Dollars are green even if your customers speak Swahili.

But there is one thing I can’t let slide – he’s wearing an iron cross. Like an actual iron cross, not some WCC homage. It’s a classic symbol of nazi power (it was, of course, bastardized by the nazis who took it over from the Kaiserreich, but it remains a potent symbol, at least outside the “west coast chopper” set). He might as well be wearing the totenkopf medal that the SS made so famous – previously a religious symbol showing the acknowledgement of mortality, so it has equally benign roots as the iron cross medal.

More to the point, the iron cross (and totenkopf, and swastika) were taken up as ironic symbols by early rebel bikers. They were meant to shake up squares. Do you want your agent to be wearing a bonafided symbol of a 1%er, if you are able to forget the nazi connotations? It’s probably worse for him, because he’d get the snot beaten out of him if he showed up at a club hangout in his quasi-colours getup.

/endrant

If you are an errant policyholder who did wrong, Allstate is not putting up enough money to buy your freedom. If you are hit by an Allstate driver, you probably will go to trial. The Court system and Court personnel, all hate this because cases that should settle don’t.

Lastly, Allstate began a “training course” called MIST, which means “minor impact soft tissue”. This is, in addition to the usual insurance company doctors (who once, in our office, gave a report stating an amputated arm “had full mobility”. We replied that we didn’t know where the arm was, but that we would concede it was fully mobile, just not attached to the Plaintiff-funny, no, but that’s what you get with Allstate), they used junk science to “prove” that you could not possibly have been hurt as the “science” does not support any injury. The problem here is that you take the victim as you find them-we are not all football linebackers.

There are courses for injury lawyers called “hammering Allstate” taking on the Junk Science piece by piece.

I’d not use them to “protect” my interests.

Actually it should be Customer Service Representative, or Call Center Worker. Today’s PC job titles are a load of horse manure.

I guess they are trying to appeal to the wannabe badasses that buy H-Ds.

Nonsense. Care to cite examples?

Success is built upon failure. You need examples of something so obvious?? Ask Bill Gates about TRAF-O-DATA. A fair bet there are probably some venture caps who buy into the idea.

I don’t think LaNeve has shown any capacity to learn from his failures.

You can’t a be problem resolution specialist as there is never a problem is there

What demographic are they trying to attract with that picture whose business value which outweighs that of the number of people that advertisment isgoing to repel?

Perhaps Allstate really is desperate for a new marketing guy -someone, anyone has to better than the guy that approved that thing advertisment.

As for Mr. Floyd Gregory “Customer Resolution Specialist” (Shouldn’t that be Customer Problem Resolution Specialist?) – translation of his response is quite easy for anyone who speaks ‘Corporate’:

“I, for one, welcome our new Overlord, Mr. LaNeve”

Time to short Allstate stock.

Auto-Owners, Allstate and Titan…..hold on to your jockstrap.

In fact, Allstate’s CEO infamously started the “scorched earth” policy of not only playing hardball with third-party claims, but as against Allstate’s own insureds, a few years back.

He was very proud of the media coverage he received for that publicly stated position.

As npbheights said, business model is essentially collect premiums, deny as many claims as possible, period.

“Good hands” must be a euphemism for getting punched in the nuts.

I’m not so sure that it was really fair to include the poor PR droid’s name though.

BTW, I had forgotten about his time at Volvo. He must have been one of the guys pushing Volvo to forget its natural customer base and instead go after the trendy/fashion conscious buyers. Dumb move, that.

“Venture capitalists are more apt to invest in startup companies where the CEO previously ran another business that failed, versus a CEO that is a complete novice.”

Nonsense. Care to cite examples?

What a maroon.

Similarly, the fact that GM went bankrupt while Mark LaNeve worked there was only one factor in Allstate’s executive hiring decision. I’m not surprised.

OTOH, maybe Allstate can see that their customers are starting to leave, and LaNeve is being setup as the scapegoat in a couple years when the shareholders ask where all the profits went.

Unless you buy insurance from a (now rare) mutual insurance company, or own stock in the insurance company that you take out your insurance with, you aren’t the boss, Cammy.

If enough customers left, watch Allstate kick Mr LaNeve out, then tell me who’s the boss.

That was the point of my original post! It’s customers who make or break companies, not managers. Although, GM did go bankrupt because their managers weren’t doing their jobs properly, it was more to do with the fact that customers weren’t patronising GM.

I’ve never seen a worse auto insurance company, period.

Amica Mutual Insurance is just for one example – and one which has been near or at the top of Consumer Reports recommended list for years, if not decades.

You’ll get a dividend check every year from Amica, and will find they actually (gasp!) DO pay on on-the-level (i.e. real, non-fraudulent) claims.

I have my home insured with them as well as my cars, and just had a massive claim on our house from damage done by a storm last winter. They were stellar.

This is the reason why companies get away with (metaphorical) murder. It’s because customers are unwilling to show them who is boss.

I’m not trying turn this into a bash Allstate thread, but my example does illustrate how much they appreciate customer loyalty. Good luck to Allstate and good luck to Mr. La Neve.