Nov 10, 2010 01:06 PM
5081 Views
In this age of e-commerce, though one has come to expect everything to be available on-line, I was pleasantly surprised to find an option to renew my car insurance online with Bajaj Allianz. Even more so, when after keying in my car details, it extracted all the previous policy details and generated the new policy quotation online within minutes. I immediately jumped at the option and proceeded to renew my car insurance. There was some error though towards the end (after making the payment), when the system(their's, not mine) conked off when I had to mention the address for policy dispatch.
I had moved from Mysore to Bangalore and naturally wanted to get my policy dispatched to my new address. Then began my ordeal to get this simple (at least that's what I thought) process accomplished. When I called the customer care, I was asked to send an e-mail to the effect of my address change with supporting documents attached and NO - they do not accept a valid rent agreement. Instead, they needed documents that a person like me living in a rented accommodation cannot provide easily.
Nonetheless, I sent scanned copies of rent agreement and my gas connection booklet. This entire process took me about 5 e-mails back and forth and each time I was rewarded with an I Track number for my efforts. It almost seemed that I had to repeat the entire story every time I initiated a new communication (It surprises me that they do not have a mechanism of filing all correspondence regarding ONE issue with ONE damn tracking number). I also got offers of escalation when I quizzed the non-acceptance of rent agreement - and NO, if I have renewed online and not through one of their personnel/agents, they cannot verify the address by sending someone for address verification, but they only accept one of their prescribed documents. All these past 4 years of buying their policy, I had always gone through one of their personnel and never faced an issue, which means that I had to 'pay the price' of renewing my insurance online and daring to change my address to boot.
I received absolutely no confirmation of whether the address has been updated and if the policy will arrive at my new address. I was planning to escalate this, when I almost went into cardiac arrest on receiving the policy document at my new address. I was really pleased and hoped that I will receive the smart card after a few weeks as usual. When nothing came by for almost a month, I sent an e-mail asking for my smart card to be sent to my address only to be informed that a. online orders are not entitled for smart cards (I cannot for my life imagine why) and b. They don't have the new address on their records.
I had enough and sent another mail to them informing them that they have lost me as a customer and in response got another I Track number.
Though I have my policy document with me, the whole experience post my online transaction has left a bad taste in my mouth. I guess in India, companies have a long way to go to truly become e-savvy and more than that customer centric. E-commerce is not just building an on-line system and charging customers on-line, but has to be backed with a lot more options than that.
Anyway, Good Bye Bajaj Allianz!
