This is the end of the story.

So to finish the story then.

If Vahinkovakuutus did finally give me the recording and based upon my girlfriends wishes not to publish it, i decided not to. The whole incident upset her quite a lot. So as not to make her feel worse i will leave it here.

However the basic content of the message was as remembered and described earlier in the blog.

If Vahinkovakuutus certainly implied that we were covered and gave examples of what was covered and sums of money. We were never told that we were not speaking to an If specialist and a generic customer service provider. We based our decisions of how and when to return home based upon this information at significantly greater costs to ourselves.

So with this and If´s continued resistance i decided to stop the effort here. Now the story is here and complete make up your own mind about what you think and if you wish to, try and learn from my successes and mistakes.

As far as the social experiment is concerned i certainly was succesful in a number of ways.

I did manage to generate interest in the story and traffic to the site.
I did manage to create additional pain and embarassment for If Vahinkovakuutus
I managed to use social media to publicise my story and certainly empowered myself more that through traditional channels.

In this respect the experiment was a success.

On the downside this did consume quite alot of time. There was no framework for me to follow, no examples of how others had tried to do the same thing. As a consequence i certainly made mistakes.

However the main things i learned through trial and error are,

You cannot force a story to go viral, you can enable it but people will only spread it if the content is relevant to them. In this respect a customer complaint story perhaps is not the best medium as this for the most part is a very personal thing and generally not too interesting to none engaged parties. To gain attention a story has to be so shocking or highly relevant to an audience to attract interest.

If you do attempt this kind of engagement, do not try to manipulate your channels too much for example repeated junk twitting does not work, asking people to perform tasks in your own interests does not work and should not be tried. Allow your story to grow organically based upon the content and style of writing and you will be succesful without having to resort to manipulating your own audience. This is something that i myself learnt the hard way from time to time during this process.

My advice is however to use statistical tools to follow how your actions perform. Ultimately this is the only way of measuring your success, especially if the party you are engaged with are silent or not acting how you would like them to act. Blogs and google analytics are a good starting point.
Well that is it, the blog navigation has been updated so that you can find things of interest to you. I hope you enjoy. Signing off.....

Until the next time a company ticks me off ;-)

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