How to Deal with Bad Customer Service

My blogmom, SarahK of Mountaineer Musings, was complaining about her problems with a VAIO laptop computer and trying to get Sony to provide service. I totally commiserate with her frustration and I hope she gets satisfaction soon.

Her experience reminds me of a situation I found myself in at the ripe old age of 14 years old. This was back in the day when computers were only found in very large rooms and were used for punch cards. My story isn’t about computers but it is about dealing with inept customer service. I was in high school and preparing to take the ACT which was a test you could take instead of the SATs. About a week before the exam my electric wheelchair broke down.
There was no way to get it fixed locally because we lived in a little town in southern Louisiana called Morgan City.

But my dad took it to a friend who was an engineer at some electronic factory in town and asked him to look at. He figured out that it was the “brain box” that had malfunctioned. The brain box contained circuit boards that ran the chair. Dad got on the phone to Everest & Jennings in Los Angeles and asked them to send a new brain box. They told him it would take about two weeks to get one to us. Two weeks? Impossible! I was taking my college exam on Saturday and I did not want to have my mother push me into the exam room. No! I needed to have my electric wheelchair working so I could be independent.

Dad wouldn’t take no for an answer. By the time he was through with Everest & Jennings he was on a conference call with five vice presidents of the company and all of them were telling him there was no way they could get us the part any sooner. Dad insisted. He told them that it only took six hours to fly from Los Angeles to New Orleans — so why couldn’t they get the part on the plane and fly it to New Orleans the next day? It just didn’t work that way they said. Then my dad did something that you could never get away with today. Dad told them that he would get on an airplane himself and fly to Los Angeles and break the legs of the company president so he could be in one of his own wheelchairs and then he would know what I was going through. Go Dad!

We had the part the next day and I went to take my ACT in my electric wheelchair without my mother’s help. Dad always said it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease whether it needs it or not. Maybe that’s why I squeak so much? Thanks Dad!

1 Comments:
At July 09, 2005 8:35 AM, Pastor Jack, Sr. said…
Actually I remember it a little differently, however my rememberer is not as competent as it used to be or maybe it has never been all that competent. I think the electronics company I took it to was talking to the repair dept. at E&J trying to fix it and discovered it was in the circuit board (a none repairable piece) and then they were told it would be about 2 weeks to get the part. That is when I called E&J myself. They told me the same thing – it would be about 2 weeks – I argued about that with the order or shipping dept. or whoever it was I was talking to and got nowhere, I think they said there were none available or that they were on back order but don’t really recall. I then ask to speak to someone higher up who could make a decision and they told me the same thing. That is when I ask to speak to the president of the company and got his secretary who said he was out of the office and I ask her to give him a message for me – that perhaps I should come out there and break his legs and put him in one of his own chairs and see how he liked it. Within the hour I had a return call from E&J with several people on a conference call – I think I talked to about 5 altogether and as you mentioned we had the part the next day. I don’t know where they got the part but we had it. Today I would probably go to jail for making such a threat (it was not really a threat but a way of getting attention to the urgency of the need). BTW we certainly could have pushed you in your chair, we did for years, but this was as much, if not more, about self esteem and independence than about mobility. I do appreciate the fact that when they recognized the dilemma we were in they found a way to make it happen. They later sent 3 more of the brain boxes, I kept one (which we later used) and donated the others to MDA in case of a need. Also to their credit, I don’t recall they ever sent a bill – at least not to us. Oh, I forgot to mention that you are the greatest daughter in the world and I was not about to see you disappointed if I could help it!!