Dear Customer Service,

Dear Customer Service,

First let me tell you that I have worked in your field for 13 years so I know how tiring and aggravating it can be to follow the 1st law of good customer service; "The Customer Is Always Right." Yes, we grumble to ourselves that the customer is technically not always right, but when it comes to customer service you should do everything that you can to let the customer know they are important.

For 2 months I have spent time battling 3 of your Customer Service "warriors" and let me tell ya. FAIL!

True Story #1 - Breaker dies. We purchase a new breaker and after looking at some jacked up wiring, husband decides to just call the home warranty people instead of possibly performing a Frankenstein experiment on himself. Home Warranty people send out a contractor (name withheld because if he has a strange accident I don't want it blamed on me as a suspect because I obviously have motive) Contractor is responsible for parts and labor. He comes to the location after a detailed description of what the problem is and doesn't have the part needed. This guy was either not a Boy Scout or thought we were fools who didn't know a dead breaker from a crow in the yard to show up without the part. He begins to rummage through bags on the counter and finds the Holy Grail that he seeks along with its bag and receipt where we were going to return it rather than use it as a $42 paperweight. He merrily does his repairs and rides into the sunset. I find out and call the office for a reimbursement on the part because its their responsibility to supply the part. Rather than say "my bad" (because it was) I was told that I shouldn't have left it lying there where it could be used accidentally. Um...used accidentally? *I* shouldn't have left it lying there? So if I had left $42 in cold hard cash on the counter, your service man lacks the integrity to NOT pick it up and use it because he needed it? *crickets chirp on other end of line* For almost 2 months I battle back and forth with the Home Warranty company (who did say I was right but lacked the backbone to scare the contractor enough to do the right thing) and with the actual company who has caller ID and would refuse to pick up the phone unless I called from the pizza place down the street. I finally got my check but not after I decided to call every other company this works with and tell them what they had done. After a snotty "I-wish-you-hadn't-involved-X-Y-Z companies and my mother" phone call, I got my check.

True Story #2 - My heat was working but not efficiently. I call the company to come make the tweaks needed so that I don't receive another "poop my pants" $500 electric bill. Your jackwagon employee that shows up is not capable of making a repair and talk on the cell phone at the same time. He wounds another area of the heater and now must order a part. Heat is still limping and 1.5 month later we receive word that the all important part has arrived. I called over and over and finally came to conclusion that some swell guy over in China sweated his life away making my part by chopsticks and rowed the stupid thing over himself by boat. Employee comes over like my savior in a gleaming white truck (insert trumpet sounds) and promptly cracks the board. This board is what makes the whole thing work. Now I have NO heat. I call the next day after discovering this myself because he didn't think it necessary to tell me before he left that I had no heat and I was told that I was the top priority. 6 hours later I call back and they can't ask him about an ETA because he is at lunch and has been swamped. HURMPH...I thought I was first priority, not your greasy cow sandwich. Next day I call again, they are waiting for the store they use to get the part in and that could be another 24-48 hours. REALLY? Is this the only store in our area that sells this part? REALLY?!?! Could you at least call our buddy in China with his chopsticks? We now have electric and kerosene heaters positioned around the house (lots of fun when you have a nosy must touch everything baby who has probably burned off all of her fingerprints by now) and my savior is surely sitting in his toasty house in a Hawiian shirt having another greasy cow sandwich. Until then...at least I know I am first priority.

True Story #3 - Get a wonderful note from our health insurance company saying that all the medical bills from the past year for my 1 year old have been denied because she doesn't exist in their system. (Throw up and faint in floor) I'm not going to even detail the conversations that were done concerning that one because my mother reads here and she wouldn't be proud of me. What had happened was Bitsy was born under coverage of husband's employer with company A. 1 week after birth, employer switches to company B. We were told that although switching companies, we would never notice a shift other than new shiny cards. Apparently company A did not give company B any documentation about our 3rd daughter so all the fun visits and vaccinations with a baby were not covered. I was then told that if I faxed in the birth certificate that it would be corrected. Done.....THEY LIED. I then receive a letter that says they deny her completely because they never received a fax. (throw up and faint again) I battle back and forth with some guy from India and after a month get no where. I call HR for my husband's company. Crying, swearing and pleading I tell them about what has happened. She checks the system. Bitsy is in there, she always has been. Disregard all notices. WHA....I'm supposed to feel better but I'm mad. I've stressed like no other time (well there was that one time that the high school baseball star asked me to dance and I had major body odor and I just knew he could smell it thus ruining my cool points in high school) for over a month, tried to learn India-English jabber and this was a clerical error?

So, customer service...I'm not happy with what you have evolved into. Your motto now is that the customer is an idiot, if something goes wrong it's the customer's fault, a sandwich is a higher priority than a customer and the flippant excuses when you are wrong are very old.

Signed,
Still freezing in my house while I am first priority.