Customer Service? HA!
It’s an upside-down world and no one seems to care about customer satisfaction or service. You absolutely won’t believe this story. It has me questioning my sanity!!
Our Dacor oven went on the fritz last Sunday (July 20). And since we have a home warranty on our appliances, I called the insurance company to report the problem. Of course, no one works there on Sunday, just the voice mail system. I left a message after the prompts assured me I would be contacted first thing Monday during regular business hours. By late Monday afternoon no one had called me back, so I called again and reported my problem.
A repairman named Michael (his company will remain anonymous) called me a short time later and told me the soonest he could come to look at the oven would be on Wednesday. So on Wednesday, he came at the appointed time and proceeded to determine what was wrong with the oven. He found the reset button had been tripped and said the relay board was not working. He then told me that part might take 3 to 4 weeks to get; Dacor, he said, was very bad about making parts available. I said that time frame was totally unacceptable. I told him that I was going to call Dacor to see why it will take that long.
I asked Michael for the part number of the relay board so I could get the necessary information from Dacor on how to get the part faster. He eventually and rather reluctantly, gave me the number. He said he needed to get an authorization for the part from the Home Warranty Company before he ordered it. And I told him I would see if Dacor would rush the part or tell us where it was available in this area.
Well, I spoke to the folks at Dacor, gave them the part number and they told me there are 7 of them sitting on shelves at 2 different appliance parts companies in the Phoenix/Mesa area. I called Michael and he said he already ordered the part from his supplier and cannot stop the order. According to him, it will take 10 days (maybe longer) to get the part because it is a special order. I said stop the order and get the part where they have it in stock. He said he can’t stop the order and has to pay for the part even if it is canceled. Why he didn’t wait to hear from me knowing I was contacting Dacor about that part, I’ll never know.
All I do know is that he made an error in judgment and special-ordered a part that is available in this area. I realize it is no inconvenience for him or Land America. I am the one who has to wait 10 days to 2 weeks for my oven to be fixed. Had Michael gone to a Dacor parts dealer, the oven could have been fixed last week.
The Land America Home Warranty Company is not going to do anything for me—they are standing by their man (even if he did make a foolish mistake). The Home Warranty contract says they “are not responsible for delays due to labor difficulties, weather, delivery problems, availability of parts..” But it adds: “beyond our control.” To my way of thinking, this is clearly within their control since 7 of these relay boards are available in this area. It is the repairman’s error and I am being penalized for it.
Seriously, I do not understand this whole chain of events. Why didn’t Michael call around to see if the part was available locally before he special ordered it? Clearly he was aware he could not return the part. After all, he should know about their policy; he told me he deals with this company for all his parts except when they don’t have them in stock–then he uses another company–the company that stocks Dacor products!
Update:
I decided to get a buy-out on the repair of this appliance. So this is what Land America is willing to do for me:
Land America Home Warranty will give me $185.00 plus the $35.00 service fee. This amount is minus the cost of part Michael ordered, for which he is billing the Home Warranty Company $294.93. The part actually costs $175.08. Not only am I being asked to pay for Michael’s error, but I am also supposed to pay his company’s mark-up $119.85 for that special ordered part. That seems totally wrong. Does any of this make sense???
Clearly, I do not want Michael’s company doing any repairs in my house. He could have had a great client. (We do have a kitchen full of major appliances and the home warranty thing doesn’t last forever.)
Land America has not heard the last from me. They have lost a customer for good and any recommendation I might have made regarding them has turned into a diatribe against their home warranty product. I want to warn everyone how miserable they are to deal with and how badly they treat their customers. This is not customer service but customer abuse. If you are a real estate agent, do not recommend them. If you are buying a house, or selling a house, find another company or put funds in an interest bearing account to cover any necessary unforeseen repairs. And if you are thinking of getting a home warranty policy be aware that they are not really looking out for your best interests–like any insurance company it is in their best interest (i.e. profit margin) not to pay you anything!
The bottom line is this: Land America is difficult to work with, they send 2nd rate companies (not authorized service companies) to fix your stuff, and then they want to make life as difficult for you as possible when things go wrong. I’ll think twice before I ever call Land America again. And I suppose that is exactly what they want–they make it so unpleasant to deal with them, that you’d rather not call them for repairs that are rightly yours to get.
Land America also goes by these names:
RPM Residential Property Management
Buyers Home Warranty Company
Best Home Warranty Company
P.S. I called an authorized Dacor service company today and they are coming to my home tomorrow morning to repair the oven. I actually don’t care what it costs. They are getting the oven fixed in a timely manner with great customer service…and that is priceless. I won’t deal with a company like Land American again–it is not worth the stress and aggravation. But I will be sending a letter to the president of the company.
Update–July 29th: The oven is fixed. I can cook. The excellent service company I called fixed it in less than a half hour. What a total run-around I got from Land America and the repairman they sent. Had I called a reputable (and authorized) repair service initially, I could have had my oven up and running in no time and without the headaches and hassles.
Update–September 16th: I have been waiting for the check on the buy-out from Land America and haven’t heard a thing from them. No check. No communication in spite of the fact that I have made repeated calls and left messages that were never returned. What a horrible company! They take customer service to a new level of incompetence. My next move is to contact the Better Business Bureau.
Content and photos copyright by Janet Towbin, 2008
