When Twitter can be better than advertising

I've just had one of those things happen to me that put a smile on my face. One of those things that puts you in a slightly better mood. One of those things that not only gives you the satisfaction of money well spent, but makes a bit of a personal difference to you.

Money Supermarket were, up until a few hours ago, just another financial comparison site for me.

Realising I needed to change an address on a policy, I tried to call them on Monday. An answering machine said that I can't do stuff like that over the phone. Putting the phone down frustrated, I tweeted this message and thought nothing of it.

Then, out of the blue, I received these two messages earlier today.

I emailed Ian, got a reply within 90 seconds and when I was replying to his email I had a phone call from Money Supermarket. Within a few minutes my issues had been resolved completely. (Why they could deal with the issue over the phone after I had tweeted about it, when they couldn't prior to the tweet, is a moot point...)

What's important to me in this instance is something I often say to colleagues and clients: Every experience with a brand is its advertising.

In this instance, it literally is. 

I cannot remember a single piece of advertising for Money Supermarket. I have no idea what their strapline is, no idea of their colourways or even their logo. I have no idea of their tone of voice, what their latest deal is and to be honest I don't even know their URL - I would just google 'travel insurance.'

But, what I do know about Money Supermarket is that they have been proactive in looking after one of their (very minor) customers. They responded very quickly and efficiently to my query. More importantly for me is that I can now put a name to them. They're not a brand. A person there spoke to me as a person. They care about my custom.

I've not taken any of that from their current advertising. For the link to their site in the paragraph up there I've just looked at their homepage. They're saying stuff that isn't as important to me as the things I've just learned about them. The experience I've just had is better than their advertising.

All of this for a £26 Annual Travel Insurance premium. I've not needed to use it yet and hopefully won't need to use it at all until it expires, but so far it's worth every single penny, and it will be next year when I renew with them.

Usually, people will stop using a brand if that brand doesn't live up to its side of the bargain. In a recession though, people will stop using a brand without any negative reason if there is an alternative elsewhere. It's this reason that brands need to constantly add value for their customers. Even if there's nothing 'wrong' in the relationship.

Comments

[John V Willshire]

It'll be interesting to see just what happens when this behaviour becomes the accepted norm for how a company behaves... when 'call centres' actually become 'outreach centres', sweeping the web for disgruntlement and solving those issues.

I think the same people who are listening for you can drop in random acts of kindness (like the guys at The Kindness Offensive do) into people's everyday lives.

Just so I don't go off on one in your comments section, I wrote a post on this sort of stuff - 'Bubbles & Butterflies' - which is here - http://feedingthepuppy.typepad.com/feeding_the_puppy/2009/05/bubbles-butterflies.html

But your experience just brings home the fact that there's still nothing like having a person from a company contact you unexpectedly to help you out.