40 degrees (feels like 29) this morning, light rain. Didn’t walk due to weather, bad weather coming in.
How some companies handle “complaints” continues to surprise me. In an era of what is supposed to be (and normally is) excellent customer service, some companies apparently haven’t learned.
Just a short experience with General Electric, a company you think would have excellent customer service.
We purchased a small LED “night light” last Summer. While I didn’t really believe it would last 13 years, that was the proclamation on the packaging.
After about three months, the device started wildly malfunctioning, to say the least. It because unusable. We started to just throw it away as another purchase kind of like some of the junk you get from Amazon, but since we had purchased it at a reputable physical store, (but not kept the receipt), I thought GE should know about the quality.
Anyway, went on the web site and e-mailed GE the product number etc., and what the product was doing. I wasn’t sure what to expect, probably a replacement or at least information on how to get a replacement or at least a polite “sorry but tough” letter to be more careful next time.
In all fairness, this is not an expensive item, maybe $13, but expensive for a night light.
Anyway, I get a snotty reply and a $5.00 coupon for “any GE light”. The letter was worded like I didn’t really have a valid complaint, and I actually felt insulted (if you can feel insulted by a company).
So I sent the coupon back, with a polite note that I was notifying them of a defective product since I thought they might want know about it etc. and that I really didn’t have any use for the coupon.
About a month later (Friday), I get a letter saying GE would like to look at the defective product. They were nice enough to include a Fedex shipping label. Of course, Fedex, the king of nuisance fees, charges $5.00+ for a “shipping box”, since they didn’t feel like our box was a shipping box. I didn’t think much of their $5.00 “shipping box either.
Anyway, so we are out more than the cost of the item, when considering the box, the travel to the Fedex store etc., and especially just the time wasted, but by now it is a matter of principle.
It seems strange they didn’t send a box to ship it back in, etc., I really think they figured it would be too much of a nuisance and I would just do the sensible thing and drop it.
This isn’t the only weird response we have had recently to, not necessarily complaints, but questions about the quality. Even when I made a note on a “customer service” form about the crappy coffee at TGIFirday’s (it is uniformly bad, not the fault of the brewing, but is some kind of absolutely bad quality coffee that is the same at all TGIFriday’s), it is putrid.
I rated the service etc. excellent which it was), but then I get a call from the manager acting like I had rated his restaurant as the worst experience ever!
So much for the “customer surveys”, I am finding, like many rating systems, they are “filling in the blanks”, they don’t really want to know how you actually feel and only want to hear the good things. Also, it is a chance for them to get your e-mail, so they can bombard you with ads.
Had another recent experience with a furniture store I”ll go into some other time.
Short dream yesterday, just trying to make a note of dreams I remember:
3-26-16: Dream
Dreamed I was having my car serviced. For some reason I had to park the car in a a large room (kind like a waiting area), but no seating, etc., it was a work area.
I waited and tried to decide whether to wash my car (or let the “automatic wash” do it.
I was hooking my a washing wand to a hose when an attendant came out advised me the car was ready to be serviced.
That’s all I remember from this dream
That’s it for now, Sunday, March 27, 2016.
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