March 15, 2007

Quick Note To Randazzo Heating & Cooling

Tuesday, 19 Priming 2007

It is usually not a good business practice to have a service technician sell a maintenance plan for two service calls in the future to a customer, and then have the head office contact the person you sold it to and inform them that they have already had one of the service calls performed. Customer service representatives misrepresenting the services that they are supplying is not, IMHO, good business practice. Having the statements that the on-site customer service reps make to the customer in their home declared to be null and void after the customer has purchased services based on those statements does not endear you to those affected by such statements, either.

It is also generally not good business practice to ask the customer to get home early (and take time out of their work day) in order to be there when the service technician shows up, and then arrive considerably after that time. It causes the customer to wonder why they did business with an organization like Randazzo Heating & Cooling in the first place.

If there is only one other potential customer of Randazzo Heating & Cooling that reads this and decides not to deal with an unethical business that lies to their customers, then my work here is done. Have a nice day!

Update March 2008: I have been contacted by a customer rep from Randazzo who is trying to make up for the shoddy treatment I received earlier. I have had somebody listen and try to understand my hazy recollections of what went on, and then try and find a way to make up for what they did back then. Mike Randazzo has discussed the situation with me, and, although it's been quite a while and there's nothing that the company can really do for me now anyways (I will be able to get my maintenance done by a third party from now on), he is going to be sending me some replacement filters for the humidifier. And - here's the main thing - he said his company was sorry. He listened to what I had to say - even though I probably wasn't too good or clear in what I was saying. That's really all it takes.

So, Mike - to sum things up: I originally got charged for the humidifier (approx $400) and two service calls (the service plan I was paying for to get a discount on the humidifier install) - which I thought were in the future, and which, by paying for, I thought got me the service the company did that day (five minute furnace maintenance and under half an hour humidifier install) for free, plus two future service calls (presumably a couple more five minute checkups) - for approx $535. When I got the bill, called back to confirm the details of our agreement, and found out that, according to your customer service representative, all I did was pay in advance for one (slightly discounted) service call in the future, along with full price for the service I got and the humidifier. At that point, I canceled the future service, and your company issued the $50+ credit to my credit card that showed up in your records along with the original charges from your company.

It wasn't the service rep (who did the work) who was at fault here, either - he was overbooked (as somehow most service reps, whose staff has been 'right-sized' and as a result have to do the service calls for 1.5+ reps every day, seem to be these days. Funny how that doesn't seem to register with the executroids so much when they winnow the employee pool), quite professional while dealing with someone who almost certainly was frustrated with Randazzo by that time, and did a good job. I'm sure I tried to let him know that he should let your management know, on my behalf, that I was upset that you were riding the people who make money for you a bit too much.

I also explained that I did have the option of getting the work done by one of the many inspired amateurs who have extensive experience, know how to do this sort of thing, and would not have charged me nearly as much (if anything) to fix my furnace. And I could have bought the humidifier myself, and gotten one of them to install that, too. That knowledge did not help the situation. Especially through the prism of twenty-twenty hindsight.

Hopefully this explanation will help you to understand why and what I was having problems with regarding my interactions with your organization. Thanks for taking the time to follow up on things (from a long long time ago, business-wise) and work with me towards understanding what happened.

Posted by (: Tom :) at March 15, 2007 04:31 PM