I have re-opened the dialogue with If Vahinkovakuutus

It is with very mixed feelings that i have reopened the dialogue with If vahinkovakuutus. If you have read my previous conclusions from my first attempt to engage them you will understand why.

In my opinion If vahinkovakuutus have publically shown themselves to be very untrustworthy, unethical and entirely non customer orientated. In any case as If vahinkovakuutus have still not given me the recording of the phone conversation that this whole experiment and engagement has been based upon then i have reopened the dialogue via their facebook pages to try and get it back.

I had not expected this course of events would be necessary but apparantly it is. Below is the screen shot of the new conversation. If vahinkovakuutus seem to be ignoring it currently. Again this can only serve to damage their public image further.

View the conversation on Facebook.

If Vahinkovakuutus Social CRM and Customer Service Conclusions

I am slightly cutting with tradition here and skipping the analysis and jumping straight to the conclusion. I will add stats and analysis later along with my Social CRM Customer orientated Engagement Framework (i may need to come up with a shorter name). I will base this upon what i have learnt in this experiment and with an eye to enabling other customers out there to learn from my mistakes and engage companies through social media successfully. This will be added to the blog in installments during the upcoming weeks.

IF Vahinkovakuutus Customer Service Conclusions

One of the goals of this experiment was of course to get customer service via social media and Facebook in particular. I will start by summarising my thoughts with regard to this.

How did this score as a customer service experience in terms of technology?

Well in terms of my own experience of having to wait for responses it is no different than any other chanel a company may have you operate in. You write your question and wait for your response so in this respect it is the same as email, phone, web portal or even face to face conversation. This is as almost always the response is, "we will get back to you". This means that actually the experience is not so much affected by the technology but more by the company in questions own practices. However for me personally, it is a more than acceptable form of communication and fits with my own online presence. It is convenient and more so than having to remember passwords or logging in securely to a dedicated service which in itself causes added pain. Not really a good place for passing secure documents but a nice place to have the conversation.

How did the experience score in terms of  the service i received from If Vahinkovakuutus?

As i will discuss this in terms of SCRM in the next section i will just approach this in terms of general customer service.

With If vahinkovakuutus's responses i was annoyed in the delay in responses to my questions. Particularly where at one point they disengaged for two days and then still did not answer my questions. This made me feel like they were just ignoring my concerns and they were just hoping i would go away. This gave me the impression that they were childish. I was not attacking them i was not slandering them i was attempting to engage them in dialogue and discussion with what i felt was a valid argument.

I was also frustrated by If vahinkovakuutus's almost constant effort to get me off Facebook and force me back into their conventional channels. If vahinkovakuutus seem to only want to use Facebook as a marketing channel. They do not really want to engage me as a customer and they certainly do not want anything that could be perceived negatively there. What they do not understand they themselves can affect this perception by their own behaviour and how they react to the content that is placed there.

I was particularly disappointed that If Vahinkovakuutus did not want to publish results publically with regard their review into using a third party for their emergency customer service or for their lack of customer service in their shops. This just made me feel like they were not actually going to do anything and their promise to investigate this was just PR. I believe that they were not listening at all and i am left with the feeling that nothing will happen. I always felt like If vahinkovakutus had something to hide.

I was also very disapointed that, even though If admitted that they made mistakes, they still refused to compensate me for the costs that their miscommunication had caused me. This is something i just cannot get my head around to be honest. Basically the message i received is too bad we do not care!

Also the they refuse to even discuss any changes to their terms and conditions. I requested that they should,  accept liability in the case if incorrect or misleading information supplied by them. This just makes me feel sorry for their other customers.

Finally, two weeks ago i asked for a copy of the phone call that If based their decision not to pay on, this has still not reached me. This suggests to me that they have something to hide or are afraid that i will publish it. This gives me the impression that If vahinkovakuutus are not a morale company and you cannot trust them.

Social CRM Conclusions

The main goal in this experiment was to engage a company through their own social media and to see, if by doing so, the customer has gained more power in the conversation than through conventional channels.

In this respect i think that although my own personal goals of changing If vahinkkovakuutus's behaviour for the benefit of their other customers and gaining compensation for myself were not succesful i believe the experiment has been. This is why.

Having engaged If vahinkovakuutus through their own private channels i was unsuccesful in achieving my personal goals. I was not going to get my money back anyway, so in this respect nothing ventured nothing gained applies. All that this has cost me is my time.

More importantly by engaging If vahinkovakuutus in this public space i brought awareness to my cause. By gaining support i was able to apply pressure to If vahinkovakuutus above that that i could have through their own channels. From this factor alone the probability of success must rise even with the real danger of annoying them. This is because all of the advantages are the customers. The cusotmer has nothing to lose That is as long as they do not alienate their audience.

This strategy also has the power to benefit the company through excellent customer service (as so often  has been demonstrated) and has added value as a marketing tool. However the strategy also allows for the company to be embarassed publically and to devalue their own brand and disrupt their messaging. This has additional potency of course as the conversation is held on the company's own social media and infront of their own stakeholders. This is the worst case scenario for the company and involves the largest risk and cost for them. This of course depends upon how the company themselves behave and the ingenuity of the customer. Unfortunately for If vahinkovakuutus i feel that they fall firmly into the second category. If vahinkovakuutus have embarassed themselves and eroded their brand equity. This is why.

If' vahinkovakuutus's poor performance is not only about the poor customer service experience that i received (as discussed above) but also from their own attitude towards the use of social media. At all turns they attempted to get me off their Facebook group. They did not want to engage me there.

For some time, the fact that they tried to ignore me and hoped i would go away, is also a very immature attitude to this kind of dialogue. However in this situation i was able to diversify my strategy on their facebook page and other social media to interfere with their own marketing messaging. I believe that, this was the only reason that after two days they did re-engage me. In the social media world there is nowhere for them to hide and in this way the customer is empowered when they act in a civilised way. Again this must always be in a dialogue and never slanderous or you will lose your support and alienate your own audience. It is hard to do sometimes but, it essential to avoid losing your temper. You must always consider how you are perceived as an individual.

If vahinkovakuutus were aware of the risks of blocking me on the Finnish Facebook group. I had forseen that this may happen and had a backup plan but did not have to use it. I was however temporarily blocked from the other If Insurance local social media Facebook pages. I do not know where this decision came from but it says something about If's corporate culture with regard social media. Rights however were returned when i noticed and blogged about it. This again indicates a degree of empowerment. In terms of appearing as a caring socially responsible company this is of course totally unacceptable behaviour. The content that i added was of course not explicit or offensive to any of If's audience.

If vahinkovakuutus clearly only see social media as a way of pushing out their own message and they wish to control it at all cost. They even asked me not to post content related to my blog.

Sorry no you cannot control social media.

Facebook is a public forum, you may start the conversation but you should not try to control it. If vahinkovakuutus seem not at all interested in engaging customers in dialogue especially things that relate to their poor performance or things that are painful for them. Actually i believe this is a Finnish trait generally. This type of engagement is of course one of the mantras of Social CRM. I wonder if If vahinkovakuutus had ever heard of social CRM before this experience. One thing is for sure, they have now.

Additional benefit gained from engaging If vahinkovakuutus in the social media world is also in terms of the company's own costs related to the claim. By prolonging this claim i increased If's own financial costs for this claim dramatically and in all likelihood substantially more than the value of the original claim. This is another factor that empowers the customer. In traditional channels it is easy to diengage a customer when you have had enough of them. In the social media world it "looks bad" so it is harder for a company to do so. This means that as a customer you can continue to force the company to incur additional cost in handling your grievances and increase the pressure on them.

What was the ROI for If vahinkovakuutus?

How have If vahinkovakuutus come out of this experience? Financially the actual costs for handling the claim must be way above what they would have been had they just paid the claim in the beginning. They have also had a lot of negative publicity targeted at their own stakeholders and a permanent reminder of their poor performance preserved in this blog for all time and thanks to my SEO efforts this should be visible to people who search for If Vahinkovakuutus for the foreseeable future.

On top of this i can see from the stats that about 30 people visiting the site clicked an insurance related advertisement. Statistically and based upon the source of my traffic at least half of these were If customers or stakeholders as they came from If's own Facebook pages.  I would love to know if even one of these customers switched from IF to a competitor as a result of this. This is a cost to If i cannot measure and only guess at.

Furthermore as half half of my traffic came from the UK and US and none of these are If countries this is probably the first that those people have ever heard of If vahinkovakuutus. As such this is the first impression that will affect their image of If vahinkovakuutus as a brand. You know what they say about first impressions. This becomes even more pertanent if If vahinkovakuutus decide to venture into those markets.

Really it beggars belief that a company could be this stubborn, childish and damn stupid. As a manager i would have settled in the beginning taken the opportunity and sold the marketing story. I would have eliminated all risk from this. Especially as the customers case is a valid one and the original value of the claim was only 500 euros. I thought insurance companies were big on assessing risk and ROI.

Well it just shows me that even in the face of a valid argument (by their own admission) they will not put their customers first even when it is in their interest to do so. I just cannot understand this, it makes no sense at all.

What was my own ROI for this Experiment?

Well personally i did not do well, i was unable to turn over the claim decision and admittedly i spent a lot of time on this. However i have learned alot about how to engage a company and i can share that with others and i will. This blog is an enduring testament to that.

In the upcoming weeks i will add new content here that will outline a Social CRM engagement model/framework from the customers perspective. The purpose of which is to show customers how to succesfully engage a company in dialogue pertaining in particular to Social CRM. I will also add more content related to analysis of channels and statistics. In this way customer's everywhere will be able to learn from my mistakes and successes to engage with their own service and product providers.
Perhaps then the ROI for me is in terms of legacy. I hope that others can learn from this experience and apply some of the techniques. I also hope that companies themselves will learn from this and learn how to and how not to engage customers. At least everyone (including me) should learn something about Social Customer Relationship Management.

Conclusion

During this process i tried to find other examples of someone trying this kind of engagement and was unable to do so. All of the literature seems to have been written from the company's perspective in terms of their marketing successes. As far as i know this is the first time a customer has deliberately attempted to engage a company in an organised dialogue and not a rant and as part of a wider self organised social media campaign. Of this i can be proud.

As a final note, i managed to gain 50% of my traffic through If vahinkovakuutus's own social media. This meant i was able to target their own audience, on my site, with insurance advertisements from If's competitors. Originally this was to increase the pain to If vahinkovakuutus. Although the revenues are small from this endeavour (a few cents so far) and profitiability was not the point of this experiment, in about 100 years i should have recouped the losses originally caused to me by If vahinkovakuutus. In this respect on a long enough time scale this endeavour will not have cost me anything. This means the only costs were incurred solely by If vahinkovakuutus.

Well done If, we salute you! Sometimes when you win you lose and sometimes when you lose you win. Given a long enough time scale of course.

Summary of My Dialogue with If Vahinkovakuutus

Discussion held on If's Facebook Page

So that future and new visitors to this blog can get a quick overview of the story and the dialogue that took place between If Vahinkovakuutusyhtiö in Finland and myself i have decided to write a summary of the discussion. Just the highlights.

This will also act as a sitemap of sorts and let you easily navigate to posts that you may want to read more about. So here are the highlights.

February 5th 2012. Malev go bankrupt, we are stuck in Turkey. We call If Vahinkovakuutus Emergency Customer Service

We travel to the airport discover that our flight has been cancelled. We call If vakuutus's emergency customer service and are led to beleive that everything is ok and that we are covered. We were told to pay the costs ourselves and claim when we get home. In response to this we buy very expensive flights home the next day in the belief that If vahinkoivakuutus will pay. See post.

February 6th 2012. We make our claim and If Vahinkovakuutus inform us that they will not pay.

We fly home and make the claim on If's web service. After a week or so we receive a large envelope from If vahinkovakuutus with a thick bundle of terms and conditions and a decision not to pay. See Post.

February 14th 2012. We visit the If Vahinkovakuuutus shop for personal customer service

We visit an If vahinkovakuutus shop to discover that we cannot get customer service related to claims there. If offices only sell insurance and they do not address your customer service needs as an existing customer other than to sell you more insurance. See Post.

February 15th 2012. We call If Vahinkovakuutus's customer service number

We call If vahinkovakuutus and they say that they will investigate and get back to us. They send us an email the next day saying they have heard the phone conversation and as they did not promise to pay and based upon their terms and conditions they will not pay. See post.

I also requested the copy of the phone call conversation on this day.

February 18th 2012. I start the blog and engage If Vahinkovakuutus on Facebook.

After feeling totally ripped off and having bought really expensive flights home at additional expense to myself. I decided to start this blog and engage If vahinkovakuutus on their own Facebook page This is deliberately in a public forum where If could not hide. This is also the first day that If respond but it is a "we will get back to you message" See Post. However i also see this as an opportunity for If Vahinkovakuutus and write a post describing that.

February 20th 2012. If vahinkovakuutus's First Real Response.

• If vahinkovakuutus admit that they failed in their communication (accepting liability in my eyes)
• If still refuse to pay as in their terms and conditions they do not pay travel insurance when companies go bankrupt (what is the point have travel insurance)
• If Vahinkovakuutus try and get me off their social media by directing me down other channels that they can control (Nice Social CRM)
• I respond by saying that i want to resolve the case in this public forum and ask, is it really the customer's responsibility to pay for their admitted mistakes. See post.

February 21st 2012. If still argue that their terms and conditions state that they can't pay

• If vahinkovakuutus stick to their terms and conditions argument
• They state that it would not be fair to pay this for their other customers.
• I reply with concrete demands of what i expect and re-emphasise that this is not about the terms and conditions. I expect payment because of the false and misleading information supplied to me and the resulting additional costs i incurred as a result of this..
• At this time i also write a post about Finnish culture with mention to adherence to rules and customer service. See Post.

• I supply If vahinkovakuutus with a concrete list of my expectations from them
• Change your terms and conditions so the If Vahinkovakuutus are liable for giving out false or misleading information. This is to protect their other customers.
• Review and publish the results on Facebook relating to not outsourcing their emergency customer phone service to an unqualified third party without detailed knowledge of their policies.
• Review and publish the results on Facebook relating to not offering personal face to face customer service relating to claims in their If vahinkovakuutus shops.
• Settle the claim and pay my personal costs incurred as a result of information supplied to me by them.

February 21st-23rd 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus are silent

• After no word from If vakuutus i believe that they are not going to answer me and are waiting for me to go away. (Again nice Social CRM).
• As a result of the silence I engage in a strategy of interference in their other Social Media conversations. See post
• I believe that If vakuutus have lost any opportunity they had to turn this into a social CRM success story. See Post.

February 23rd 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus re-engage me but don't answer my requests

• I will never know the reasons for why If vahinkovakuutus decided to re-engage but they did.
• They again try to get me off their social media saying they do not want to handle it there and wish to do it privately. (I bet you do). Again nice social CRM, isnt SCRM about the customers needs?
• They do not answer any of my questions but agree to pass the feedback forward.
• I again ask for a copy of the phone conversation which this discussion is based.
• I try to help them by also supplying a link demonstrating how to engage a customer through social media. See Link. See my post on the subject.

February 25th 2012 If vahinkovakuutus request that i stop linking to my Blog

• If vahinkovakuutus request that i should not publicise my story on their social media.
• Sorry no you cannot control a public forum. This is a place for customers to engage you on their terms. This is not your own private marketing channel. This is not your website. Very nice social CRM once again.
• I agree to stop interferring with their other marketing messaging on Facebook while they engage me in this conversation.See orignal post.

February 27th 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus can you please just answer the questions!

• After getting pretty tired of If vahinkovakuutus i start a new thread as the conversation was getting a bit long and congested.
• I simply reiterate the questions I asked to them on February 21st and request that they answer them Yes/No and with their justification. I want to bring this to an end i have wasted enough time on If.
• See post.

February 28th 2012 If Vahinovakuutus reply with an answer a politician would be proud of

• If vakuutus give a reply that is basically marketing drivel about your feedback being valuable. They do not answer any of the questions.
• I request again for them to answer them with simple yes/no answers.
• My post is not very flattering of If Vahinkovakuutus. I am getting quite tired of engaging If for over 2 weeks and getting no where.
• I notice on the same day that i have been blocked from If Insurance's other regional facebook pages. After posting on the subject my user rights are mysteriously returned. Again nice social CRM. As a reaction i post the story to If's competitor's Facebook pages. See my post on the subject.

February 29th 2012. If vahinkovakuutus's final response and Mine

• I receive a final response (see post) from If stating that they will not handle this in the public areena
• They do not answer any of my questions
• They again try to drive me off the social media to another channel they do not want to discuss with me anymore.
• I post my last comments to them in the dialogue. I am not very flattering of If unsurprisingly.
• If's silence and refusal to answer the genuine questions concerning not only me but their other customers tells me more about If Vahinkovakuutus than anything they have done so far. Their Social CRM behaviour has been of a very poor standard.

February 29th 2012 If Vahinkovakuutus have the last word

• Upon cancelling my insurances with If and moving them to Pohjola i discover If want to charge me 30 euros to do so. They claim that this is to stop people cancelling their insurance after only a few months. I have had my insurances with them for years. Nice customer service touch once again, well done.

I still have not had the recording of the conversation as is my legal right and cannot verify anything that If vahinkovakuutus have stated regarding that conversation.

View the original If Vahinkovakuutus conversation threads on Facebook.

Part 1 here
Part 2 here
What do you think about If Vahinkovakuutus? Find them on Facebook

Still Time for If Vahinkovakuutus to add insult to Injury

If Vahinkovakutus will even try and rip you off when you leave. You cannot trust If at all

Nice story relating to cancelling your matkavakuutus. Thanks again If Vahinkovakuutus. A nice touch to end my pain with you as a service provider.

View the feed on facebook

If Vahinkovakuutus charge you 30 euros to cancel your Travel Insurance with them even though you have had it for years. Nice Customer Service once again!

My Last Response: End of the Dialogue

Well as i just posted, If Vahinkovakuutus have given their last response to me. This is my final response to them on this subject. Pretty self explanatory so i won't comment any more but just leave it like this.

View the thread on Facebook.

If Vahinkovakuutus's Last Response: End of the Dialogue

Well this is it. It seems that If vahinkovakuutus have lived up to my previous experiences of Finnish customer service. If are not going to do anything.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to change their terms and conditions so that if they supply wrong or misleading information to a customer that they will take responsibility for this.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to publish on their Facebook group the results of their review regarding the use of a third party in their emergency call centre.

If Vahinkovakuutus have not agreed to publish on Facebook the results of their review into the lack of customer service other than for sales in their shops.

If Vahinkovakuutus will not pay the additional expenses incurred to me personally as a result of their self admitted failures in communication.

Do you want an insurance company who treats their customers like this? They refuse to engage me in the arena that i wish. Why are they on Facebook? They obviously have not heard of SCRM (Social Customer Relationship Management) and the main reasons people engage companies on facebook. Increasingly customer service is one of them.

View the conversation thread on Facebook.

Well it seems apparent from this If Vahinkovakuutus do not and never did want to engage me on facebook. With almost every response they have tried to eject me from their Facebook page. It is clear that this was something very new to them, they are not use to and do not like offerring customer service in a public forum. However the golden rule is if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about. It seems clear that If Vahinkovakuuts do have something to hide and they certainly do not want to share it on social media.  least in my eyes they have performed poorly.

See my final response to this and the summary of the entire conversation.

If Vahinkovakuutus have blocked me!

How is this for nice customer service and PR. In terms of social engagement If vahinkovakuutus have again failed.

This time it is not If Finland who are necessarily at fault. I have been blocked from using the other If regional facebook groups.

As i mentioned in a previous post i have been using If vahinkovakuutus's own social media as a piggybacking strategy and tool against them. This could have actually been beneficial to them if they had not lost the opportunity that i originally highlighted to them in the start of this story.

As i mentioned in the social media as a piggybacking strategy post i would later reveal how succesful this was. Well during the first day i did notice an increase in traffic from Latvia, Lithunia and Norway in particular but interestingly not from Sweden.

This was short lived however. Today for interest sake i decided to take a look to see if those original links i had put to link to my blog were still there.

Original Post added to If Insurance Swedens Facebook Group

As you can i see i did not put anything offensive or derogatory i just asked simply would you be interested in seeing what is going on in Finland?

Well it seems that this is enough for If Vahinkovakuutus to block me from their other Facebook groups. Well that is a nice engagement strategy. Granted it is not nice for those areas and they were just trying to protect their own customer base but i think that this goes against the principles of Social CRM.  Also i believe that this also fuels the negative perception of If as a whole. I did not attack them i did not criticise them on their own social media i just tried to engage them. I only posted once on those Facebookg groups.

Once again nicely played If Vahinkovakuutus. You are showing the world that your social media strategy, social engagement and customer service suck.

In a response to this i have today mentioned politely the existence of this blog on If vahinkovakuutus's competitor's Facebook groups such as Tapiola and Pohjola. They cannot control that media :-)



Visit Tapiola's Facebook Group

If Vahinkovakutus Must be bloody stupid!

Well yesterday i posted my questions to If vahinkovakutus.

See Post

Well they answered and i am sooo bloody annoyed by them it is like they were damned politicians. What kind of response is this!!!

I am very quickly getting very tired of If. There is no reasoning with them . I HATE INSURANCE COMPANIES!!!!!!

Yesterday i decided that i wanted to end this as i am just so tired of fighting what ultimately seems to be a losing battle. IF vahinkovakuutus just answer the questions so i can finish the damn story!!!

Can you please just answer the questions

As i mentioned in my previous post i have strated to think that my own ROI is getting a little bit out of hand with this project. As such i have moved away from the original facebook thread and have started another as a summary of that thread.

In short i summarised the argument by cutting and pasting the relevant parts of the thread into a more coherrent conversation. All parts of the image below themselves were images and no text content has been edited or changed. The text that is shown below is as it was originally written by the party. I even included my spelling mistakes.

I have added this to the top of If's wall. I have asked them simply.

I added the following as a comment below the main image. In the new thread.

I hope that this will now bring this to an end quickly, whatever that end may be. I do not want this to consume anymore of my own resources and time. Both side of the argument have been out forward so let's see what If vahinkovakuutus think. View their answers here.

If Vahinkovakuutus Respond: Sorry NO you Cannot Control Social Media

Well If Vahinkovakuutus have replied again and i think this time it seems even clearer to me that If vahinkovakuutus do not really understand the purpose of social media other than THEIR OWN marketing channel. Sorry Facebook is a forum and you cannot control it. It is not your website where you can control it.

You may have initiated the conversation but you are just a contributor! Here is their and my response.

What do you think? Feel free to post your comments on IF Vakuutusyhtiö's wall or here, wherever is appropriate for you!

If Vahinkovakuutus Story End of Day 7 Summary

Well End of Day 7 and sorry for not posting this last night as i had a cray day yesterday and the blog had to take a back seat so that i could actually spend some time with my girlfriend.

So the main thing today has to definitely be that after two days away If vainkovakuutus have re-engaged me. I wonder why this is. Did they realise i would not just go away? Where they thinking about what to say? Did they get annoyed by my action and decide to re-enter the forum. I guess i will never know.

Well i will post the discussion from yesterday here again and let you decide for youselves how to interpret it. My thoughts are discussed in this post.

I especially like my link to how to deal with upset customers on social media.

That made me smile ;-) Here is that link for anyone who is interested.

In other News.

I am sorry but i did add advertisements to my blog. I am sorry if this annoys you but the purpose is not to profit but to present viewers with advertisements related to the blog such as insurance offers from providers other than if (although i did see one If advert appearing yesterday). You can read the entire story from this post.

As for the other time i could spend on the blog yesterday i have spent it trying to SEO (Search Engine optimise my blog) i.e. make it appear higher in search results and also have google index it in a more accurate way so as more insurace adverts will appear on the site. Man is this a time consuming endeavour and frankyl i am not sure that it is worth it in terms of hours spent agains benefit especially for a blog that is not going to be active forever. BTW this blog will end with the story i you had not guessed that already. Of course the existing content will still be there though. I will write a post about SEO later when i get a chance.

Well that is all for now. Keep reading and feel free to comment whether you agree, disagree or are impartial this is a totally open forum.

If Vakuutus have re-engaged me!

Well thank you If vakuutus. I had almost given up on you. After two days since their last response i have had a new response from them. I do not know really why they have chosen to re-engage me, you would have to ask them, but i am grateful as it means i can still believe in them.

I have been a little critical of their approach in my blog and i have also adopted a strategy of interference on their own Facebook group. I have also added content to If Insurance's other local Facebook groups in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Latvia. Perhaps this has influenced them? Or perhaps it is the growing influence of this blog?

In any case this is what they have to say.

View the entire conversation on Facebook

I think this is quite self explanatory they have agreed to my earlier request to review my feedback which is positive and indicates that they are listening. They are still refusing to settle the claim or reimburse me for the additional costs that i incurred caused by their mis-communication.

Most importantly though now that they have implied that they are considering my feedback it means that perhaps we can actually help protect the other If vakuutus customers from this happenning to them again in the future.

I think that this is the biggest measurement of success of this experiment and if we can achieve that then i will be extraordinarily happy. We will have proved that customers engagin through social media can influence a company so as to change their behaviour. Also from If vakuutus's point of view it will mean that they can still sell and spin this as a success story for themselves. I am once again optimistic and hoping that If will live up to my expectations.

For those who cannot remember my original demands here they are. You can access the entire thread from here.

View the entire thread on facebook

Well amazingly i have now had another response from If Vakuutus. Correct me if i am wrong but i think that this is the first time this has happenned. Here is the new post from If Vakuutus and my own response.

View the thread on Facebook

To be fair If vakuutus are being pretty apologetic but they still refuse to act in terms of settling the claim. However they do seem to be showing some movement in their attitude to re-evaluating their customer support practices which is part of what i want to hear.

I would also like to hear about the request that i made for If Vakuutus to change their terms and conditions so that If vakuutus are responsible for customer costs resulting from their incorrect or misleading information and not their customer.

BTW i should state that the requested phone call conversation was held entirely in Finnish between If and my Finnish girlfriend. We wanted to make sure there was no miscommunication as the phone call was very important to us. I am of course English so thought it was better if the conversation took place between native Finnish speakers. Shame If were not so dilligent in ensuring the competency of their 24hr emergency service number.

Let's see where If Vakuutus go from here. It seems to me that they are trying but without action they are just digging a hole for themselves.

IF Vakuutus Seem to have lost their opportunity.

As i mentioned previously If vakuutus had a great opportunity when this case was first started. They could have turned this into a true success story of customer engagement.
However they have chosen not to take that route. Their line is simple this is how it seems to me.

Yes we admitteldy made a mistake but those additional costs you incurred because of our mistake are your problem not ours.

They are sticking to the line that our terms and conditions tell us not to pay when airlines go bankrupt. This is not in question and never was, even though i do not agree with that policy.

There current strategy seems to be: We are not going to talk to you now and hope you go away.

What does this strategy mean for If Vakuutus?

1. IF are not participating in the engagement process this means that they lose all control of the conversation they are unable to defend themselves.
2. IF further dilute their own messaging as i will continue to dirsrupt their own social media marketing channels. They have lost control of their own media.
3. They will continue to incur costs for having to deal with this claim which are actually way above the original costs of the claim.
4. They risk alienating their own customer base themselves through their own actions or inaction in this case.
5. There is day on day damage to their brand image and reputation. The interest in this story is growing day on day.

This is a very nice strategy well done ;-)

What does this strategy say about If Vakuutus?

1. They do not care that their customers have to pay for their mistakes. That is a nice message to send out. They are also promoting this message themselves on their own social media by not responding to the claim.
2. They do not think that they have to engage with their customers on social media even on their own Facebook group in particular. That is great Social CRM.
3. They do not see what i am doing as a risk to them. They do not understand the power of social media. I thought Insurance companies were all about risk.
4. They risk being perceived as childish and stubborn. If Vakuutus refuse to even outline their case what else can it say? I am happy to engage them in discussion why are they afraid to do this publically?
5. Do they know what to do? Does their crisis communication strategy include social media channels.

I actually welcome this strategy because it reinforces what i thought about them. They do not care they do not help despite what their slogan says.

Engaging Companies in Social Media Channels Politely Does Not Work

Well after the latest If vakuutus's response it seems clear to me that If vakuutus have missed their opportunity to turn this into customer service and marketing success story. Something i wished that they had because this alone would have shown that social media has empowered the consumer and that companies have recognised this and have changed their behaviour accordingly. This has not worked.

As such previously i was playing the role of a customer who was merely trying to communicate and engage with a company in a public channel with the hope that this combined with a growing support and interest base via this blog and the @IFinsurance twitter account would change their behaviour.

In this Experiment: Using a company's own Social Media as a channel to engage a company does not guarantee success even with a valid case and a growing social media presence.

As such a change in strategy is required so as to apply more pressure to If vakuutus through publicising the case and further damaging their brand image.

I will continue to try and engage with people in Finland, the conventional media, persons interested in social media, the insurance industry and PR and Marketing Generally. I will do this primarily through Twitter @Ifinsurance.

I have also expanded my use of Twitter. I decided that instead of just posting my own content i will redistribute content created by others writing about relevant subject material. I realise that social media is not only about pushing your own messaging but also spreading the word and collaborating with others. If i do not spread the message of others how can i expect others to spread my word. As such i have started a process of retweeting other relevant content via my twitter account.

I will adopt a new strategy of Interference Against If vakuutus.

Actually i am not sure if this is wise but i feel that at this point in time it is the only option really left to me. To try and increase the pressuse on IF i will interfere with their other customer dialogue on their own facebook group page and expand on this later to further increase the pressure if IF continue to resist.

This is a risky strategy as i risk alienating my own audience. I hope that this is not the case.

I have communicated very clearly with IF via their facebook wall what i hope to achieve and what will bring this to an end. If know what they need to do to stop this.

I have started the policy of interference see IF vakuutus's Facebook group to start with....... more to follow if necessary.

Please note i am not telling any lies about If vakuutus's, i will only post truthful comments. IF are very welcome to comment. I will continue to promote my own story via the blog. This is a very important fact, i do not want to do anything that could be conceived as slander. This is and always will be an entirely legal endeavour!!!

My primary goal is to publisize my story and disrupt If vakuuts's own brand messaging through factual story telling and interaction with people who are posting on the IF Facebook group.

I do not think that this is unreasonable. What do you think?

You can get live updates of the conversation on the Facebook thread by liking it. http://t.co/JlbiA65M Liking will also show support. Comments of course also appreciated. Follow the conversation live also on Twitter @IFinsurance.

IF's Third Response. I don't think they Understand

Well here we go we had a scond response from IF. Still no real answers. It seems to me that they are arguing the case based purely upon their terms and conditions that they do not pay in this case.

If have already accepted responsibility for their confused communication and implying that they would pay.

Their emergency number should have stated they certainly would not.
Well here is what they have to say...

If are arguing that they will not pay because they do not pay when companies go bankrupt.

Actually having lived in Finland this is expected based upon the Finnish culture and psyche and see my next post for more info about that.

I totally agree with their terms and conditions. They are clearly stated even though i do not agree with them. On this point i cannot have an argument.

IF are still not taking responsibility for their actions and the information that they supplied on their emergency phone number.

As i do not think they understand my argument i have outlined below very clearly what i think they should have come up with themselves.

I do not think that these are unreasonable requests. What do you think?

You can get live updates of the conversation on the Facebook thread by liking it. http://t.co/JlbiA65M Liking will also show support. Comments of course also appreciated. Follow the conversation live also on Twitter @IFinsurance.

IF's Second Response: Am i Surprised?

So i just received a rather lengthly response from IF regarding the claim. I was happy to receive the response but disappointed that IF's first objective seems to get me off their social media by directing me down other channels i have alread tried and failed with. I want to settle this very publically and in my channels as the customer.

Remember one of the major goals of  this experiment is to see if we can use social media to overturn an insurance claim decision by a major insurer in Finland.

Well unfortunately i think if missed their opportunity to demonstrate excellent customer service see the previous blog post. Obviously they did not read that post ;-) However it seems at least to me that they seem to at least accepting some responsibility for the error. But is that enough for me, hell no. Currently i am not their customer as i left as a result of this. With this kind of response allthough clearly very nicely written it is not at all enough to placate me.

I will once again wait for their response and based upon this may have to up the anti. It may very well be that despite all of my best efforts that IF will not agree to pay this through "Nice" communication.

In any case i have added my comments already to the blog. I find it very hard to accept that IF accept responsibility for their customer service error but are still refusing to settle the claim. What do you think? Comment directly on http://www.facebook.com/ifvahinkovakuutusyhtio If's own facebook group please.

The Last Straw and another channel Email

After the phone call IF promised to look into the situation and listen to the phone call which apparently had been recorded. 

In any case this is a translation of some of the text sent by IF and cut and pasted from my email.

"Elisa's customer service representative checked the Malev web pages and saw that they had said to use other airlines to get home."

"After this he has read to you insurance examples and terms and condtions."

"The Elisa representative advises you to pay yourself and then to make the claim afterwards".

I am sorry IF but we interpreted this as you will pay and based our behaviour upon this.

It seems to me that

IF do not take responsibility for their third party partners in critical positions.

This is absolutely discraceful and this is where i gave up on IF in the conventional channels. Hence this social media experiment was born out.

IF you want customer service don't bother come here

As previously mentioned we embarked on the arduous trip into downtown Helsinki in all sorts of freezing weather conditions and blizzards that are for Finns a normal part of daily being even in what i would deam Autumn or Spring.

Having succeeded in reaching the IF office we looked for the customary Finnish service process of taking a number and waiting in line. But wait, FANTASTIC we are the next number, there is no line!!

Having lived in Finland perhaps too long i should have been suspicious but me in my ever naive state just thought that we were lucky!

Well we sat down with the IF agent and within 10 seconds we knew why there was no line. IF offices only sell insurance. There is no "customer service". The if agents cannot even see the data related to the customer such as claim history or current status of claims.

As such we were directed to a phone where we could call their customer support. Nice touch i thought, well that is service. Guess what, the phone service was out of order!

To be fair the agent in the shop tried to help us the best that she could with the limited resources available to her.

As such we explained our story to her. In short we said that we had called the emergency number and that they had said that they would pay but then didn't.

She was clear on one point though. IF do not pay travel insurance claims when companies go bankrupt. This is as Malev did in our case.

I must say i found this very strange, i personally would think that this is one of the things that you would absolutely want insurance for. I guess it would be too expensive if a Finnish company like aurinkomatkat went bankrupt and they would have to fly 10 000 finns back from Phuket. That might actually affect their profitability ;-)

Again though even with this point clearly stated in the small print the agent assured us that as IF had promised to pay by phone when we were in Istanbul that they would probably honour that claim.

Again reassured, but now more than a little annoyed, tired but still hopeful we went home knowing that we would again need to try and make contact with IF again via their phone number as there was once again no info on their web service regarding the claim or how to contest it and we could not get service in their shop.

WTF Am i just bad at Finnish?

Well thus the plot thickens. About a week later i received through the post a large envelope from IF.

Me being me, my first thought was OMG not another bill! I am sure i only just paid the last one!!

Well it was not a bill it was "even with my Finnish ability" a refusal to pay the claim. Included in the envelope was a "large" attachment of all the "small" print that no-one reads.

Well of course you can imagine my shock having hopefully also read the previous posts in this blog. IF had agreed to pay and now were refusing. What was going on?

After having waited for my girlfriend to come home to confirm what my poor Finnish had already implied we decided of course to take this up with IF. The next day we went to visit IF's office in downtown Helsinki to see if we could get to the bottom of this.

The End of The Trip and Start of the Story

Most stories start at the beginning but this one starts at the end of a fantastic romantic weekend getaway to Istanbul with my Finnish girlfriend.

Upon arriving back at Istanbul's airport with the intention of returning to Helsinki, where we live, we immediately were greeting by the in itself unpleasant site of seeing that our flight had been cancelled. We took the usual steps of walking around the airport trying to find out information and eventually discovering that as Malev had gone bankrupt they would not be flying anyone home.

Of course the expected questions arrive, what are we supposed to do? what should we do, how are we going to do that?

As we could not get home that day we decided to go back to the hotel. Upon arrival at the hotel we thought it best to call IF's emergency number to see what we should do.

During the phone call we were led to believe that IF would pay for the return flights and additional night in the hotle as well as other costs. With this in mind we relaxed booked quite expensive flights the next day so that we could get home faster and checked back into our very nice hotel in Istanbul.

End of a lovely trip to Istanbul

With this in mind we simply relaxed and enjoyed what remained of an additional day in Istanbul, went to bed and returned to Finland the next day.

After returning home we made the travel insurance claim through IF's web service and this is where the plot began to thicken.