How to kill a red hot lead!

Last week the new puppy left a puddle on my carpet. It came to light when I walked into the study and felt this patch of dampness underneath my bare foot. My carpet is cream – the puddle was now orange.  Several hours of scrubbing with every product under the sun and the patch was still orange and now looked a bit bald from all the scrubbing.  Aha…I thought….this must be what they meant by accidental damage in my very expensive insurance policy.   So I called them and then spoke to the loss adjusters.  The outcome…you guessed it… there was an exclusion for any pets fouling, chewing or damaging any part of your property.

The culprit

I have been with my insurance company for about 10 years and this hiccup pushed me out of my inertia into the tipping point where I decided it was time for a change. The company that had been recommended to me over and over again by friends and family, including my son, was NFU (“Mum, all my friends’ parents are with NFU because they have great iPhone insurance” he’d said).  I’d read good things about them and liked their ad campaign. So I went onto their website, found a number and called them.

At this point I became a red hot lead, demand was there and I was ready to buy!

What happened next is every communications expert’s nightmare.  Our job is to raise awareness and change behaviours so that the business or general consumer is persuaded that there is a compelling reason to try out or buy the product or service.  Well, I had been persuaded and was ready to buy.  So I picked up the phone, dialled and then had to listen to 2 minutes of compliance stuff…. then some music and then a person who took down my details and said he would have to pass me to another person……who then cut me off.   So, undeterred, I dialled again…another 2 minutes of compliance stuff…spoke to person…passed me on……AGAIN I was cut off.  I decided to try one last time and after the first two stages finally got through to a man who said he could give me a quote. I told him that “NFU had been highly recommended and I am fed up with my current insurer, my policy expires in two months and I want to buy a new one.”

That, dear reader, is the positioning, message and goal that marketeers and communications professionals dream about.

The NFU man said “I am very sorry madam; because your policy expires in over 30 days I will be unable to give you a quote and you will have to call back 30 days before your policy expires!”  And that ladies and gentlemen is how you kill a red hot lead!