A frugal life is an easy life!

Logged on to Aviva's website for a simple car insurance quote... Here are the results.

Logged on to Aviva website, complete with "Two months free insurance" banners -  clicked on car insurance quote, filled in all my details.

• Problem number one - The website couldn't recognise my vehicle details, it is a small van though, so I rang the number provided.

After three options, I selected the "Get a van quote" option and spoke almost immediately, to a lady advisor.

• Problem number two - The lady did not listen to me, the customer.

I explained that the online quote system could not recognise my vehicle, to which she replied, "I will put you through to our website technical team!" - I told her I wanted a new quote and that she could just go through one with me over the phone, to which I was told, "But you have to go through the online system or you will be charged a 15% higher price!"

I was then put on hold whilst the lady went to check with her line manager that she could apply the 15% online discount for a quote over the phone.

After about 5 minutes, the phone started ringing and a man answered asking if he could help.

• Problem number three - The lady advisor in new quotes that I was talking to, didn't come back on the line after checking if the online discount could be applied with her line manager, lying to me and instead she transferred me to their in house technical support team.

The man explained that he was unable to do anything with quotes, as he was their in house technical support team for website problems and faults.
He then asked me for a quote number, I explained that I did not have one as the website couldn't recognise my vehicle details.
He then asked me again for a quote reference number and asked me why the lady had put me through to him!
I terminated the call with, "It doesn't matter then, obviously Aviva do not want my custom." I put the phone down.

AVIVA'S SCORES:

• Customer service - 0/10
  They transferred me around the departments as if I was totally unimportant, their advisor in their new quotes office lied to me, saying she would be right back after checking that online discount could be applied to a quote over the phone as the website was not working, she didn't, she instead transferred me to an in house technical support worker, regardless of wether that department could sort out new or old quotes, which they could not.
  Their in house technical support team couldn't understand why I was speaking to them, then he did not listen when I twice had to tell him the website would not give out a quote, before I terminated the call, he was actually asking me questions without providing any answers to my query.
• Effort - 0/10
  Aviva staff simply could not be bothered.
• Value for money - 0/10
  The only piece of information I got from taking my time out to call Aviva for a quote, was that those people who ring up and apply for car/van insurance, are charged 15% MORE for their insurance, than those people that apply via their website.
  The 2 months free insurance that the website advertises, was not mentioned a single time.

Whilst filling out the online quote, there was a checkbox option, to "opt out" of having Aviva's other companies send me, via email and post, other products that they deem I might want to buy - when I rang them up, the automated voice declared that Aviva would pass on my details to other companies that they owned, without being able to opt-out, which I suspect is against trading standards law?

Thanks to Aviva's lacklustre approach to having me as a customer, they have lost out on between £400 - £700 worth of business, had I got a quote and taken out insurance with them, they would also have had the wife's car insurance move to them, which would have been another £300 at least.
Oh well, it's Aviva's loss...