Lately, I received a letter from Generali, an insurance company, about renewing the contract I had with them. Renewing the contract would have been easy: sign the contract and send it back. But if you don’t want to renew, you have to inform them in writing (at least that’s what they wrote I should do). As I am lazy, I simply wrote them a one-sentence email (I wonder if it is in their business process that someone answers by email to a letter…).

A rather costly process for something which doesn’t bring them any money:

  • the customer has to inform them he doesn’t want to renew the contract
  • an employee has to read what the customer wrote
  • an employee has to cancel the contract in their system
  • an employee has to send a confirmation (optional)

(I don’t know what happens if the customer doesn’t do anything)

A much simpler approach would be to inform the customer in the letter that the contract automatically ends if he doesn’t return the new contract up to a certain date. KISS!