End of Day Four Summary

Well after actually not such an eventful day today in terms of actions. The blog has continued to attract traffic and we have increased the number of twitter followers again today by 50% or so. We also have been retweeted several times and again republished on other sites and the likes of the conversation with If vakuutus are increasing (like the post to get live updates and show support).

We are continuing to grow and draw attention to the cause.

The main news today was If vakuutus's response

"I’m very sorry that you feel disappointed. However, that doesn’t affect the claims decision and the compensation line that we have – otherwise it wouldn’t be fair for the other customers in the same situation. I hope you understand this."

Well I hope that the same situation never appears again (see what i have asked from If vakuutus below in my response).

My whole argument has never been with their terms and conditions. They ARE pretty clear but my case is based upon the fact that they said they would cover it (or at least implied it was ok), we acted on that information at additional costs to ourselves and then they never paid.

If have already accepted they were at fault for the miss communication (on Facebook) so it seems to me simply that.

IF still want the customer to pay for their mistakes and shortcomings that they have already admitted.

They did not seem to get this so i posted this very simply for them to understand..

I also wrote a post today about how i felt that Finnish culture in particular influences this experiment. (sorry it is a long one i got a bit carried away)

In short the conclusions are that Finns were not able to break away from their rule book to see an opportunity and to avoid the risks of continuing this course of actions. Something i feel is a characteristic of a lot of Finnish companies.

Since If vakuutus have not taken the opprtunity to get a "great marketing story" then they are now in the realm of assessing what are the risks of continuing.

This is much to my regret, because i wanted to show that customers could resolve their issues quickly and easily through social media... when there is a valid complaint. I do not want this to become a "hate" blog because i do not hate IF. The money involved is a principle thing. I have already spent much more time on this than it is worth to me personnally. I belive in social media. I belive in ethics and i believe that when consumers are being walked over they have options other than costly legal ones.

I just find it hard to believe that If vakuutus will not pay for something they themselves have publically stated is their fault.

Simply i believe that becuase this is a new situation for them and there is no precident or rule book to follow, other than the one that is in place i.e. there existing terms and conditions.

It is ammusing that If Vakuutus would rather risk their reputation and continue to incur costs much above what the value of the original claim was (about 500 euros) than to get a fantastic marketing story for a bargain price and change the way they behave towards their customers.

I think that they are worried about setting a precedent here for other persons with an axe to grind but in this situation there is a valid case and i have asked for actions to be put in place so that this wont happen again. In this respect i am actually giving them positive input for how to be better.

For an insurance company that is all about risk assessment and assigning costs the ROI on this claim for If vakuutus must be horrendous. It makes absolutely no sense from them to continue with this from a financial point of view, a marketing point of view or from actually the ethical point of view.

Tomorrow i will again post about my social media strategy, some statistics and evaluation of the channels and of course the daily update. See you then :-)