Monday, July 17, 2006

GEICO RESPONDS - PERHAPS
Some time back, I commented about an experience with the Gecko - and that's Geico not Gordon, although there may be similarities. Close to one year later, which in Internet terms is almost prehistoric, I received a response from someone claiming to be from Geico. I say claiming because of course, the Internet is the great anonymizer and this could be anyone. Still, it makes for fun reading, especially if it IS a real Geico employee. So, in the interest of full disclosure, and general mischief, here's the response AND my reply:

GEICOSUCKS.COM: I know you are dot going to approve this, but... you comments illustrate how ignorant and "chilish" you actually appear. Yes, I do work for GEICO and yes, you do not, so I can safely say you have no clue what you are saying... BTWm if you lapse in coverage, even for 1 second, you lapse in coverage and this is across the board for all insurance companies... Maybe you should take a class or two to tap into your "genius" to develop some techical reading skills and the go read your contract before you buy insurance.

THE NAKED BYSTANDER: Many thanks for your cogent and well-mannered response. I especially enjoy your ad hominem stance, much beloved of the rhetorically weak. I do not doubt that "if you lapse in coverage, even for 1 second, you lapse..." and that this is also reflected in the turgid legalese of the contract. However, my crusade is more to encourage large corporations to be a little more customer friendly. I mean, I ordered at 5:00 am and the old coverage expired at 12:01 am - come on!

Interesting, too, that the company feels the need to register the domain name geicosucks.com, clearly because it is sensitive to criticism. Why, the fact that you've trawled the web to find one whine from an insignificant blogger suggests that such sensitivity runs deep.

And even MORE interesting is that if you are indeed an employee of Geico, then e-mailing me, a customer, using such terms as "you have no clue," "maybe you should take a class" and "how ignorant and 'chilish' (sic) you are," suggests to me that customer service is an area of the business that needs some development.


Thanks again for taking the time to reply. In fairness to any other readers, I'll be sure to post it on my churlish blog so that folks will be able to see an example of Geico's customer service department at work - if you ARE a Geico employee.

Tragically, my e-mailed reply was bounced back to me with an "Recipient address rejected: Access denied" message. Boo hoo. Looks like there wasn't a real reply address.

But one last piece of good news for Geico: I will be renewing my insurance with them this year. Hey, I may think they treated me shoddily, but business is business. Of course, should I ever have an accident, there's no telling how they'll be with actually paying out some money.