would be an ‘online discount’, but as we all fear losses more than we enjoy gains, this probably works in getting more of their potential customers to stay online. 

I suspect it might lose them a few potential customers as well, though.

I completed my details, signed up, and got the confirmation email. Simple process, easy to understand, and easy to buy. They have a new customer.

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It’s So Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore

I was so impressed, I might as well see if they do Car Insurance too (seeing as my existing provider won’t talk to me)

This time, it’s much easier to find how to get a quote. But getting a quote directly, rather than through the comparison site, is much more difficult:

❌ Doesn’t pre-fill any information from my Home Insurance

❌ Is weirdly specific about the exact date I got my driving license, wanting the exact day and month, not just the year

❌ Takes a while to complete the quote, and then…

But hang on – if I call, do I pay the £12.50 extra? I’ve tried to do it online, but can’t. And more importantly, it’s now 3 pm on Saturday, and once again, I’m not able to speak to anyone. 

So it’s back to

(Ok, in fairness it was actually CompareTheMarket, but the Go Compare song really sticks in my head.)

A few more good things:

✅ This little nudge to be honest

✅ A much better way of saying how long you’ve had your license (even though I’ve had mine 23 years and am scared that the options only go up to 25)

✅ And more helpful tips giving you a reason why to share information, not just asking you for it

Two quotes appeared that were good, both from the same insurer, including one with nice features for my electric car

So, should I go with them and get it all done in one afternoon? Or wait until Monday and call my new Home Insurance provider during the working day to see what they can offer?

I go with them. I don’t want to wait, and I don’t want to spend ages on the phone sorting insurance once I’m back at work.

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The Long, Hard Goodbye

So, it’s goodbye to my Home Insurance provider (who I don’t think loved me anyway) and to my Car Insurance provider, who wouldn’t return my calls. 

In fairness to the latter, at least they made it easy to cancel:

Or did they?

Ok, that’s it now. 

No, wait – there’s more!

Note: ‘I tried to call to say I love you, but you wouldn’t pick up’ isn’t an option

Having finally cancelled, I received my confirmation email. And it made me think about one of the most influential CX books I’ve read, Joe McLoed’s ‘Ends’, about how companies ignore endings.

This time next year, I’ll be searching again. So will I get a ‘Sorry to see you go’, or even better a ‘Thank you for being a customer of ours, and for your custom (/money) for the past three years’?

I did not.

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If you’re still reading this far, well done, and thank you! Here are three takeaways to reward your resilience:

💡Ultimately, revenue only comes from earning customer decisions in your favour. You have to make it easy for your customers to say yes to you. Restricted call times and forcing them to contact you in the way that’s better for you, not them isn’t going to do this

💡Do the work for them. Have their details already? Pre-fill as much as you can. Need to ask them for info? Ask for the minimum you need. Beware the Curse of Knowledge. Once you know something, it’s really hard to remember what it’s like to not know it, so use straightforward language and explain anything that could be unclear

💡Make it a great ending! The Peak-End rule says that most people remember how an experience ends. So make it easy, pleasant, and gracious, and you’ll be top of the list for customers when they’re looking the next time around.

Thanks for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe to my monthly newsletter below, find me in picture form on Instagram @johnjsills, or in work mode at The Foundation and LinkedIn.