Is it just me? I am constantly amazed at how crappy customer service is, in general! My husband and I have said for years that if we treated our customers the way many, many companies do, we would not be in business. Recently, I have been even more disgusted at the lack of service, and just feel the need to share! I'm going to start with the worst one, so I can end on a more positive note!
If you read my blog regularly, you probably know that I have had many problems in the last few weeks with my e-mail. WEEKS! Almost a month without a solution that I would call satisfactory! And we PAY for this service! Well, we used to...my husband cancelled the Tech Help part of our "service" and swears that they will never, ever be allowed to log into my computer again! They (our provider - I am not ready to publicly out them, as I feel they could make my life worse if they wanted to!) screwed up my brand new computer so bad in February that we had to pay Microsoft $100 to fix it! Now, they say that they are not equipped to handle the number of recipients that I send to for my newsletters. This all started when I sent out my last newsletter about signing up for
our new program called "Surprise" (I haven't been able to follow up with my customers on that - so go sign up, if you haven't already - lol!). They say that there were too many recipients, and the server marked it as spam and jammed up our server somehow so that we couldn't send at all. Bad thing is, we didn't realize it for who knows how long. The e-mails appeared to be sent. I won't go in to all of the details, but Tech Help could not figure it out and then lost all of my contacts - which means all of my customer contact information was GONE. Fortunately they were finally able to retrieve a partial list, but I have spent hours upon hours trying to recreate the list. In the meantime, we still could not send e-mails. My husband was on the phone with them one night until 1:00 am and back on again at 6:00 am. Hours and hours and hours of wasted time. All for a service that we pay good money for. Infuriating! All they want to do is blame someone else. Fortunately my husband knows a lot about all of this, and he knew they were full of it! Some of them talked down to him on the phone, treated him like crap, and did not fix the problem. He finally contacted a VP of the company, who thankfully responded right away and got us to a level 2 rep who actually resides in the U.S. and really knows his stuff. This was after TWO WEEKS of fighting!!! It took this guy all of 15 minutes to discover what the problem was, and he diligently worked on it until it was fixed. There are still some issues that Level 1 Tech Help caused that we are trying to work through. The good guy (haha) is calling again on Saturday morning to see how things are going and if there are any more issues. It's just unbelievable to me that you have to go through all of this to get to someone who knows something. I think the Tech Help people that you can reach simply follow a list, run scans, and blame someone else. I honestly don't think they know much more about computers than I do (which is very scary!). So...Tech Help Customer Service = Non Existent!!
Next up...I have seen many rants online about Rowenta irons - people being disgusted with them spitting and leaking. I have had 2 Rowentas in my quilting life and both of them have ended up leaking and spitting. They still work fine as a dry iron, but not for steam. So, yes...that stinks, but realistically, we are talking about almost 20 years. Honestly...I don't think that's too bad. So when I have seen rants about Rowenta irons and people want opinions or suggestions, I have always defended Rowenta, after all...nothing is going to last forever, especially when water is involved. Some time ago, my 2nd Rowenta started spitting, and I knew that at some point the steam would completely give out, so when I received a catalog from Nancy's Notions in the mail, I checked out the irons and found one that did NOT have auto-shut off - as that's important to me for what I use my iron for. I ordered it, and put it in my closet to have on hand when mine kicked the bucket. Well, you know how time flies, right? A few weeks ago, my iron really was spitting and spewing out some brown stuff (you are welcome for that description) while I was getting ready to steam down all of the wool onto the border of my Sunflower Gatherings quilt.
I happen to love this quilt, and it was a TON of work, so the last thing I wanted to do was ruin it. Yep...broke out the new iron. Guess what? Upon the very first use, it was spitting water!!! And it also left a white residue on my fabric, even after I cleaned the face plate. I couldn't remember when I got the iron, but have since learned it was 3 years ago. Yikes! So, I called Rowenta and explained the situation (still not knowing at that time how long it had been sitting in the closet) that I had had it for over a year but had never used it, blah, blah. You know that they said? Too bad, so sad!! Ok, well they didn't say that, but they wouldn't do anything about it. I was really ticked. I mean, I know that I've had it for awhile, but it is a brand new iron! She tried to tell me that I was using the wrong water (I used tap water, which is what they recommend), but regardless...this is the very FIRST USE! Ugh...super frustrated and definitely lesson learned - always try it before you fling it in the closet for later use! I pretty much chalked it up to a lesson learned, but vowed to never support Rowenta again. Rowenta Customer Service = Bad.
I continued to use the new iron, but was just mad every time! So one day I decided to call Nancy's Notions and explain the situation to them. This is when I learned that I purchased it 3 years ago. I told them that I realize I should have tried it, yada yada. Guess what? THEY REPLACED IT FOR FREE! That's right...FOR FREE! I had to pay shipping to send it back to them, which is fine by me. I received my new iron just a few short days later. It doesn't spit, and there is no white residue! To everyone who is still reading this boring post, take this into consideration and
support Nancy's Notions! I repeatedly told the lady how much I appreciated this, and her reply was...we have great customer service; tell your friends! I'm not sure if I will ever buy a Rowenta again because of the lack of care from them, but I will definitely order from Nancy's. Nancy's Notions customer service = Awesome!
I can think of several more companies that I could rant about the lack of customer service, but you probably have read enough. So tell me, how do you feel about customer service, as a whole, in today's world?
And to leave you with something soft and furry...
Ozzie better not complain about the service he receives. He meows and I jump!
