I have been spending a lot of time on the phone lately dealing with insurance companies (don’t even get me started……….) Because of this, I’ve become a certified expert in their hold music and, more importantly, the messages they utter while a person is on hold. There are three specific messages I could really do without:
“If you are having a life-threatening emergency, hang up and dial 911” – I do not need to be told this. In fact, anyone stupid enough to call the general phone number of a health insurance company because they are having a heart attack probably deserves to die.
“Your call may be monitored for training and quality assurance” – Yeah, yeah, I know you are required by law to say this, but good God almighty, I couldn’t care less. You could put my conversation up on the home page of your web site, for all I care. Just get me a person to speak with.
“Your call is important to us” – No, it isn’t. If it was, you’d have way more people manning your phone lines.
Insurance companies excel at two and only two things: (1) collecting premiums; (2) minimizing the benefits they have to pay out. That probably explains why most of their stocks look like hockey sticks.
