I fear I was just a SC...

[customersruinmylife]

OK, so we have a problem with our patio doors. Whenever theres a gust of wond, they make this huge whistling sound, so we called someone to come take a look. They said they would be round at our house between 1pm and 4pm.

I am sat on the couch at 12pm, and I hear the sound of the letter box. I pick up the letter, and it says "CALLED AT 12PM. NO ANSWER. PLEASE CALL XXXXXX TO RESCHEDUEL"

I look out the window and see a big white van at the end of our drive. I couldnt find any keys for our front door, so I just started banging on the window! Too late. He sped off. I called the number, I was trying to be as nice as possible, but I was annoyed that they showed up at the wrong time and did not even bother to ring the door bell.

Nice Lady: Hello <company name here> How can I help?
Me: Yeah, I just got a letter through my door saying "Called at 12pm, no answer. And to call this number.
Nice Lady: OK *types on computer* Is it <my last name>
Me: Yeah it is, he said he would be here between one and four. Its twelve now and hes gone.
Nice Lady. Oh. Well, he is no longer working in your area today, he wont be back until Friday.
Me: Oh no! He just left not five minutes ago! Cant he turn back?

I realised how dumb I sounded.

Nice Lady: I'm sorry he cant. But I can get you an appointment between one and four on Friday.
Me: OK then. But I should point out that I was sat next to the front door and the doorbell did NOT go.
Nice Lady: OK then. I am sorry about that.
Me: Dont worry, its not your fault.

The advantages with working with SC's is that you do your best to avoid becoming one, but I was not impressed!

[Fraggle]

Definitely not in SC territory.
Sounds fine to me.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Actually, no, you weren't sucky, but the company should not make you wait that long.

The guy did not keep his appointment, and you should not have to reschedule. He was supposed to be at your place between 1 and 4. He wasn't. He missed it, you didn't. That you were home is neither here nor there. He didn't ring the bell, so he clearly wasn't expecting you to be home. I think he just blew off the appointment. Not cool.

And if he'd called, wouldn't you have been there to take the call? I'd find someone else to come fix your doors, and I let them know why.

[wagegoth]

You were definitely not SC. You were home at the time, he came early, as RK said, he was blowing off the appointment, you did exactly what you were supposed to do.

Frankly, I might have been a bit harsher on the phone. Not rude or screaming, but I would have told the person answering the phone that if the driver didn't turn around and come back that day, that you were taking your business elsewhere, and then do it. And then tell your friends.

We seem to get paranoid to assert our rights because of SCs and our desire to not be perceived as such, but we deserve to be treated as well as we treat our customers.

[powerboy]

Something like that happened to us recently. We are getting a new rug in. My mom called the company that Lowe's provided us with, and made the appointment for March 3rd, around 8am. 8:45 rolls around, and they have not came out. The woman that my mom talked too, said that she made the appointment for the 10th of March. We had moved the furniture out of the room, for nothing. Which honestly pissed me off, because I had to miss about 2 hours of work, because of that. I think that when they do come out, that I will demand that they pay for those 2 hours that I missed from work, because of that shit, that they pulled.


Also we had a guy come out and look at our A/C, since it had not been working for so many years. The guy said that he would be out, by 5pm in the evening, nope, he was not, he came at 11pm, that night. And that was because we had called and bitched about him not coming out.

[Hobgoblin]

I absolutely would find another company to do the work. My brothers both work in the home repair/finish carpentry field and would never dream of treating a customer that way. The tech blew you off. He did NOT want to do the work, so he got out of it. I'd get someone else to fix it and I also would not cancel my appointment with the tech on Friday.

When he shows up, oh, sorry, someone else already fixed it. But yeah, thanks for being here on Wednesday when you should have been.

I realize that is an SC thing to do, but I wouldn't hesitate. I don't mistreat my customers like that (I sometimes assist my bros on side jobs they are wokring) and would be royally pissed if someone did that to me.

[Kilamon]

I'd wager that he had that card written up before he even walked up to your driveway.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The guy blew off the job. Firing him is not sucky. It's business. I've dealt with contractors, work for hire, repairmen of all sorts. I'd say a very large percentage of them blow off work, weasle out of work, miss appointments, etc. The ones that don't play around get my money. The ones that do dont'. It's just business.

I threw one of my cousins a bone once, trying to get some contract work out of him (which he wanted to do, or so he said). He didn't want to work, kept putting it off, blowing off workdays, etc. I dismissed him and got someone in there who did want to work. I love my cousin, it wasn't personal. It was just business. I just won't hire him again. Hiring family's a bad idea, anyway.

[trunks2k]

Another example of people on these boards being paranoid about being percieved as a sucky customer. Really, to me, you kinda came across as a doormat. As other's have said, there's no problem with standing up for yourself when you have a legit reason. You had a legit reason. They said the tech would be there between 1 and 4, he was there before the scheduled time and even though you were home, he didn't even try to see if you were actually there. I'd be raising a stink over it.

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

Sears used to do that bullshit. That's why I quit working there. I couldn't stand how unfair the techs were to customers. It was as if they forgot that the customers are the reason we had a business to run...

Definitely not SC territory. They could have called him to see if he could turn around, especially since he had just left.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, I guess it's no suprise to see Sears on the ropes these days. I wasn't impressed with their treatment of me in the past.

[Cia]

Definitely not SC territory. They could have called him to see if he could turn around, especially since he had just left.

Forget could and go straight to should have called him back and told him in no uncertain terms to go back to the customer's house and do his work. And when he got back to the office, have is severance check ready and boot his ass out the door.

[alexdsoso]

I fail to see how you sounded dumb. They should be able to page him and tell him to turn around, especially as you stated that you watched him drive away, and he didnt ring the bell.

[SuperDan]

So many people on here are so paranoid of being SCs themselves... but what happened here was a clear case of Sucky Lazy Dishonest Tech.

I have no doubt that everyone who regularly posts on this board busts their balls (figuratively speaking of course) to provide outstanding customer service. That 10% of our customers who stick out as great customers definitely recognize this, and I am willing to bet the middle 80% do as well. It's the sucky 10% of customers that we write about. Employees work the same way, and this tech was in the sucky 10%.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I have no doubt that everyone who regularly posts on this board busts their balls (figuratively speaking of course)

Figuratively??? I'm not really a girl, you know, I just work too hard