On Trustpilot the insurer has an average rating of just 2.6/10, described as ‘bad’, while on Google Reviews it’s rated at 2/5.
Paymentshield has acted to improve how it deals with customers after receiving a raft of negative reviews on Trustpilot and Google.
On Trustpilot the insurer has an average rating of just 2.6/10, described as ‘bad’, while on Google Reviews it’s rated at 2/5.
Rob Evans (pictured), chief executive of Paymentshield, hinted that in the past dealing with claims was viewed as entirely the remit of the providers on its panel, which he stressed isn’t how he looks at it.
He said: “I don’t think we’ve focused enough on the end customer.
“A lot of those Google and Trust Pilot reviews, because they relate to the claims processes which the insurers do… they are seen as places where people go and moan about something that we’re not really involved in.
“The first response, which is the wrong response, was ‘it’s not us, it’s the insurers’ [remit]’. The right response was ‘we pick the insurers, we audit the insurers' claims process, so if it’s not working, we should be interested in it’.”
Paymentshield started using customer review site Feefo last year to better interact with people. On that website it has a score of 4.3/5, which clearly makes better reading.
What is more, a couple of months ago the company established a ‘customer care team’ to prevent its approach to feedback from being disjointed.
Evans added: “Previously customer service might deal with direct customer feedback and our marketing and digital team would deal with online feedback, so it was a little bit disjointed.
“We’ve put it all into our newly renamed ‘customer care team’, so they deal with all of that feedback now. It’s getting to the point where we can respond, wherever the feedback comes in.”
Evans became chief executive in March 2019, after previously being managing director in February 2017 and chief financial officer in January 2015.
In the four years he has been at the company he admitted that much of the focus has been on its insurance and distribution partners, and not enough on the end customer, which is something he said has now been rectified.
In the past decade Paymentshield has refocused from being a Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance firm to a specialist in general insurance – so some of the flak may have come from historic policies.
At the time of writing, searching for ‘Paymentshield’ on Google in the UK sees the Trustpilot score being the fifth result, while the Google review is also displayed.
Evans admitted he’s not naïve regarding the impact these negative reviews can have on attracting potential partners and customers.
He said: “It’s something we do take seriously.
“We’d focused very heavily on partnerships – on making sure we are delivering what our partners wanted… maybe a little bit to the detriment of the end customer.
“But we are addressing that because, the way I think about it is, if I have one customer complaint it’s not just one customer complaint, because that customer has come to us through a broker, who might be doing 5,10, 15, 20, 100 GI customers a month.
“If that broker is annoyed because their customer hasn’t had a good experience, they can take their business elsewhere.
“There’s a bit around it’s the right thing to do – looking after customers well – but it does affect the bottom line.”
Evans admitted he often leaves Trustpilot reviews as a consumer, typically when he has a bad experience with another company.
He added: “I see them as all valid [customer review sites].
“With any of these feedback forms you tend to get a negative bias but – it sounds very trite – every one of those is a piece of feedback that we can learn from as long as we understand it, acknowledge it and do something about it.”
