When you are searching for vehicle breakdown cover it is quite important to remember the old saying ?read between the lines?.
Doing this can mean the difference between receiving an excellent service from the moment you contact the chosen breakdown company for help and, at the other end of the scale, having a nasty, expensive experience!
What you need to keep in mind is that when you read an advert or some promotional material, what is NOT said can be just as important, if not more important, than what IS said.
Two examples of what I mean are; Response time and 'One continuous journey'.
1) Response time.
Most breakdown cover companies state that help will arrive in around 40 to 45 minutes. You should realise this is an average and of course allowances will need to be made at busy times but the 40 to 45 minutes are real figures to work with.
Now the reason this is stated in any advertising material is that a fast response time to a call for help is a benefit and customers like benefits! Most people are familiar with these claims and have come to expect this sort of time frame as the norm.
So why don?t all the companies claim the 40 to 45 minutes?
Well it is certainly not because they just forgot to include it, nor is it a simple printing error. What is more likely is that they may be a smaller network of businesses, or perhaps a business which is concentrated in a particular region of the country, rather than spread nationwide.
Either way this means they cannot respond nationwide within this time frame, so of course they cannot legally or morally claim to do so.
Now if you are the sort of person who is pretty touchy about people being on time then the fact that this is not said in promotional material might be very important to you!
So, if your time is precious then perhaps you need to look elsewhere!
2) One continuous journey.
This may not jump out at you as being a benefit because:-
a) You will almost certainly expect to be recovered to your home, if your vehicle cannot be repaired at the roadside (that?s assuming you have purchased the correct level of breakdown cover).
b) You would not expect this to be anything other than in one continuous journey.
The reality can be quite different as one person graphically explained when he told me his story.
He broke down in London and his car was beyond roadside repair. Quite rightly he was recovered back to his home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire as he expected.
However, he didn?t expect his car to be loaded onto a recovery vehicle and then unloaded again three times before he eventually got home. Dumped in a car park with a ?that?s as far as I go mate? only to wait another two and a half hours for a second recovery truck to pick him up and so on.
The overall 'relay' journey took him over ten hours!
So, to avoid this type of experience, look for what is said and just as importantly what is NOT said!
The claim to recover you ?in one continuous journey? is a very real benefit which you should seriously consider and lookout for in any breakdown cover promotional material.
