Customer (dis)Service

Customer Service: (noun) the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.

I start this article with a definition for those of you that don’t know what customer service is. It seems to me that the whole concept of customer service is being lost in society.

I recently had a chat with someone about just this very same thing and she told me she used to take her mother shopping at Flora Hatch. Her mother would sit in the changing room and tell the sales person what they were looking for, “a red dress for Saturday night” or “Something comfortable for the summer.” The clerk would go and select a few things matching what she wanted and would bring them to her to try on. Try that at a discount department store! You would be lucky to even find an “associate”.

She also complained about trying to shop at a local “Big Box” store. She said she had to chase down a clerk who told her “That’s not my department.” When she finally found the right person, it seemed to her that she had as much knowledge about the products as they did.

A few times I needed work done on my home. My house roof was leaking so I called several local roofing companies. I like to try and spend my money locally in Lockport. Over half of them didn’t bother to return my call.  Apparently the owners were wealthy enough that they didn’t have to work anymore. I ended up with a roofer out of Buffalo.

When I wanted to put an addition on my house, I called many of the people in the Lockport phone book (Yes there are still a few of us that use a phone book). Most of the people I called didn’t give me the courtesy of a response. I ended up getting a contractor from Lancaster.

I needed a piece of siding replaced on the back of my house Two guys showed up and looked at what I needed and said they would get back to me. I never heard from them again. Despite my best efforts to hire someone locally, I ended up calling my guy to get the job done right.

The garage wiring shorted out and we had no power in it including to the garage door opener. Back to the phone book. Out of the eight people I called, three responded, two who said they would try to send someone out in the next couple of weeks to “look at” the job. I finally found a local company to do the job.

I wanted two doors and storm doors replaced on my house. Out of all the people I called, including some that advertise on television, just a few got back to me saying that the job was too small for them. I guess my money wasn’t green enough for them.

A recent Saturday I needed an emergency electrical repair. My heat was out. I pulled out the phone book once again started dialing. I started those that had ads saying they had 24/7 emergency service. I left messages on several machines and finally called a place that utilized an answering service. I explained my situation and the person on the other end of the line was very empathetic and said they would call the “technician" and get back to me within a half an hour.

Two hours later I called them back and asked what was up. She said that they were still trying to get ahold of the technician and they would call me back in a half an hour. I was starting to think this was their stock answer. I called my daughter and, she lined up an electrician out of Elma. After two days of freezing at night and finally getting the problem repaired, the 24/7 people started returning my calls.

 I take a prescription I can only get out of state. I called them up because I was running low and they told me I needed a new script. So I called my doctor to have one sent to them. Finally a whole day later and one day closer to running out, I called the out of state pharmacy and they said they had received the script. They then asked I wanted to have this filled. Well no…. I was just calling to see what the weather was where they were located.

So I finally got the prescription filled, or so I thought. A few hours later they called back to inform me that the delivery date had been moved back by a day. I’m even closer to reaching the bottom of my pill bottle. Two hours after that, a different person called me to see if I wanted to schedule a delivery of my drugs. I calmly explained that delivery was already scheduled so they checked their computer and told me I was right. I told them to have a nice day and hung up. Then at 8:30 that night someone else called and we went around this one more time. When they asked if I had any questions, I was tempted to ask why they were so inept.

Good Help is Hard to Find

I ran a handyman type business part time for 35 years until health problems caused me to quit. I put an ad in the paper for just one week and was as busy until the day I closed it out. It surprised me that I would be so busy but in retrospect I now know why.

My customers would pass my name around to their friends and family because I treated then like I wanted to be treated. Apparently this concept has gone the way of black and white television and rotary dial telephones. I have now reached the age where I am the one that needs some help.

I sided my house several years ago but a wind storm caused one piece to come loose. I called several people and the first person that showed up nailed it back up with the nail heads showing, but the next windstorm we had the nails pulled thru the siding, leaving holes. So he went on the “S” list and tried again.

One man showed up in the back seat of a car driven by a relative. He looked over the job and asked if I had a ladder to get up there. What? You don’t have a ladder?  He then said would have to go on the internet to see how to do the repairs I needed.  Another entry to “the list”. Finally I had a man from Lancaster do the job and he did it the right way. It hasn’t blown off since. 

One day, the automatic garage door opener stopped working. Investigation revealed that the underground wiring I had installed over thirty years ago had shorted out. Because I had a concrete patio installed right over the in ground conduit, I decided to call an electrical contractor to install a new underground feed. They dug up my yard, burrowed under the sidewalk and put the new wiring into the back of my garage instead of the side where I had originally installed it.

Shortly after that, after it had snowed, my wife came into the house and asked if there should be sparking where the old wiring entered the garage wall. I looked out the window and saw that the siding was melted and had black marks on it. I quickly ran to the basement and shut off the circuit breaker before my garage and two inside vehicles burned up. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was snow piled up against the wall, I probably would have lost the building and my cars.

Seeing as they were a licensed electrical contractor, I never inspected the job they had done. I figured they would do it right and to code.  Wrong! My investigation of this problem revealed the old wiring had never been disconnected and they didn’t install the National Electrical Code required disconnect. So I called them and read them the riot act including quoting the specific code they violated when they wired my garage.

I told them they had two choices. The first one was fixing the problems including replacing the burned and melted siding or I would report them. They were out the next day to repair the wiring.

I needed my gutters cleaned. I called several people that were recommended on Facebook but only one showed up. I would have called them Curley, Larry and Moe but I think Moe was still in prison. They did do what I asked. They cleaned the gutters but left the downspouts as plugged tight as a duck's arse. I didn’t find this out until the next time it rained and they all overflowed. My list is getting longer.

I wanted my exterior doors replaced. They had been here since 1919 and they wouldn’t close in the summer and leaked so bad in the winter that the breeze would blow out a candle. One person showed up, a large company that advertises on the television. They gave me a price but because my doors were oversize doors, they would only install a standard door leaving a 4” gap at the top for me to deal with. I am running out of paper. Finally I found a person to do what I wanted. Replace 2 doors, two storm doors and all for the low, low price of $6000.

I wanted a digital thermostat installed in my master bedroom suite. So again I went to Facebook for suggestions. A man contacted me and we agreed he would come over the next day. When he arrived, he had our new thermostat and his tools in a plastic “Tee shirt” bag.

I left the room and sat in the living room when I heard a zap, saw sparks and all the lights went out in the bedroom. So I got up to see if he was laying on the floor. Four and a half hours later, after several zaps, damns and f bombs and after he reinstalled the old thermostat that was not working now, I told him to go home. He took some of the pieces with him and left a pile of spare parts. My list gets even longer.

It was cold that night and it’s going to be a cold for a few more nights. We still have no heat.