This is a (long) story of not being respectful of the customer. Feel free to skip to the bottom for the summary.
Monday:
My CO alarm goes off during dinner, fire department visits and determines that it's the boiler. They don't shut off the gas, but I can't turn my boiler back on until it's looked at.
Tuesday:
I call Atlas because I've used them before. They are expensive, but I don't want to cut corners on CO issues. I explain the situation.
Al arrives between 11 and 1 as promised. I mention the Fire Department and he says he needs to contact the TSSA to see if an investigation was opened. I'm pretty sure it hasn't because the fire department would have told me. They gave me a summary form, but Al doesn't recognize it and wants to be sure.
The TSSA can't say for sure so Al leaves a voice message for someone to call him. He says he can't do anything until the TSSA contacts him.
I find this frustrating. If the TSSA needed contacting, why didn't they say so when I called and get the process started 5 hours earlier? Al doesn't have an answer to this question.
Al is frustrated too. I can tell, because he's not communicating well with me. He's terse and not explaining things. I spend a bunch of time standing around wondering if I'm needed or whether I can go do something else.
He says the TSSA should call soon and he'll update me in a few hours. My boiler needs cleaning and it will take around 2 hours to do. It's only 1:30pm so I'm optimistically hoping someone will come back later that afternoon and finish the fix.
I wait around until 4:45 and call Atlas, asking what the heck is going on. When can I get heat back? What is the plan? Most importantly, do I need to take a 2nd day off of work?
The agent, Tasha (I think), is friendly, but doesn't seem to understand my concerns.
What I want is a plan. For example, if the TSSA doesn't call Al back by 4:30, then Al/Atlas will call me and give me an update. Heck, maybe Al/Atlas should call the TSSA again just to make sure we didn't get missed. Tasha suggests that I can call the TSSA if I want, but that doesn't seem helpful (the next day when I got really frustrated, I tried calling the TSSA, and it wasn't helpful).
Since Atlas doesn't do house calls after 4pm, I would have liked to have known earlier that no one was coming back to my house that day - I could have done something else for the afternoon.
Assuming there are no TSSA issues, I'd like a timeline for when my boiler will be fixed (if possible) - I assumed it would be the next day but as I discovered, it would be much longer.
All she can tell me, and this takes a lot of time to figure out, is that no one is coming back to my house that day.
Wednesday:
I call them early in the morning. They answer, transfer me, and hang up on me (by accident I'm pretty sure). I call back...and have to wait on hold for 8+ minutes. Ugh.
They need to get more info so they'll call me back.
45 minutes later, Steve calls and says that there is no TSSA investigation and they can fix my boiler on Friday. I would be four nights without heat. I'm shocked and surprised. They suggest (in a friendly way) that I could call a different repair shop. Okay, I'll try that.
An hour later, I discover that no one else can do it any faster so I call Atlas back. They're holding a meeting, someone will call me. An hour later, I call them again, desperate for any information. The simultaneously call my cell and finally Friday is reserved between 9 and 11, and it will take 3 hours to do (not the 2 that Al suggested).
It's nearly noon and I've missed another bunch of work. And I'm going to miss at least a half a day on Friday as well. Three days of work missed. I'm not happy.
What I desperately needed to know, preferably on Tuesday, was that no one was going to show up at my house on Wednesday, even if the TSSA called back. Then I could have gone to work. Instead, I'm stuck at home in hopes that someone will return like Al had said the day before.
Friday:
Steve (a different one) shows up early and he's great. He's what I was expecting from the start - very friendly, happy to explain things. He took a few minutes over two hours to do the work and I was nervous that he would attempt to charge me for 3 because there had been specific mention of it earlier, but I was relieved to only be charged for two hours. The boiler has been working just fine since then.
In Summary:
The work was solid. It's pricey, but I appreciate that no attempt was made to overcharge me in any way.
Communication was awful. I felt like the value of my time was meaningless. It would help a lot if they communicated better when things go wrong. Train support staff to identify when the TSSA needs to be contacted before work can be done. Have a process for following up with customers when a return visit is required. Let customers know that they can go to work because there's no chance of a visit the next day (or that day).
In short, don't assume that customers have nothing better to do but wait at home, just in case you arrive.
Steve, who did the actual cleaning, was really great.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $500.00