Is Autoaid being slowly run-down?

[Satsuma]

I recently had to call Autoaid. They dispatched a recovery truck to me, although it was coming from a good 30-40miles away when I know for a fact I have had recovery firms from <10miles to that location before now. The "whoever's nearest locally" aspect being a key USP for the service over reliance on their own fleet like RAC.

I then had some follow up queries with them which resulted in emails from a firm called "Call-Assist".

A few months ago Autoaid announced they were changing from Pay and Claim to them paying it all behind the scenes so policy holders just paid their annual premium and that was that. And this was after their original Essex-based call centre apparently relocating to Wales (unless I just happened to call twice the same day and get two different Welsh operators)

Now with the Call-Assist relationship (buy out? takeover?), I am starting to wonder if the service is being slowly degraded/run-down? I mean, for ~£40 a year it's hard to see how it's profitable, especially now they have negated any chance of anyone forgetting to reclaim costs!

Has anyone else noticed anything?

Sats

[PinkDalek]

No idea about your general question but Call Assist would appear to be recruiting for their Colchester office. Such as here
https://www.call-assist.co.uk/careers/detail/23. They also have an office in Sudbury https://www.call-assist.co.uk/careers but I’ve yet to find any mention of Wales.

[Slarti]

Just a thought, but with companies that have multiple call centre locations, they often have call routing software that will put the caller through to the first available operator, rather than the one nearest to the caller.

Slarti

[Maroochydore]

I recently had to call Autoaid. They dispatched a recovery truck to me, although it was coming from a good 30-40miles away when I know for a fact I have had recovery firms from <10miles to that location before now. The "whoever's nearest locally" aspect being a key USP for the service over reliance on their own fleet like RAC.

I'm with Autoaid although thankfully I haven't called them for about 7 years for problems, certainly not since the were purchased by Right Choice Insurance Brokers. Perhaps the "whoever's nearest locally" means nearest who is available quickly, i.e. the "nearest" may all be out on jobs.

A few months ago Autoaid announced they were changing from Pay and Claim to them paying it all behind the scenes so policy holders just paid their annual premium and that was that.

Again just guessing but by changing from Pay and Claim they probably have to sign up a panel of towies who will offer account facilities. Previously it was pay the towie straight away, so they were happy and any towie could attend. The nearest towie that you know may not be on the panel.

[martint123]

Late last year I'm afraid I had to call them out as the fuel pump on my bike had failed. At least three hours for an excellent guy in a mobile workshop to turn up and after quite a while of trying to fix it transported me an the bike home.
The thing that concerned me a touch was part of a conversation with them saying that I'd have to get it fixed at a dealer as they would not cover for a similar problem. The nearest dealer is probably a couple of hours drive away and I normally do repairs and servicing myself and I'm not paying KTM prices for a fuel pump "assembly" when I can (and did) replace just the pump for £20.

I got a renewal letter last week and went on the web to renew and got a message saying I couldn't renew online and had to use an expensive 03 number to renew. The only oddity being asked how many vehicles I had - a car and two bikes. The cost was 40p less that the emailed renewal quote!