Brooks Insurance Services

Contact Name and Title: Renee M.
Contact Phone: 239-597-5551
Contact Email: ***
Thank you for the opportunity to reply to this customers statements. I'm certainly sorry that the ability for the customer and I to speak did not occur, causing him to be upset. It is understandable for him to not be happy with the agency when he is feeling as though he is not getting the service and assistance that he states he requested, as a consumer myself, I can of course understand that. Based on the date in question that I am aware of, this dates to an 8/3/20 call to the office for assistance. I do personally accept the responsibility for having not spoken with him in a timely manner that day. I allowed my circumstances to distract me. An agency relocation that was riddled with complications, and finally had taken place on 7/31/20. A double arm injury of which I was being treated for. And a rush to get loose ends tied up prior to stepping away for a 10-day trip that had been planned for several months and was ready to cancel due to the relocation issues. These issues did not let up during the first few days of the relocation at the new office causing an ongoing distraction of which I know the customer was not responsible for. As the agency owner I was tending to these issues as well as working to get the agency settled. It was my goal to get the main work areas as settled and organized as I could prior to departing on Thursday the 6th to allow the staff to work in an uncluttered environment. It was in these first few days of August that I received the phone message from one of the agency associates stating that the customer had called in and was requesting a call back, he needed assistance with his policy. Although I did call the customer back and make the attempt to speak with him, I still failed in several ways. My first call to him should have been a quicker turn around, and then I should have made a second and possibly a third call to speak with the customer prior to my departure. I also could have sent him an email which would have been supportive to let him know that I was trying to get a hold of him. I did not follow our agency standard that we strive for, which is a 4-hour response time when responding back to a customer when they have called in and had to leave a message. I allowed the busyness of the agency move and other things going on to distract me from what our customers' expectation was.
I was not personally at the office from 8/6/20 through 8/17/20. While on this time away, I received a text message from another agent in town asking if I had a policy for him. I stated that yes, I did and asked how the agency could help as I know he had just reached out to us the prior week, and I hadn't spoken to him prior to my departure. The customer indicated to this other agent that he had been trying to reach us for months and that we hadn't been calling him back. I stated that I was confident that was not the case and that I would need to check the history in order to speak more specifically about the details. I informed her that the customer could speak with one of my agency associates who was licensed for that policy type. The other agent stated that she would call my agency, speak with that associate and see if he could then reach out to the customer. She did indeed do that, and the agency associate called the customer. He stated that we have provided very poor service to him and that he wanted to file a complaint to Allstate's corporate office. The associate informed me that he did provide that contact phone number to him after asking if he could assist and the customer declined that assistance. The customer also told the associate that he wanted to have his policy moved to another agency, so he asked how to do that. The associate did not know as this is a very rare request for my agency and that policy type, so he had to first find out the process, then sent the customer an email with that information. Later that day I was in an area that offered an adequate level of internet (I was on vacation in the mountains of TN) so I was able to see my associates email to him, I then sent the customer an email to apologize and advise that it was in no way my intention to make excuses or try to further lessen the concerns he had. He did reply and was not pleased as it was indicated that I had not investigated the situation; this statement was correct as I was on vacation and in a location with very poor internet connection.
The customer indicated to the other agency and in this complaint that he had been trying to reach us for months. This has really perplexed me because we have several ways to check calls and listen to calls. When I run his 2 noted phone numbers in that system, it shows no calls from him. So how do we get one call from him that registers, but not another? The systems are independent from one another so even if there is a website issue, it would not be occurring with 2 unrelated sites simultaneously. Then I also remembered that due to the length of time that he'd been with the agency, he may have used an old number for our agency that we no longer use. Our main phone number is 239-597-5551, but this was not always the case. When the agency was under different ownership over 15 years ago, it was different. The agency at one point had 9 phone numbers when we operated on an analog system. Now due to technology we use a VoIP phone system which allowed us to progressively discontinue those other numbers due to the low call volume to them. So, I wonder if that could be a factor here. I have customers transfer their policies into this agency because we do have good customer service. In the last 12 months we have gained 15 customers from other Allstate agencies (11 of them just this year), while only 1 transfer out. It does not make any sense for us to not take care of our customers, knowing it can create a situation such as this, where there is now a filed complaint.
To further offer a proper understanding of the phone system and tracking systems in place, I need to explain ... when a customer or prospect calls in, they will 1st hear a brief recorded message to alert them that the call will be recorded for training purposes. If someone calls in but does not listen to the end of the message allowing the system to transfer the call over to the staff, then the call will not track in our call system, so we cannot see that they even tried to reach us. Our phone system also has a tracking report that allows us to look back and view the calls in, so we can then listen to that recorded call. We do not proactively listen to every call recording, nor do we save the call files. We have access to it for 30-60 days. If the customer calls in on a phone number that is registered within their agency file, then it will also add a history note into their agency file. The numbers that we have on file for this customer end *** & ***. When I look at that the customers file and I go to the history tab, I see that he called us on one of those 2 numbers on 8/10/20. However, I do not see an incoming call from him on 8/3/20 which may mean he called us from a different phone number that day. There are no other incoming calls noted from him. When I go to the call recording system, I can view July and August records, and neither of those phone numbers are registering. I am at a loss when I have a customer making a statement that they called in multiple times, and we have no record of it. Did he hang up before the call could transfer to an associate, so the call never registered? Did he call in on a different phone number than those mentioned here? Did he call a number that we have since retired due to its diminished use?
I am very sorry this disconnect occurred, it is by no means a representation of how the agency does business. We have positive reviews and service scores, as well as having customers transfer their policies here due to our service. My heart breaks knowing that he is dissatisfied with us. The agency has had staff discussions since this incident. We have used it as a training opportunity to ensure agency standards are known and maintained. When a customer calls in and leaves a message such as the situation here, there is a 4 hour turn around at the most to reply to them, and send an email follow up if you weren't able to speak with them. The standard was also clarified that just because you leave a message, get a busy signal or the line goes dead or voice mail is full; do not stop there, send an email and/or call back the next day and the next if necessary. Make no less than 3 attempts to reach the customer back.
I do have several screen shots of information to support this information, the issue is that Allstate has proprietary systems and I need to protect the customers information so I can't just release them into a public site without redacting information. I did try this and found that over 95% of the info had to be redacted which appears as though we're trying to hide things which is not my intention.