Insurance Companies are not reluctant to make you convince that their (less) offer is final

SoftSettle Support

The hypothetical scenario is with regard to an injury in a vehicle accident. After suffering an injury in an accident, you may be able to turn to insurance for coverage of medical costs and other losses. You might file a claim under a policy you hold (e.g., auto collision insurance, homeowners’ insurance, health insurance) or through another person’s liability insurance if he or she was at fault.

A claims adjuster should follow up on your claim by contacting you and investigating your case. The investigation may include reviewing your medical records, obtaining vehicle repair estimates, reviewing police accident reports, interviewing you and reviewing your initial claim documents.

There are certain damages to be categorized for the insurance purpose. They are as follows:

Special damages include:

  • Present and future medical expenses, from emergency care through hospitalization and rehabilitation
  • Property damage (costs to repair or replace)
  • Lost income during recovery or because of disability
  • Out-of-pocket expenses, such as the cost of towing a wrecked car, prescription medication, travel to doctors’ appointments or wheelchair rental.

General damages include payments for:

  • Pain and suffering (physical)
  • Emotional distress
  • Loss of enjoyment of life, such as inability to pursue recreation, hobbies, or other activity as you did prior to injury
  • Loss of consortium (marital/partner relations).

An insurance settlement should account for all of these losses as they apply to you and your situation, up to the limits of the applicable insurance coverage.

However, a settlement offer may be less than what you expected if the claims adjustor decides that your losses were not as much as you originally demanded, or that your own negligence or recklessness contributed to your injury.

If you question the settlement offer, the claims adjustor may not be reluctant to suppress all relevant facts and put you in the peril by convincing you that offer is the generosity from the part of the insurance company.

Soft Settle’s Consultancy and Resolution services can be invoked at this time.

Typically faster mode of Mediation is guaranteed and the negotiation for clear verdict in the form of claim settlement which is software stimulated, got integrated in the portal www.softsettle.com and the mobile application. A win-win proposition is guaranteed.

 

 

Resolving Consumer Grievances effectively

SoftSettle Support

Consumer grievance is the voice of consumer raise after dissatisfaction from company product or services. When consumer expectations not meet with the value as they paid for product or services then they become frustrated are raise their voice against the company for the replacement of good, refund and return.

Disputes arise within and between businesses and individuals all the time for many different reasons. The one thing all disputes share is that ultimately they involve people and people involve relationships. The key to effective dispute resolution, from the perspective of business, is to have a broad, flexible approach which offers an outcome-focused resolution to the dispute.

Where dispute arises in the area of Consumer-Business relations, those trained in problem solving, dispute avoidance, negotiation and dispute resolution should have initial oversight of such dispute and be able to record and monitor all claims. Apart from such training, role of the grooming technology in deciding the cases resulting out of the issues in respect of the consumer dissatisfaction of the products or services belong to the Business has to be evaluated too.

Ideally, the analysis of disputes and complaints should include a recommended online dispute resolution (ODR) plan and suggestions on how to strengthen the relationship with the other party.

Soft Settle has adopted such ODR frame work to go along with people to decide the cases where the outcome shall not be painful to either parties while justice cannot be let down or ignored. But while promoting the win-win propositions, Soft Settle requires parties to be more amenable, generous and collaborative so that they can expect an reasonable outcome deemed to be the appropriate justice.

Soft Settle provides such platform as a device to resolve your consumer grievances through online medium which is easy, relaxed to come out with a decision acceptable to both parties unlike the outcome resulting in court litigation.

There are many ways to resolve your consumer grievances and online medium made this easier for quick redressal of consumer complaint.

Now things, information, and communication become online and easily accessible for all users because they are using a mobile device. Soft Settle is such a platform where a virtual neutral SS-Equity (CDR) would decide the cases in no time and at no cost. The decision is binding too.

 

Comforting Consumer Concerns

SoftSettle Support

Disappointed by a product or service you’ve paid for? You don’t have to settle for shabby performance. Most businesses want to keep you happy so you’ll keep coming back. But things may sometimes happen in a different way. Hence the problem crops up.

You can solve many consumer problems by talking to a store employee, or if you bought the item online, by returning to the website. Do this as soon as possible because some retailers have time limits on returns and refunds.

Online retailers should provide return instructions on the site or on your receipt. When shopping online, it is wise to consider the company’s reputation and return policy before you buy. Similarly the manner in which the physical shops considers the direct customer in a reasonable way such as providing the refund and return policy before the consumers buy things should be there.

Soft Settle provides a Consultancy Platform to help customers as if they were drafting a complaint letter to retailer with the following inclusions and in the following manner:

  • You have to provide the details of your profile in the specified fields.
  • You would be precise and concise as the fields call for concise and precise complaints.
  • You can express what you desire to get out of the settlement of the issue
  • You can upload relevant documents.

Soft Settle frame the issues furnished in the specified fields to build a case  and find the answers to the following questions.

  •  Didn’t get what you ordered?
  • Did you get a defective product?
  • Disappointed with the service you got?
  •  Any other issues (product or service) with your Seller?

The Soft Settle platform has two levels of resolving disputes (negotiations level and resolution by a neutral as an escalated level) with refined technological features.

It is free sign up and free resolution for customers but for the escalated mode (appeal)

 

Converting Shopping Complaints into a Great Customer Experiences

SoftSettle Support (targeting sellers/traders and servicemen)

It is true that customer experiencing a good relationship with sellers or traders, would definitely share this experience with friends, family and connections, which in can lead to new business without expending anything in the form of advertisements or towards using certain publicity tools. But on the other hand the experience is bitter, there will be an adverse approach from the part of the customer to proceed with his or her complaint.

And for customers that don’t complain, they just stop doing business with you.

A customer complaint highlights a problem, whether that’s a problem with your product, employees or internal processes, and by hearing these problems directly from your customers, you can investigate and improve to prevent further complaints in the future.

Soft Settle helps you handling the customer complaints. When a customer makes a complaint, he or she is voicing a concern in relation to your product or service. Soft Settle proposes a consumer redressal avenue step by step where the consumer has a specific issue or dispute over certain products or services, so that the seller or trader could react over the complaints positively to focus on the quality of the product or services. This may ultimately lead to good relationship with the customer and finding more leads with him or her to enhance your business.

Soft Settle is a simple application that resolves customer claims and makes shopping experience trouble-free for both businesses and consumers.

It helps companies seamlessly communicate and handle claims, allowing customers to spend more time on shopping – and less on complaining. Through Soft Settle, in just a couple of clicks, both sides can communicate and negotiate directly, making the issue resolved – for good…

The Soft Settle platform has two levels of resolving disputes (negotiations level and resolution by a neutral as an escalated level) with refined technological features.

Soft Settle can take the baton. It has nothing to do with lawyers, adjusters, but everything can be taken care of by you only. It is purely a DIY business. That itself calls for a true and fruitful relationship with the customer always.

Settling Your Own Debts: Do It Yourself

SoftSettle Support

Debt settlement is definitely an activity consoling one’s fainted heart. Doing it yourself requires persistence, hard work and the willingness to deal with debt collectors for months or years.

Defaulters may be under the impression that debt settlement usually is brutal. Negotiating down a debt with a creditor, rather than hiring someone else, can save you money and put you in control of the settlement process. However, many consumers shy away from DIY debt settlement, chiefly because they want to avoid interacting with banks, other creditors and collection agencies, experts say.

The first question should be whether debt settlement is the best option for you. To answer that question, you need to look at your total financial picture and alternatives such as bankruptcy or a family loan,  noting that debt settlement typically will severely damage your credit.

Debt settlement can damage your credit severely when creditors and collection agencies report delinquent payments, collections and settlements for less than the full amounts owed on accounts.

Soft Settle encourages people to settle their debts DIY.  If you decide to try to settle, you’ll need to decide whether to do it yourself. The advantages of DIY debt settlement include:

Creditors might go easier on you. Creditor may find to deal easier with you while they may be aggressive with debt settlement companies and even dare to file suit against you. Their lenient attitude towards you may probably reduce the total debt reasonably; so that you may have a target to settle is quite reasonable.

Another advantage behind DIY is it might motivate you to get your finances in order. So far as you are ready to negotiate directly with creditor and you become more accommodative and collaborative could bring the creditor to a level where you can set your financial commitments in a proper manner.

Soft Settle provides channel where you can apply the mode of negotiations as referred above, so that you would be collaborative in negotiating which prompts the virtual neutral to decide things in your favour and it never attempts to reduce the claim of the creditor. Hence the win-win proposition is accessible.

 

The inevitable implementation of technology stimulated Application in resolving E-Commerce Disputes

Adv. Meerza Zaheer, Chief Consultant, Senate Legis

Electronic commerce is the process by which businesses and consumers buy and sell goods and services through an electronic medium.

We have been witnessing the online presence of majority of companies in the present market since early 1990. Since you have recognized the ability to conduct business through the internet, you might have also accepted the online shopping starts from food and clothes to entertainment, furniture and whatever essential products for human life under the sky.

Electronic commerce brings both comforts and discomforts to its users. You may be enjoying the comforts widely include on the spot sales and purchase, competitive costs, convenience, saving of time, etc. On the other hand, the discomforts include frauds and cyber-crimes committed against e-commerce users. At times there are disagreements and dissatisfactions as well among buyers and purchasers that cannot be resolved using traditional litigation methods.

But the countries like India is lagging behind in applying the ADR or ODR mechanisms and technology driven solutions to find settlements against such cropping commercial conflicts or e-commerce disputes. It is quite unfortunate that India is still strange to the resolution of e-commerce disputes by means of ODR.

ODR  more evidently capable of helping  e-commerce disputes resolutions in India and like countries. I feel some of the areas where we must pay special attention include technology related dispute resolution, film, media and entertainment industry dispute resolution in India, cross border e-commerce dispute resolution in India, etc. E-courts and ODR can be effectively used for all the above mentioned purposes.

E-commerce players in India have many techno legal obligations to follow and cyber law due diligence in India is one such obligation. Not only legal requirements for undertaking e-commerce in India are stringent but even Internet intermediaries liability in India must be taken seriously by companies engaged in online transactions and businesses.

As the cyber presence of the commercial transactions is cropping up without any breaks use of e-courts paving way for e-commerce disputes resolution has become a necessity in all senses. The first and second segment of the project under the banner of Gateway to Equity & Justice (www.odrsupport.com) and (www.softsettle.com)  providing ODR policies and frame work,  facilitating E-commerce players from getting assaulted by some laws which may cause them held liable for cases like Intellectual Property infringement and other violations, introduced e-Court as a virtual resolution center or settlement support center.

Soft Settle negotiations capable of undoing the hassles used to crop up in physical negotiations to settle insurance claim.

SoftSettle Support

The initial settlement offer that comes from the insurance company can come at any time after you’ve filed your claim. Some claimants have to wait weeks to receive the offer, and some receive it rather quickly. Unfortunately, there is no set time in which the initial offer must be made.

The initial offer you receive from the insurance adjuster will almost always be a “lowball” offer. They may defend their low offer by claiming that you were partially at fault for the accident that caused your injuries in the case of physical injury, or that the injuries you suffered weren’t severe enough to warrant a greater amount. They may also question the amount of pain and suffering you experienced. They will aggressively defend their position of a low offer because this will often intimidate people into simply accepting the low offer. Do not ever accept the initial offer unless it is a fair offer.

When you receive the initial settlement offer in writing, examine the reasons the insurance adjuster has given for the low settlement amount. Each of these points will become a part of your counteroffer letter, and you should respond to each and every one. Your counteroffer letter will reassert your original position described in your demand letter, as well as respond to each of their low-offer reasons in turn. Keep your emotions out of the letter and stick to facts, such as the extreme pain and suffering you have had to endure and the frustration and hassle of attending medical treatments. Be professional, courteous, and confident, and never attack the claims adjuster personally in your counteroffer letter.

The above developments are there never to be overlooked and those using the platform Soft Settle, also experience the same process prior to the negotiation. But you can convert the offer into a fairer one with the negotiations using the platform under the supervision and facilitation of SS-Equity (ICS).

You may automatically react to the initial low offer from the part of the adjuster of the insurance company. You will counter the offer and ultimately this would turn into a prolonged counter offer battle where you may hire an attorney to bring everything to tedious court litigation.

Soft Settle does facilitate both insured and insurer to come in terms with each other and it would take the interests of the parties rather than their positions getting reconciled so as to make them come together in the potential zone of agreement to reach a solution acceptable to both. This has to be treated as win-win proposition or beyond.

Above everything the expensive litigation could be avoided and the elements of scientific mediation are being evaluated to bring the most cost effective, appropriate and harmonious settlement between or among the parties.

Finding algorithms to create a fairer legal system

SoftSettle Support

Disputes are virtual certainty in any society. A great percentage of these disputes revolve around money- how much is owed to whom. A vast legal system has been built around resolving monetary disputes, whether it involves a dispute over money owed or a cause of action for damages arising from a commercial or physical injury to a party. Even in the litigious society, most disputes do settle without resort to the courts.

Many disputes settle late in the game, often on the courthouse steps and usually only in an effort to avoid an uncertain outcome in litigation. Of course, by that time, all litigants have spent a significant amount of money in prosecuting or defending the lawsuit. While the courthouse settlement is a meaningful and preferable alternative to a trial, such settlement would be less costly and probably more fair if it had occurred much earlier in the process.

One of the settlement dynamics that impedes the early resolution of many disputes is that the parties find it very difficult to move very far or very fast in their negotiations. Impediments to prompt settlement include posturing, a fear of appearing weak or uncertain, an unrealistic vision or understanding of the other side’s position, or fear of vulnerability. In most cases, the negotiation starts at extreme positions and passes through a number of incremental, snail-like movement before a final settlement number is reached. Removing these impediments can help the parties achieve agreement much more quickly.

Mediators can play a vital role in advancing settlement. The mediator can frequently speed the process by finding out from each party, on a confidential basis, what are that party’s “trigger points’—what does that party expect to get out of the dispute. In addition, the mediator can learn, or at least discern, a party’s “bottom line”. During this information gathering, the mediator may discover that the “bottom lines” are not that far apart. If the parties are far apart at first, skillful wrangling by the mediator can frequently bring the parties within reach of each other. At that point, the parties are much closer together than they would have been had they set out on the traditional negotiation path.

One significant benefit of the mediator is that each party’s conversations and disclosures are maintained in confidence until agreement is close at hand. All of the fears normally associated with face-to-face negotiations dissolve. There is no need for a party to avoid making a big move towards the middle, which carries the risk in personal negotiations of appearing uninformed, weak or desperate. Neither party holds back information or bargaining proposals because the filter of the mediator is always there. Moreover either party can retrench and retract a previous settlement position while preserving the settlement opportunity.

While a mediator is a very valuable asset, not every party to a dispute wants to use a mediator. Most disputes are settled through person-to-person discussions, and most frequently through attorneys. Face-to-face settlement conferences can require significant commitment of time and monetary resources by the parties and their attorneys. Negotiations through mail, or even e-mail, can be slow and ripe for posturing. Both approaches eliminate the safe harbor of confidentiality that allows the participants to freely examine, offer and counteroffer without fear of reprisal or without risk of killing the negotiations.

In recent years, internet based systems have arisen that guide parties through a settlement process. In many of these online settlement systems, each party is entitled to make a limited number of offers/counter offers, usually three, in alternating fashion. These offers, counter offers, bids may be reflected to be the interests and software would work upon them is meant and built for Soft Settle platform rather than “split the difference” or “choosing the midpoints” so as to reach the settlement. Hence SoftSettle Support developed a different level of concept so as to pronounce Robotic Verdict.

A detriment of these prior systems is that they force the settlement amount to be at the midpoint between offers. This approach limits the flexibility of the settlement system and obligates the participants to “settle the blind” at an unknown amount. Moreover, these prior systems only offer one approach to settlement, again limiting the flexibility of the system to meet differing expectations of the participants. There remains a need for an automated dispute settlement system that retains the security of confidentiality while providing flexible approaches to meet the desires of the participants.

What is desired, therefore, is a system for performing dispute resolution that enables parties to present their issues to a customized decision maker and receive a determination in short amount of time at a reasonable price. Providing such a dispute resolution that operates over the internet with automated negotiation in the forefront could be the ideal turn in the revolution of dispute resolution inspired by technology.

Finding Algorithms to create a fairer legal system

Online Dispute Resolution, an ideal way-out in finding Consumer Dispute Resolution

SoftSettle Support

ODR or Online Dispute Resolution is a pioneering method to resolve grievances, issues or disputes, especially now when both consumers and business started to use virtual space for concluding contracts and performing various transactions.

Legal action may not be the most suitable remedy for disputes especially so when such disputes are the outcome of e-commerce transactions or dealings on the Internet. The Internet exposes us to a variety of fields and in turn disputes too seem to be inevitable. It is best to resolve these grievances, issues or disputes arising as a result of the Internet in that very same environment, that is, the Internet.

As for the ordinary locally based offline consumer disputes too the traditional court intervention does not benefit the consumers as well as traders to find a settlement in a cost effective and fast manner. The crawling attitude of the court behavior to find a settlement will definitely lead the clients to find a better alternative to this effect.

ODR supplements existing ADR methods based on the assumption that certain disputes (more specifically e-disputes) can also be resolved quickly and adequately via the Internet. ODR can be defined as the deployment of applications and computer networks for resolving disputes with ADR methods. Both e-disputes and brick and mortar disputes can be resolved using ODR.

SoftSettle Support has come up with innovative digitilized concepts that can eliminate the limitations of the traditional legal devices to find a resolution to the effect of consumer issues whether it is offline or online.

SoftSettle Support has developed a concept where dispute resolution techniques range from methods where parties have full control of the procedure, to methods where a third party is in control of both the process and the outcome. These primary methods of resolving disputes may be complemented with Information and Communication Technology (ICT). When the process is conducted mainly online it is referred to as ODR, i.e. to carry out most of the dispute resolution procedure online, including the initial filing, framing up the issues, electronic negotiation, the neutral appointment, evidentiary processes, oral hearings if needed, online discussions, and even the rendering of binding settlements. Thus, SoftSettle has developed an ODR system  which  is a different medium to resolve disputes, from beginning to end, respecting due process principles.

Traditional Court system does not provide an effective solution to the effect of Consumer Dispute Resolution.

SoftSettle Support

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) describes a range of methods (such as mediation and arbitration) designed to avoid the need to go to court to enforce legal rights. Usually these methods are a cheaper and quicker route for resolving a dispute.

SoftSettle Support has stepped up further with a new innovative resolution tools to make the consumer dispute resolution more cheaper and flexible. SoftSettle Support has come up with new techniques that can support the varying nature of online and offline marketplaces in a dynamic fashion. Further the described techniques provide a comprehensive ODR system that may be tailored to, and integrated within, an online and offline market place. The technology built by SoftSettle Support allow automated or manually assisted processes to address the grievances of the customers.

All the designs developed are enough to reduce the time and enhance the flexibility so as to generate the efficiency which are more and enough for limiting the extent of reputation of both buyers and sellers.

The techniques integrated in the software may provide new technology, online and offline user interface processes which allow the ODR system described herein to automatically tailor a dispute resolution experience for users or user types with given sets of issues. As a result ODR system can better route disputes in an automated or manual fashion separately or in an combined fashion.

Techniques are described for handling disputes online. The technology addresses needs arising through the recent growth of global online and offline marketplace and online and offline selling.