I wrote earlier today about a positive customer service experience with HP. I contrast that with a series of missteps that characterize my interactions with Direct Energy.
For more than 3 weeks, one of our major appliances has been out of service. The first delay in repairs was because the technician’s truck wouldn’t start one morning. Then the part had to be ordered and apparently, their supply depot needed to hand craft the part from blocks of plastic that had not been harvested from the rain forests or where ever. The part was delivered to the technician which took another week – it isn’t clear to me what took a week, unless it got returned by the post office for insufficient postage. Then, the technician who was supposed to finally show up today called in sick.
The caller from Direct Energy said that they can’t send a different technician – the sick guy has the part. Will he show up for work tomorrow? Will the part fix? Will I renew the service contract?
I’m gonna call my dentist to get my fillings replaced – it will be much more pleasant than dealing with the Direct Energy call centre.
Update [January 26, 12:15 pm]
The Direct Energy technician returned today and successfully repaired the machine, including some heroics on sealing another source of a leak that had not been detected on the first service call. We’re back in service. Special thanks to JT at headquarters for letting me know there is follow-up to look at the process breakdowns on this file.