Why is customer service so awful

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Rant incoming! my elderly, frail mum has just had an engineer visit her home to sort for a routine yearly service of her boiler. She paid in advance to what is supposed to be a reputable local company and the engineer attended this morning. Since then she is unable to turn on her heat! - she called and spoke to a lady on the phone who told her that the engineer was in a different area now and would get back to her at some stage soon. This was this morning and I have just called and spoken to someone there who informed me that the engineer will only be able to call, if possible today, "after 6" as he has other services. I have read them the riot act. I totally understand that not everything runs smoothly but the attitude of the so called customer service team who dont seem to view my mum as a customer anymore as "she got the service done" is just awful. I'm livid as I'm normally there with her but I'm away at the minute. had I have been I would have made sure the engineer checked all was in working order before he left.

I cannot seem to convince anyone in customer service that leaving an elderly woman at home cold all day long due to the fact that a job she has paid for has not been adequately carried out is not a good idea. The smugness of the guy in customer service who kept repeating "she will have to wait, we have other customers" was maddening to say the least. My brother and SIL have now gone to my mums house where my SIL will take her to their house - whilst my brother waits in mums for this guy to return, if he does, "sometime after 6".

What happened to people just doing their job and if something goes wrong the company trying to make it right asap. I will never use that company again (unfortunately for them I work in an area which has need of that particular service for a large number of properties so I will make sure that they aren't on our list of suppliers going forward. From what I can tell we have spent a substantial amount of money with them in the last number of years. Not now!). I'm now wondering how many other people they have left in this position. I've asked one of my team to find out the contact details of the Managing Director and I will be emailing him.

I suspect I'm likely overreacting but honestly the customer service rep really got my back up. My mum is not long over chemotherapy and she feels the cold dreadfully.

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

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.

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.

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?

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....

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

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.

Sorry Im only getting back to this thread now. the update is that another engineer "working in the area" strangely enough, attended at my mums. The other engineer had forgotten to do something and it was fixed in a few minutes. I received a call from the guy in charge apologising. Like myself and some other posters he agreed that the job was not complete and therefore the engineer should have finished the job he was on when the call came in saying there was an issue and then went back to my mums. He also said he had had a conversation with the customer service team about this as he was confused as to why they would expect any customer to wait with no heating given that it was likely an issue caused by their engineers.

as for the people accusing me of being a Karen. if this makes me a karen then I am one and proud of it! If my mum had not tried to put the heating on until Saturday, when that business was closed, then she would have been without heating until today at least, unless you suggest we hire another engineer to come out on an emergency call out - and paid for that also? Given that no doubt the original company would have had another day of scheduled appointments today would she have been waiting then? My mum has had chemo, she feels the cold dreadfully, a blanket over her knees wont cut it I'm afraid.

Also the company that caused the issue is a local enough company. Its owned by a local guy hence why I used them in the first place.

Anyone can make a mistake, I get that, I just wanted some courtesy from the customer service team, not to be treated like asking them to complete a job that had been paid for, for my ill elderly mum was a nuisance. thanks to all who took the time to respond.