Sino-Singapore Jingwei, June 15th (Wei Wei) "Hello, I'm the auto insurance customer service specialist of a certain insurance company. Your auto insurance is about to expire. Do you have time to renew your insurance these days?" I believe Many people have received auto insurance renewal calls from similar insurance companies.
Recently, Sun Yue, a crosstalk actor from Deyun Society, complained on Weibo that his auto insurance was only two months away from expiring, and he was "bombed" by the insurance company's telemarketing.
Many netizens also expressed that they had a similar experience and were harassed by the insurance company's auto insurance renewal phone call.
As one of the channels of insurance sales, telephone sales also have a place in the insurance market.
But at the same time, the insurance telemarketer has been repeatedly complained about harassing customers. On the one hand, the sales performance is high, and on the other hand, the customers are complaining. What is the explanation?
Insurance telemarketing has become a "hardest hit area" for harassing calls
Real estate agents, lending, and selling insurance are the top three harassing calls in the minds of many people.
Recently, Sun Yue claimed that he had been "bombed" by insurance sales.
He said bluntly, "The auto insurance didn't expire until the end of July, and it's been a week. Are there almost 20 calls a day? Are you in such a hurry?" Sun Yue also named three insurance companies including PICC.
Sun Yue said that everyone is not easy, you are working, but don't disturb other people's lives.
In the end, he also said that whoever does not call him will have his insurance.
Source: Weibo
Some netizens complained, "My car insurance didn't expire until May, and in March, there were calls from different insurance companies. Later, when the insurance was renewed, some people called to ask for car insurance."
Another netizen said, "The strangest thing is that the same company will have different people calling you. I understand that the competition is fierce, but data screening shouldn't be difficult."
A netizen who claimed to be a car insurance salesman who has been in the business for 13 years left a message and said, "My colleagues around you have called you. First of all, I am sorry. The irregularity of the auto insurance industry has caused the auto insurance business to get together and rush for business. The renewal of insurance 60 days in advance has become a problem. More preemption situation. We really want the industry to regulate!”
According to the "2019 China Harassing Call Market Status and User Perception Survey Report" previously released by iiMedia Research, among the types of harassing calls received by netizens, loan financing ranked first, accounting for 71.4%;
insurance sales followed closely .
After that, it accounted for 50.3%.
Aoyi News once conducted a sample survey of harassing phone calls in 2021.
The results show that commercial marketing harassment calls are the type that most troubles users, accounting for more than 90%.
Among the specific categories of commercial marketing harassing calls,
real estate agencies ranked first, accounting for 68.91%, followed by education and training, loan financing, and insurance sales, accounting for 58.82%, 50.42%, and 37.82%, respectively.
Why are auto insurance sales repeatedly complained of disturbing people?
In fact, telemarketing is one of the important sales channels for auto insurance.
Before 2007, auto insurance sales channels mainly relied on traditional channels such as intermediary agents.
In February 2007, Ping An Auto Insurance became the first institution in the country to obtain a license for direct sales by telephone, and the sales channels for telemarketing also began to develop by leaps and bounds.
At the same time, auto insurance sales have also entered a golden period.
As more and more insurance companies join the competition of telemarketing, the phenomenon of telemarketing disturbing the people has become more and more prominent.
Since 2017, the supervision has stepped up efforts to rectify the chaos in the telemarketing industry. At that time, China Life Property & Casualty Insurance, Taiping Property & Casualty Insurance, and PICC Property & Casualty Insurance were all “named” by the regulatory authorities due to illegal telemarketing. At the same time, the premium income of telemarketing auto insurance also declined.
Data from the Insurance Association of China shows that in 2017, a total of 28 property insurance companies carried out telemarketing insurance business. The cumulative premium income of telemarketing auto insurance was 80.866 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.08%, and the business accounted for 97.07%.
An industry source revealed that there are currently 18-20 property and casualty insurance companies conducting telemarketing business, including PICC Property & Casualty, Ping An Property & Casualty, Sunshine Property & Casualty, CPIC Property & Casualty, Continent Insurance, AXA Tianping, China Life Property & Casualty Insurance, China Property & Casualty Insurance, Samsung Property & Casualty Insurance, Tianan Property & Casualty Insurance, Huaan Insurance, Fubon Property & Casualty Insurance, Jintai Insurance, Asia Pacific Property & Casualty Insurance, Yongan Insurance, Huatai Property & Casualty Insurance, Taiping Property & Casualty Insurance and BOC Insurance.
Under the epidemic, the importance of telemarketing is once again highlighted.
Fang Ruixin, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Analysys, pointed out in an interview with Sino-Singapore Jingwei that
since 2022, the outbreak of the epidemic in many places across the country has delayed the amount of insurance cooperation in offline vehicle purchase, delivery and other in-store scenarios, and insurance companies have returned to telemarketing has a distinct time characteristic
.
When it comes to the reasons why telemarketing disturbs the people, an auto insurance practitioner who has been in the business for more than 20 years said that there are four main reasons: First, the source of customer information is irregular.
He bluntly said that the format of telemarketing determines that it is marketing to strangers. The first problem with calling strangers is the source of phone information, and insurance companies obtain phone calls from various channels, many of which are not formal.
The practitioner revealed that
when the telemarketing first appeared, there was a private purchase of customer information from the DMV. Although the industry knew that this was a side ball, the protection of personal information was not as strict as it is now.
In the later stage, some people began to buy customer information from some dealers who were engaged in the sale of personal information, which caused the salesmen to disrespect these customers from the beginning.
The above-mentioned practitioners believe that the second and most important reason for electricity sales disturbing the people is the excessive competition of insurance companies.
"In the beginning, there were not many licenses for telemarketing, and there was no need for too much competition. Basically, 100 calls a day were made, and 30 to 40 orders could be made. Customers did not need to compare prices, and salesmen did not need to make a lot of calls to customers." The interviewer said that
with more and more licenses, the competition has become more and more fierce. According to experience, 100 calls may only be able to close 5 orders, and the salesperson has to make more calls to facilitate the transaction, which leads to a kind of excessive competition.
, At this time, irregularities began to appear, and telephone harassment occurred.
The practitioner also pointed out that the internal system of insurance companies is also a major reason for the disturbance of telemarketing.
"Telemarketing employees are employees, with basic five insurances, one housing fund and basic salary, unlike direct salespeople who are agents. Insurance companies will also have stricter requirements for their own employees, such as requiring at least 100 calls a day. In addition, due to the strict supervision of direct sales by insurance companies, the costs and policies are relatively transparent, while the operating space for telemarketing is relatively large. Many insurance companies’ telemarketing channels are the main source of their profits, which also makes insurance companies more sensitive to changes in telemarketing. The status quo lacks motivation.”
In addition to the above reasons, the person also mentioned that the supervision department has not punished enough electricity sales to disturb the people. Although there are also fines for electricity sales, the punishment is limited.
Source: Photo by Xiong Siyi, China-Singapore Jingwei
It is imminent to standardize telemarketing
Many people have questions, why did the insurance company start calling customers to renew the insurance more than two months in advance?
Fang Ruixin analyzed that according to the regulations of the insurance industry association, auto insurance can be renewed 90 days in advance at the earliest. At the same time, local insurance industry associations have made further optimization and restrictions within this scope. For example, Guangdong Province requires that the renewal time in advance is shortened from 90 days to 30 days. Days, Shanxi Province shortened from 90 days to 45 days, while Beijing shortened from 90 days to 60 days.
Fang Ruixin believes that due to factors such as multiple outbreaks of the epidemic and difficulties in offline store sales, insurance companies may try to increase electricity sales within the prescribed limits to reach customers in advance.
The relevant person in charge of a local branch of a property insurance company said in an interview with Sino-Singapore Jingwei that the company can generally renew the insurance 60 days in advance, and the electricity sales may start contacting customers earlier and establish relationships with customers in advance.
Sino-Singapore Jingwei noted that in August 2013, the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Notice on Regulating the Market Order of Property Insurance Companies' Telemarketing Business and Prohibiting Telemarketing Disturbing the People" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), pointing out that companies should strengthen the management of outbound business, Put an end to the phenomenon of telephone harassment.
Each company should strictly limit the calling period, and
the outgoing time for renewal customers should not be earlier than 40 days before the expiration date of the policy
; each company should set a reasonable calling time to effectively avoid disturbing the normal work and life of customers who answer them.
The above- mentioned notice requires that
the company shall block the relevant phone numbers through technical means if it is expressly stated that it does not apply for insurance or refuses to continue to answer calls.
Each company should share the "no call list" database with the industry, determine the blocked phone numbers for other companies, and each company is not allowed to make calls again during the blocking period.
In addition, the notice also emphasized that companies should strengthen customer information management and establish a customer information confidentiality system.
The customer information and materials obtained during the operation of the telemarketing business shall be kept strictly confidential, and shall not be disclosed, sold or illegally provided to others
.
In August 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Regulations on the Administration of Communication Short Message and Voice Call Services (Draft for Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comment"), which mentioned that
any organization or individual has not consented or requested by users, or users have clearly Those who express refusal shall not send commercial short messages or make commercial calls to them
.
If the user does not expressly agree, it will be regarded as a refusal.
If the user expressly refuses to receive after agreeing, it shall stop.
Li Min, a senior partner at Shanghai Hansheng Law Firm, said in an interview with Sino-Singapore Jingwei that insurance companies can make phone calls for their legally retained customer contact information.
However, according to the relevant provisions of the above notice, for example, firstly, it needs to be called out through the unified telemarketing business number;
secondly, even for renewal customers, the callout time must not be earlier than 40 days before the expiration date of the policy.
Otherwise, if there are two complaints within a year and the verification is true, the regulatory authorities should restrict the company's outbound business to new customers for 3 months. If similar problems occur again, the company should stop the company's outbound business to new customers
.
Many auto insurance customers also expressed concerns about their own information leakage. Li Min believes that the difficulty in managing and controlling information leakage is to find out the source and chain of information leakage.
Regarding the protection of consumers' privacy rights, he believes that it requires the cooperation of telecom operators, industrial and commercial departments, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the public security and other parties to solve the problem.
First of all, the supervision of telemarketing should be strengthened from the legal system, so that there is a law to follow; secondly, when a similar situation occurs, it should be dealt with seriously so that the legal provisions can be implemented.
When talking about the future development of insurance telemarketing, the above-mentioned practitioners worried: "This Sun Yue incident is not the first, nor will it be the last. If the current industry system does not change, the final destination of telemarketing can only be disturbing the people. , almost no second result."
He believes that in order to control telemarketing disturbing the people, first of all, we must increase the punishment of illegal insurance companies, and investigate and punish them together when they are found; secondly, we must strictly abide by the regulations of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on the renewal time, and companies that call in advance must also be strict. Third, insurance companies must also operate in compliance with the law, obtain customer information from formal channels, and cannot allow employees to obtain customer information through illegal channels; fourth, it is recommended to encourage customers to report. .
(For more reporting clues, please contact Wei Wei, the author of this article: vivi1257@163.com) (Sino-Singapore Jingwei APP)
All rights reserved by Sino-Singapore Jingwei. Without written authorization, no unit or individual may reprint, extract or use it in other ways.
Responsible editor: Luo Kun