As an Allstate customer, a member of our Best and Brightest was not pleased to learn that GM Marketing Maven Mark LaNeve was crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage, into a brand new job. At Allstate. So he sent the insurance company an email.
The Volvo and GM brands are dead, thanks to the expertise of Mr. LaNeve and other of his ilk that have sunk them. Now he is welcomed into Allstate due to his “more than 25 years of marketing, sales and general management experience.” Good luck, you’ll need it. His sort of expertise sinks businesses. The old phrase about rats and sinking ships comes to mind.
Gregory, Floyd (Allstate Insurance Company) wrote:
Dear Mr. XXXXX:
We have completed our investigation regarding your concern and would like to provide you a summary.
Please allow me to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. Mr. LaNeve brings more than 25 years of marketing, sales and general management experience to Allstate. In addition to his accomplishments at GM, which prompted Brand Week magazine to name him “Marketer of the Year” in 2003, he was also president and CEO or [sic] Volvo Cars of North America. We are very pleased to have Mr. LaNeve join our senior management team.
I’m going to close your file for now but please reply to this e-mail at your earliest convenience if you have any questions. I can be reached between the hours of 8:30 am and 4:30 pm Eastern Standard Time.
In an effort to continue to improve our processes you may receive a survey call asking you about how well I handled your concern. We value your responses so that we can provide the best customer service. Thank you for doing business with Allstate.
Sincerely,
*Have a Great Day!*
*Floyd Gregory*
Customer Resolution Specialist
*Allstate Insurance Company*
What is the point of this? Last time I checked you bought insurance based on coverage, quality of service and cost, not how they handle thier marketing. But I guess to some people the lizard makes all the difference.
No wonder the rates just climbed up again. Typical practice of overcharging and under delivering.
He should feel right at home; Allstate likes to close distribution channels too.
Awesome. That “Customer resolution specialist” couldn’t care less about Mark Leneve. Plus he can’t exactly have him fired because someone points out his past suckage. All that Floyd cares about is keeping his job.
The business model:
Collect Premiums – Deny Claims
end.
Complain about marketing, and they throw more marketing at you. Sign of the times, nobody is actually listening.
I dumped Allstate a few years ago after I traded my 2003 Jetta for a 2006 Jetta and they were going to raise my six month premium by over $150. I had been with Allstate for 18 years and had only filed one claim during that time. I left Allstate and signed up with another company that insured my new Jetta for just a bit less than what Allstate charged to cover the old one.
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.
This is an instance where consumer power should come into play. If you’re an allstate customer and don’t like the fact that Mr LaNeve is joining them, then go to another and state the reason why you are leaving is because of Mr LaNeve. I’m almost sure that if just 1000 people did that, Allstate would sit up and pay attention.
This is the reason why companies get away with (metaphorical) murder. It’s because customers are unwilling to show them who is boss.
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.
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.
I literally feel sorry for anyone having Allstate as their insurance company.
I’ve never seen a worse auto insurance company, period.
Mr Carpenter
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.
Our greatest power is with our wallet. If you do not like the idea of a government bailout of GM and Chrysler do not buy any of their products. If you do not approve of the government bailout of banks and investment companies do not put your money in them.
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. The people with the money think that experience that ended badly is better than no experience at all.
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.
“And I’m happy to be leaving GM with a clean balance sheet!”
What a maroon.
Allstate has been a mediocre at best insurance company for a very, very long time. LaNeve will feel right at home.
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?
I used to work for a subsidiary company of Allstate’s processing cheques. I lost count of the number of times customers had written things like, “You Suck Allstate!” across the top; for the wages I was getting at the time, I heartily agreed!
I’m not so sure that it was really fair to include the poor PR droid’s name though.
FWIW, Amica and USAA are damn fine auto insurance companies.
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 deal with insurance companies for a living. Please do not ask me for my opinion about Allstate, as my response would likely violate this site’s no-flaming policy. Let us say that Mr. LaNeve and Allstate should be a good fit.
Based on LaNeve’s track record…
Time to short Allstate stock.
Wow, nobody ever mentioned the lizard.
Is that a real Allstate advertisement?
Surely not.
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”
Isn’t the Geko GEICO?
You can’t a be problem resolution specialist as there is never a problem is there
“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?
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.
@Lokkii: they put that ad in motorcycle magazines. I’ve seen it in both Cycle World and Motorcyclist.
I guess they are trying to appeal to the wannabe badasses that buy H-Ds.
I’ve had A-S for many years. The quotes I’ve gotten from other companies are within a few dollars. At least (as far as I know) A-S isn’t heavily advertising in Spanish, like State Farm, but given the demographic trends of the US, I understand the dilemma of these opportunistic bastards. And, if their agent wants to dress up like Halloween on the weekends and ride their poor excuse for a motorcycle Harley, then whatever. Speaking of which, I wonder what Erik Buell is doing, today, now that H-D has thrown him under the bus?
As for Mr. Floyd Gregory “Customer Resolution Specialist” (Shouldn’t that be Customer Problem Resolution Specialist?)
Actually it should be Customer Service Representative, or Call Center Worker. Today’s PC job titles are a load of horse manure.
Best of luck Mr. LaNeve.
NOT ! In a past life, I did tort work (that’s personal injury law), in NYC. Allstate “settles” claims by computer. This means that your local adjuster (different from the Agent) sends the information to the home office. “Colussus”, as it is called, spits out a dollar value. The attorney in your Court has that much authority to settle. The purpose of this is to reduce claims costs from a central office, making sure there is no regional variation.
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.
I don’t mind the content of that ad, it’s reasonably clever (in a M/C mag of course, elsewhere it just inspires fear).
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
At least (as far as I know) A-S isn’t heavily advertising in Spanish
Dollars are green even if your customers speak Swahili.