Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Childcare centres are installing webcams to allow parents to check on the welfare of their precious offspring. Many people cherish their cars almost as much, so this development from the US looks like a logical extension of the technology: car mechanics might not be impressed.
In the US, National Insurance has launched Nationwide AutoWatch, an Internet-based software tool that allows its policyholders to log on and monitor the progress of repairs being carried out to their vehicles. It claims that than 22,300 car owners are using the service.
The Nationwide AutoWatch site (www.NationwideAutowatch.com) provides "simple access and easy to understand captions" explaining progress on the repairs with regularly updated digital photos of the vehicle throughout the repair process. It also provides an email facility through which customers can communicate with the repair facility and their Nationwide/Allied representative.
A videocam providing real-time and live coverage of progress on the car is not yet part of the service, but why not? It would surely do even more to re-assure concerned car owners that their much loved and expensive piece of hardware was being given the TLC it deserves.
National Insurance's research seems to confirm this. A recent survey conducted for Nationwide by Taylor Nelson Sofres found that more than 50 percent of respondents would be likely to visit a Web site to check on their vehicle's repair progress. Seventy two percent said that if visual updates of the repairs were available online the shop would be more accountable. Nearly half of survey respondents thought an online monitoring tool would decrease the number of calls to the body shop.
Nationwide's customer experience data shows that customers who used AutoWatch during the past six months had a 12 percent higher rate of satisfaction in the way they were kept informed about their vehicle's progress in the repair shop than those who didn't use AutoWatch. AutoWatch users also had a 23 percent higher rate of satisfaction when it came to the timely delivery of their repairs, than those who didn't use AutoWatch.
More and better feedback seems like a no-brainer. Only the mechanics might object.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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