According to a reader, Progressive—the insurance company that sends private detectives to secretly tape-record church support group meetings—took 45 minutes this past weekend to put a live person in contact with a woman who was stranded on a busy Interstate in Nashville after a tire blew out on her car. Eventually, a Tennessee Department of Transportation officer stopped and helped her.

The woman’s stepfather, who pays for the insurance, called Progressive Monday morning to find out which part of “roadside assistance” Progressive doesn’t understand:

I told my story to a customer service representative who then without me asking transferred me to a manager, Brandy. Brandy was helpful to the extent that she tried to diagnose the problem with the outsourced call center to verify my story. She pulled wait times and various other reports none of which seemed very helpful to either of us. At around 12:45 she said that she had to pull a report and would call me back in 30 to 60 minutes. I am now about to leave the office at 5:30 with no call and no way to reach her.

Nice going, Progressive. We know companies intentionally throttle resources for customer service centers—but when you pay for a service like Roadside Assistance, having a staffed call center doesn’t qualify as added value. It’s the service itself.

(Thanks to Chuck!)

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Progressive’s Roadside Assistance page
(Photo: Getty)