 What do you think of customer feedback sections on insurer's websites?: Few people like to hear harsh words about themselves. For companies, however, such words are important because they help them fine-tune their customer service.
Yet while virtually all insurers of any size are eager to receive customer feedback, the budget travel insurers seem to have much more open customer feedback facilities on their websites. On the websites of the larger insurers like Churchill Travel or Legal and General travel insurance web pages, for instance, there is certainly a place to leave feedback, but there seems to be no real large space of customer postings as there are at gotravel or 1stoptravel. The larger insurers apparently want to compile customer feedback into proprietary customer service research models they no doubt have in-house, but there is no real place for customers to air their compliments or complaints more freely.
In this, the budget insurers might be a bit ahead of the majors. Even allowing for the fact that the budget insurers may have "conveniently deleted" posts that were less than favourable, this open chat sort of facility is an additional feature that makes the sites much friendlier.
Does that really matter? After all, people go to travel insurers to purchase insurance, and nothing else - especially online, right? Perhaps, but Datamonitor reported in its UK Travel Insurance Market 2008 report that the unmistakable trend over the last few years has been travellers purchasing annual travel cover for the entire year rather than for single trips.
That means that they are paying more money at once than previously, and thus may be thinking much more seriously before they make a purchase. On top of that, research from firms like gocompare.com suggest that a large percentage of insurance purchasers (at gocompare upwards of 40%) are not just seeking lower quotes but better cover. This being the case, even small, friendly features like customer chat/feedback areas could be an important feature to retain potential customers on the insurer's website long enough to hook them. It helps elevate user trust, too, by showing that the insurer is willing to leave public feedback about itself online.
Insurers might consider, then, that keeping customer feedback secret might not be in their own self-interest. Practically speaking, if you must read about customer complaints, it's probably better to have them read on your own website than a consumer group's like Which? †
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