Why is customer service so awful

There are times where gas engineers may not have the part to fix the boiler there and then and need to wait for a part to become available. So they do have to leave frail / vulnerable customers with electric heaters. It is not nice but what else can happen really? They cant shoot mechanical parts out of their ass. They also cannot have every part for every boiler in their van either.

Exactly, if you have 10 priority customers that all need something how do you send one person to 10 places.

The last time our boiler was serviced, the engineer found a cracked part, condemned it, switched it off and told us were weren't allowed to use it any more until the part had been replaced or a new boiler installed.....

I appreciate this isn't the same as the case here but you can;t neccesarily rely on being left with heating after a service....

I suppose the point is though how do you know the other 10 customers that day weren’t also frail, unwell and cold? Do you prioritise 1 person over 10?

So she should have to wait all day for him to come back and sort the boiler that was actually working before he came to service it?

The comments on this thread are insane.

It’s not cold at the moment but it will be in a month or so. I expect people’s responses will be the same. The elderly lady will just have to wait in her now cold house until the rest of the work is done. No consideration that she may be frail or unwell.

So they should have rescheduled a whole days worth of customers? Some of who may also be elderly and have no heating?

They can’t magic people out of thin air.

It isn't the middle of winter, she isn’t going to get so cold she gets ill, nothing popping a blanket round her won’t sort till they got back to her.

The boiler was working. The engineer serviced it and then it wasn’t working. Does that sound like a five hour job?

@DelphiniumDoreen Of course in an ideal world, that is what you do, but a job can take 5 minutes or 5 hours. So what do you do? Annoy loads of customers? They are not miracle workers. They could have made a mistake or the boiler has another problem.

They’re not going back to fix something though. They’re going back to complete the job.

If I was managing this team of engineers, I would get him to finish the job he was working on and deal with this next because I know if it was my elderly Dad he would be panicking his arse off. If it makes the engineer late for his next appointment then he’ll have to apologise and explain. It might make him a little more mindful of ensuring things are working properly before he leaves.

There are never any consequences for poor service. You’re just expected to put up with what you get. If you query it you’re branded as difficult.

Find a reputable local company for her next service. We have two guys and they are amazing. They always do what they say they will and always turn up on time. They complete the work and send us the invoice a few days later. It’s the same with the garage we use for the cars. Two guys own it and they have a small team. Their customer service is beyond outstanding. There are lots of good companies out there.

I would imagine that very few people have started putting their heating on, temp is still quite mild.

I understand your mum is important to you and you feel it should be resolved immediately but being the wife of a gas engineer who has had situations like this...its very hard for them to go back once they have completed the job.

Because the weather has changed, it is likely they are busy with people turning on their heating and it not working properly. The engineers get a full day of work, and cannot just stop what they are doing to go back to fix something because they will upset a lot of customers.

They could get someone else in to look, but it will take longer because the other person will not know for sure what the engineer did.

Believe me when I say that reattends are really not wanted, and they get monitored on that. Some engineers are just rubbish and my husband has needed to fix some really bodge jobs.

When he is told there is no heating after he has attended, it is likely it is something simple like the boiler isnt switched on or the thermostat is wrong. Is there a code on the boiler screen? Not the answer you wanted, but in this situation with your mum...the most practical.

And btw....you would be in a lot of trouble if you tried to stop work because of your own personal experience. Its an absolute conflict of interest.

Maybe missing the point, but it’s still only September. And pretty mild still. Are people putting their heat on already?

Might be a bit late now but last time my boiler was serviced the heating stopped working afterwards. I realised that as the engineer had turned the power off the clock had reset, and once I had reset it from the ‘middle of the night’ to the correct time, it started working again.

The engineer didn’t service the boiler properly because it wasn’t working when he left. When you raise it with the company, they make noises about possibly fitting it in at the end of the day as if they are doing you a favour. You couldn’t make it up, could you?

My Dad is in his 90s and still lives alone but he is a constant source of worry for me. Unless you’ve been there you couldn’t possibly understand. I find women in their fifties and older the most helpful when it comes to customer facing roles. They actually have empathy and get stuff done.

Most companies don’t give a shit if you complain. If you’re a woman of a certain age they assume you’re a Karen. Jeez, you’ve even been called it by someone on this thread. Vote with your feet and pull all of the work that your company feeds to this company. It’s the only way.

Just read there’s electric heaters in use too. Sorry, I know that costs and all but my god do we speak to people in far worse situations we still can’t do anything for who are nowhere near as entitled

Sorry, probably an unpopular opinion but you sound like a right Karen. As someone who worked in call centres for national businesses for years, believe me if we could wave a wand and do something on the spot for EVERYONE we would. It has to be on a case by case basis like when you rock up at A&E. Kicking off won’t get you anywhere, while it’s not ideal she will be ok. It’s not -7. Most people can’t even afford to put their heating on yet.

This

Part of a gas safe boiler service (assuming gas) is running the heating and taking measurements from the gases going to the flue. So they can't complete a service without having the heating on, which suggests it's a setting change. It's probably something as simple as they've changed her thermostat - turned it to off from auto etc. But that's negligent when dealing with an elderly customer, they should be paying close attention to the original setup.

Hope it gets sorted for her today.

Customer service DOES exist because I work in it
but people wonder why it’s bad, then post on here about how it’s hard to live on 100k, how shit customer service is and how useless we all are

it’s not a great start when you turn up to work having read all that to take home your min wage and be berated by customers about how you should have worked harder and gone to uni (I did…)

That happened with mine after my service, they just forgot to switch it back

I know how you feel.
My mum is 100 years old.

Last January she was without any night storage heating at all for over a week. She managed.

She used free standing heaters, her electric shower and a heated throw to help her through it. She refused to live with me whilst I got her sorted out.

Customer Service no longer exists. We must stop thinking we can count on it.

Meanwhile stop using big companies for anything avoidable. Use a small local company and build a relationship with them. I use a local plumber, heating engineer, electrician and decorator. Works a treat because I have a “relationship” built up over a number of years.

How awful for your poor mum. Get your brother to check at the gas meter, sometimes gas engineers forget to turn the emergency control valve back into the on position after doing the service. He can Google ECV if he's not sure what to look for but it's a little lever that stops the flow of gas from the meter into the property

Personally I think you're being a bit of an arse.

A mistake was made, with rectification happening same day. It's not freezing temperatures and one day under blankets or at a relatives house isn't THAT much of an inconvenience.

From the companies stand point would you rather 1 person make a complaint or 10?

Calm the fuck down.

There's no slack in the system to mop up things like this. Everyone is working at full pelt.