Customer Service?

My friend D bought a new and expensive fridge freezer when he had his kitchen made over around 2.5 years ago. Last Friday morning he came downstairs to hear an alarm sounding from it and no refrigeration activity to be detected; after unloading the contents and stashing some in the shed outside (giving thanks to the cold snap for a change) he examined his options.

Fortunately he had bought extended warranty for the appliance so he made the call and was told that an “engineer” would call on Tuesday – a hassle but with a good outcome only 4 days away he agreed. Fast forward to Tuesday and the “engineer” calls, two minutes later he announces that the compressor has seized and that it will require a “system engineer” to replace it, swift phone call and the question “Monday afternoon OK?” is put to D.

Valiantly refraining from throttling the guy D asks him why he cannot fix it and is told “I can only fix door lights, change fuses and order parts” there are 30 “engineers” for every “system engineer”. Considering that these appliances are very simple pieces of kit and contain only two major working parts (the compressor and the expansion valve) it seems to us that this company is running a pretty shabby customer service operation.

Now D & family are out of refrigeration options for another six days – assuming that the “trained monkey’s” diagnosis of the fault is the correct one and that swapping the compressor does the trick. Watch this space...