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November 10, 2005

Does Customer Service Matter Anymore?

The Next Available Customer Service Representative Will Be Horrible With You

What has happened to the importance customer service once had to businesses? People skills and customer relations don't seem to matter any more. I know it isn't just me, so lose the “Drew's whining again” bit. Type “What,” “Happened,” “Customer” and “Service” into Google and what do you get? Close to 16 million results, and a good portion of those are about dreadful customer service; that should tell us something. Consumers have it bad these days, and it seems to be getting worse. Every situation we enter into as customers seems to be suffering from the same dysfunction. From professional offices and the local bank, to home improvement contractors and tree removal companies, to Best Buy and the neighborhood restaurant, no business appears to be immune. After spending the last six months clawing my way through renovating a house here on the Cape, I keep telling myself it can't get much worse.

When we think of the Better Business Bureau, we often think of consumer complaints. However, did you know the BBB also reports on thousands of companies with unblemished, positive records? Believe it or not, there are still businesses out there that care about customer satisfaction and ethics. The Better Business Bureaus are dedicated to just what their name implies: good business practices. Despite their push for good business, our local bureau (serving eastern Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont) has received more than 5,800 complaints regarding poor customer service at local companies in the past 36 months. Previously, I had only used their services once, to check the record of a window and siding company before hiring them. Unfortunately, the results from that check did not warn me of the bait and switch practices I experienced with the windows, but that is a story for another day. Yesterday, I had to make my first-ever direct contact with the BBB, to make an unrelated complaint of my own.

My Personal Customer Service Hell: The Unfit Bath Fitter

My complaint was about a bath fitting company that, although they may be able to fit a bathroom on a good day, is clearly unfit for customer relations on any day. Back in March, the local Bath Fitter franchise, Bath Inc. was an exhibitor at a Hyannis home show. Afterward, a relative invited them to her home for a quote on renovating her outdated tub and shower. She ordered one of their bathtub and shower liners, and the final result was fantastic. So, when my dream of purchasing a fixer-upper on Cape Cod finally came true several months later, it was with this amazing transformation in mind that I called the same company to give me quotes on renovating both the tired old bathtub and the shower stall in my fifties vintage ranch. A month after signing the contracts, the word “rush” having been written into the margins, and having long ago paid substantial deposits, I called to find out why we had not heard anything about scheduling the jobs. This should have been our first sign. The course of events from here were akin to the ups and downs of the New England weather, only the downs seemed far more plentiful (and memorable) than the ups.

The first phone call brought lots of fumbling and rustling of papers. It was clear that it took some digging to find our contracts. The word “rush” seems to do that to contracts in the modern business world, they just gravitate to the bottom of the pile. After finding the contracts, the customer service person finally replied.

CSR: “Oh... well, the shower base is on backorder from Canada, and will not be in for another week or more.”

Me: “We have two contracts with you for separate bathrooms. Couldn't we do the other one while we are waiting? We would rather they not both be out of service at the same time anyway.”

CSR: “Sure, we could do the other one next week.”

Well, that was easy enough. I just wish I had called earlier instead of waiting a month. The following week, my upstairs tub was refitted and all went without a hitch. I could not be happier with the results. This company is capable of excellent work. You will not find me saying otherwise here. Just don't forget. We had two contracts.

Eventually, the shower base came in and we schedule the appointment for the downstairs shower. I should preface this story by saying this bathroom is not substantial. It is more like a powder room; the term closet might even be more fitting. Is the word “fitter” or “fitting” being used too often here? How about “bath”? Anyway, back to the story. The bath is tiny, and Bath Fitter sends a guy who should be a professional linebacker to install a shower in the smallest bathroom on Cape Cod. Needless to say, the final results showed his discomfort. These people seem genuinely cautious, and lay tarps down over their path to and from their work area. The professional football player-turned bath fitter played by the same rules, only when he got to the carpeted landing at the entrance to our bath-closet, the sheer horror of the small hole he was anticipating working in for the next several hours must have caused him to forget the next play. He left the brand new, wall to wall carpeting uncovered at the entrance to his work area, and proceeded to lay all the tools of his trade all over the carpet. If you have ever had carpet or a rug that was worth taking your shoes off to protect, you may already see where the next part of this story is going.

When he was done, he warned my fiance to wait a while before vacuuming the dirt and debris that remained all over the carpet as he had left it. The dust kicked up by the vacuum could get into the silicone used on the newly installed shower covering. So, it was not until vacuuming up the debris later, shortly after I returned home, that we discovered streaks of silicone and bleach like stains all over our brand new carpet. On inspecting the shower itself, I easily noticed that the work looked horrible. I immediately got on the phone and called Bath Inc. (doing business as a franchise of Bath Fitter). I informed them of the terrible job that had been done in the shower and reported the visible damage to the carpet. I took note of the name of the woman I spoke with and was told to expect a call back first thing in the morning.

Customer Service 101: When you promise a customer a call back (especially an unhappy customer), CALL THEM BACK! This was the beginning of the tooth pulling with these people. I never, from this point forward, received one returned or unsolicited phone call without making multiple calls myself. Actually, looking back on this, my phone records at home, from work and my cell phone show my having called them close to fifteen times in the past four months, but their having never called me (not once) without multiple requests on my part. It is not as though I was impatient about waiting for call backs either. One or more days waiting for a promised, “he'll call you right back” is not impatient, it is being a doormat. Upon calling, after stating my name and asking for “Steve,” the customer service person would nicely say, “sure, can you hold for just a minute?” But eventually they would return to glumly explain that Steve was “in a meeting” or “out in the field.” Consumer Tactics 101: Ask for the supervisor, that always gets you somewhere... at least to someone else's voice mail. Asking for a supervisor may not get you another human being to speak with, but your unreturned phone calls to his or her subordinates suddenly get responses. Funny how that works.

Three phone calls later, when I finally got to speak with “Steve,” (late in the afternoon of the day after the shower desecration & carpet destruction), I told him very plainly: “Look, I hired you people because I didn't want this to come out looking like I did it. I considered doing this myself, but I didn't want this to come out looking amateur. That is exactly how it looks. My brand new carpet is ruined, and the shower looks horrible.” Steve seemed genuinely apologetic (although not enough so to return my calls) and offered to send someone out the next day. TWO DAYS later, a field supervisor came out, checked the poor workmanship in the shower, and took pictures of the carpet. He agreed that the shower looked horrible, and recommended that they would get somebody to try and professionally clean the carpet. We knew that the carpet was damaged beyond repair. It was obvious just looking at it. We were willing to let them satisfy their hope that they could salvage the carpet. We just wanted everything fixed. After several more phone calls it was agreed that the person who had installed our upstairs bath, would be sent back to do the reinstall of our shower. The reinstallation did not go as smoothly or as quickly as either of the previous two installations. The installer who came back to redo the shower was at our house until 1 a.m. (yes, that is in the morning) on a week day, if that tells you anything about how the job went. The manager in his infinite wisdom (he was “new”) had made the original installer (football linebacker) come and tear out his previous work. The damage caused to the underlying shower stall by this demolition was such, that the second installer had three times the work that he should have had. This became yet another traumatic home improvement nightmare, and a long night with very little sleep. The shower came out fantastic, but the carpet remained unchanged. The waiting and phone game began.

More than a month later, after numerous unreturned phone calls, I called Steve yet again, and gave him the phone number of a carpet cleaning company located in Falmouth. Miraculously, we received a call from a different carpet cleaning company the next day. The carpet cleaners came, did their job, and told us exactly what we already knew. The carpet is not cleanable. It needs to be replaced. This brings us to today, more than four months later. I call at least one day every couple of weeks, and every time I get the same response (normally after several unreturned phone calls). “The insurance company is slow.” “It is out of our hands.” “Our hands are tied.” “The insurance company handed this to an adjuster who was on vacation.” “I am going to call and get on them tomorrow.” The list of excuses has been endless for months. I asked him if he had ever made a large purchase of something new, and how he would feel if someone came along and ruined it. How would you feel if the car dealership put a large gouge in the paint of your new car? Would you expect them to fix it?

Our carpet was brand new when their installer ruined it. They have made little or no effort without threats to expedite its being repaired. I have never received a phone call asking how the third installation went (or the first or second for that matter). There have been no follow up to my phone calls. There have been no apologies. The customer service has been virtually non-existent since the day they cashed my checks. To make a long story endless, it is now four months later and there has been little or no progress. That is, until last Wednesday, when I called and mentioned my plans to call the Better Business Bureau and explained that I often post my thoughts to a popular web site on Cape Cod. We received our first phone call from an insurance company the next day. The gentleman (and I use that term loosely) rudely grilled my fiance about the carpet and why it must all be replaced. Had Bath Fitter taken care of this four months ago, just the carpet at the bottom of the stairs could probably have been replaced. However, now the dye lots have changed. Now, the entire family room, stairway and landing must be torn out and replaced to match the color. This was certainly not our intention, and something we clearly tried to avoid. Do they think I am happy that I will have to empty my bookcases, disconnect all of my computer equipment, and remove all of the furniture from our family room in order to install the new carpet? The insurance company finally gave us a claim number and said they would contact a local adjuster who would be in touch before Friday of last week. That was last week... still no adjuster.

This litigious society has often offended me, but I am now well aware of why so much of this has come to be. Too many people are not willing to take pride in their work or responsibility for their actions any more, and consumers are not left with much choice. This seems to be the only language some of these people understand. Now, four months, and many broken promises later, the rules have changed. The next available customer will not be right with you Bath Inc. (local Bath Fitter franchise). They will know better.

Posted by capecodcyclist at November 10, 2005 07:38 PM

Comments

Posted by: Joanna at December 5, 2005 08:42 AM

Posted by: Drew at December 5, 2005 06:16 PM

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