Culture from the Customer's Experience

Well it has been a busy summer apparently since nothing blogged since July when World Cup soccer and leadership was dominanting the attention span. To get back into the groove there were a couple of summer experiences that say a lot about a company's culture through the customer experience. First, in July my 18 year old daughter was in a car accident in Tofino, Vancouver Island where she had gone for a camping trip and to go surfing on the wild west coast. She was not hurt, nor was her passenger nor the gentleman who hit her thankfully. I was in Los Angeles and it was my car she was driving. She was credited by the man who hit her for having prevented injury to everyone which, for a young driver, is nice to hear. Everything that happens from this point on tells the story about 2 companies and their cultures.

The local representative for Budget was amazing. He could not, by policy, rent her a car as covered by the insurance but did everything he could to help move her and her stuff, along with her friend, to the campground and back and forth to settle things. The RCMP officer was also outstanding, helping her transport and setttle what needed to be settled. By the time the whole thing was done she reported it as a good experience since otherwise she would not have met so many nice people.

Meanwhile on my return to Vancouver I go to rent a car from Budget Rent a Car,and find out that she can not drive it unless i go to a particular outlet. The front line staffer was unsure of how to process the rental so she sold me insurance given uncertainty about how, who and whether the insurance company or VISA card coverage would cover it when it was an insurance claim. Two days later i learned that Budget was supposed to call to authorize transfer of the insurance to the rental. When i asked for a refund, the manager informed me i had to take it up with head office, (meaning fight for it) and that they would take it up with the insurance company. As easy as it is to bash the insurance company to make a long story shorter what was really going on was Budget did not train their front line staff to handle insurance claims but to sell the insurance (for the second time as it was already covered). From the managers response, the bottom line was that once we have the customer's money the customer needs to fight to get it back. There was no interest in ensuring front line staff knew how to prevent double selling from happneing again.

This has all the mark of a company fighting to survive. The policies and front line training is intended to sell not serve. Based on what the local rep in Tofino had done for my daughter I would have signed up for life out of appreciation. Based on the experience in Vancouver it is unlikely that I will deal with them again.

Fortunately, U-Rent to the rescue. My daughter had 3 jobs two of which started at 5 am. She needed a car to get there and U-Rent were fine about renting one to me with her as a driver. Problem solved.

Now to the insurance company. About 2 weeks later, after the car is towed back to Vancouver, in the body shop for repair I get a phone call from Total Loss Collision division to say that my car was declared a write off and that I would be compensated as per my policy. This was a departure from the direction i thought we were heading but hey.....after questioning what happened this seemed to be the route. On the Thursday before the long weekend I got a call giving me the amount (replacement value) and that a cheque would be delivered to me the following Tuesday. Thursday, after receiving the call,  I went over to the auto body shop to retrieve stuff left in the car. The auto body shop were pleased to show me how much progress they had made and estimated that the car would be available for pick up in about a week (it was 3 weeks). Big problem.

The body shop made a quick call to the insurance company and suddenly there will be no check. Tuesday morning i get a phone call saying bring the rental car back. There was more than one instance of having the rental car cancelled before the car was fixed but when I called to find out how my car was being repaired and written off simultaneously the cultural impact of cuts came to light. Somewhere not so long ago cuts had happened and when they were done, the new system put in place ensured that people no longer connected or coordinated with other people. Mixed messages are the result and i almost got my car replaced while it was being repaired.

From a business point of view it was not hard to see two cultural expressions of policy: Budget's is about selling not service and therefore it is in survival mode not apparently planning to be around for the longer haul. The insurance company was cut from the inside and that made them look pretty incompetent from a communications point of view. Wonder if the C-suite knows.