This announcement came across our TMCnet news feeds this week:
The release caught my eye in part because I have been a customer of MetLife for auto, home and term life insurance -- and a company stockholder as well. But MetLife's contact center has been on my mind lately because of some worrisome experiences I've had recently.
Most recently: In September I got worried because I had not received my MetLife bill (I'm on a monthly billing program that spreads out my enormous auto insurance bill over several months). When I first called to check on the bill, it was on a weekend. Surprisingly the call center was closed. This is a big insurance company. No 24/7 coverage?
As a working person, I figured my only option, then, was to deal with the IVR, which assured me that everything was fine with my account.
It lied. Within days, I received a notice threatening to shut off my auto insurance (you definitely don't want that to happen in Connecticut) and demanding immediate payment in full.
No choice but to call MetLife after work, squeezing in the call between the time I could limp into my front door one evening and the time when the call center would no doubt shut down for the night.
Long story short, I was able to reach a support specialist who could solve my problem, accept a phone payment and reinstate my monthly billing program -- in view of my many years as a customer and in view of my not having received my invoice in the first place.
The real hitch is this: That support specialist was a supervisor, and I was only able to speak with him after going through a low-level flunky who could not help me with my problem. Even worse, the low-level flunky at first told me that he could not help me with my problem and that no resolution was possible. He was very reluctant to put me through to a supervisor and only did so because I am a relentless bully when it comes to recalcitrant contact center agents and operations. I am usually polite and acknowledge that the problem is not their fault personally, but I insist that there must be someone who has the authority to deal with my problem -- so please find that person.
So I'm puzzled as to how MetLife's contact center got certified for its excellence. What about the tens of thousands of MetLife customers who are not relentless bullies? What happens to them when they call and hit the brick wall? I was curious to know something more about BenchmarkPortal's (the certifying agency) criteria for evaluating call centers, but couldn't find anything specific about that on their site.
Anyway, MetLife does get good marks for at least having a supervisor on duty who was willing and able to handle my problem and who displayed superb tact and consideration. But some points off their score for poor front-line staffing.
I'm still a MetLife customer. But while I was on the phone waiting for the supervisor, I was also on my computer -- and I had just typed www.progressive.com into the address bar on my Web browser.
AB -- 10/20/05
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