
Building a feature to figure out how much our customers want to chat with agents - jgranof
https://medium.com/@coverinsurance/how-much-do-customers-want-to-chat-with-insurance-agents-we-built-a-feature-to-find-out-f4687fa488ff
======
amflare
The reason I prefer humans to AI or whatever is that humans are infinitely
better at fuzzy searches. I'm not enough of an expert to know what I need to
know to get what I want. So I relay on a human with experience to translate
for me, then give an answer. This is also an issue I have with indian call
centers. Its very hard to communicate something to them in a manner that
doesn't use the "correct" words. So I lose a lot of the service I'm counting
on.

~~~
jandrese
To me there's no value in talking to a human if the human is roboticly
following a script.

It's really frustrating to call the helpdesk and get:

HD: Hello! What's your customer number?

Me: xxxxxxx

HD: Thank you, what's the problem?

Me: It is failing to connect to the network. I've tried a soft reset, then a
factory reset, and finally reinstalling the firmware. While sniffing the
traffic it looks like the device is failing to accept the DHCP responses from
my server, as it continually broadcasts DHCP solicitations and is send
responses but never configures its network settings.

HD: Have you tried turning it off and back on?

~~~
rubyfan
I’d be interested in the stats on call resolution at the off/on step. You have
to assume it’s large enough that they ask it first.

Also I’m genuinely curious, what sort of response you expected to get when you
called and told them about traffic sniffing.

~~~
jacobtwotwo
Speaking as a one-time 'high speed internet tech support customer relations
specialist' working at a call-center contracted out to Comcast, I was told
that it was close to 90%. That seems exaggerated since I would say it was
closer to 70% (ballpark) success for my calls, but it was high enough that the
place eventually implement an entire first-line crew that did no more than ask
about whether power cycling had been complete or explain power-cycling before
handing the 'sub(scriber)' off.

If someone called in with the GP's depth of troubleshooting completed, the
standard policy was say something like 'this is outside of my allowable
offered support'(but if you really know how, help, but not officially!).

------
mikece
Giving the customer the choice of how to contact you will always be a winner.
Some will talk, some will text, for some it depends based on what's going on.
But giving the customer a choice -- and respecting that choice! -- is always
good for the customer.

------
bitwize
This makes me giggle because there's a very simple heuristic that gets you a
99.9% solution at least:

Assume the customer does not want to talk to bots. That includes bots
implemented on a human substrate, i.e., call-center scripts.

~~~
ksar
This is true. We've got a human in the loop, who is primed with alot of
context around your request. Customer service + advice on coverage is the
primary thrust of the feature.

------
iandanforth
Greetings and salutations! Welcome to the emergency line of the San Angeles
Police Department. If you'd prefer an automated response, press 1 now.

------
whoisjuan
Unrelated, but I f*cking hate Cover. I tried getting a quote with them once
and they gave me some quotes that were not what I wanted and had budgeted for
that policy. Not a big deal.

A week later I started getting bombarded with junk mail sent to my physical
address, from insurance companies offering me every possible insurance policy
in existence.

What a good way to innovate./s They claim they're modernizing the process of
buying insurance but still use the same old trashy tactics of the old
companies like selling your personal information.

~~~
ksar
CEO of Cover here. This is super surprising, as we sell our own policies + own
a national insurance brokerage. No need to share/sell your information at all
(nor would we, as a matter of principle), because we have access to most
carriers in the US. We'd prefer to sell you a Cover policy or one from our
partner panel that can be managed via our service.

Do you mind sharing which companies sent you physical mail? I'm at karn at
cover.com. Would be great to dig in.

~~~
whoisjuan
I don't remember exactly since this was a year o more ago. A lot of companies!
I only remember talking with the Cover agent via text message.

I was quoting for basic Renter's Insurance. She gave me a price of 125/year
which was too much since I only need it super basic insurance and both
Lemonade and Assurant give you that for half. Anyway. Not a big deal. Exactly
one week after that I started getting junk mail from insurance companies.

I never quoted with anyone else besides Cover. I bought from Assurant after
quoting with Cover. Cover was the only possible culprit for that burst of junk
mail.

I don't know how you guys share data with other companies or vendors but
definitely something happened in the way my info was handled. The timing
between that interaction and the correspondence I started getting made it
pretty evident.

