I'm done with companies that focus on sales rather than service

seadoug

seadoug

Well-known Member
Location
Texas
Yes, I need to vent. There were two companies I contacted today that frustrated me to no end.

The first was American Home Shield. We've been covered by AHS for almost 20 years. They have raised their annual rate and rate for service calls significantly. The quality of their contractors has also declined over the years. The past couple of times they've come to the house, they haven't been able to fix the issue and I've still paid the AHS service fee. I now have an electrician, a plumbing company, a garage door repair company and an A/C company that I work with directly.

So, today I called to cancel my contract. After holding, I spoke to someone who asked me to provide all my information. After that, I was told I would need to be transferred to another department. That person asked me to verify my information all over again and simply wouldn't take "no" for an answer. When she put me on hold, I told her I had advised them I was canceling and would be contacting my credit card company to decline their charges. She did come back on the line and lowered the contract price TWICE. I once again explained I had my own service companies and after 25 minutes in total my contract was canceled. My blood was boiling after this. I would never use them again simply because of this experience.

The second company I contacted was Pella Windows. They installed all new windows in 2020 and they've been great, but I need a replacement window screen. That's it. You can bet that if I'd called to have an installation done they would have picked up immediately. I contacted them both through their website chat window and via email with the window specifics and never heard back. I've had an issue with one window not going up and when I called for repair I was on terminal hold so I gave up. I had Pella windows installed because my next door neighbor couldn't say enough good things about them. They are overall great windows but there is no service after sale.

I'm just done with companies like this.
 

I feel your pain and frustration, I think we've all experience that aggravation to some degree. I really hate being put on hold for a long time, finally when someone picks up and you give them all your details as requested, they put you through to someone else. Then, that person asks you all the same questions, wanting the same information again, etc. Sometimes you just get suddenly disconnected after all that, and it does make your blood boil.

That's too bad about the windows, they were high quality and perhaps at the time of installation the service was good. But, the company and its service is only as good as the current employees/management, which seem to change year after year. Sigh, not much you can do but what you've already done. Cancel if necessary and hope that all goes smoothly.
 
@SeaBreeze said it better than I could.

T-Mobile was the burr under my saddle, when I fell backward off the step, under the barn overhang, literally crushing my skull open and couldn’t get service. I was in open air, except for the metal roof — the same metal roof that Verizon isn bothered with. T-Mobile had the gall to text me and ask why I left them. Boyyyyyyy did I ever unleash on them, with great pleasure I might add.

FWIW, I have much better results with local Mom n Pop companies in my area, but even those have to be carefully scrutinized and I hope for the best.
 

@seadoug ; You're likely very aware, and wouldn't be surprised, if I say the travel industry that has taken a complete nose dive in Customer Service since Covid descimated that industry in 2020.

Once all the package providers, cruise lines, air lines cut everything they could, customer service was almost non-existent and it hasn't come back much to this day. The people they hired after things got going again don't have the experience they really need. My travel agent is constantly on the spin cycle these days just trying to keep things that used to be easy on the rails now and she's really good. It's not easy out there so be kind to your travel agent if you have one!
 
I usually don't give advice on the internet but I feel your pain so here is my take on your situation.

Home Warranty Plans by American Home Shield®


I believe this is the company you purchased your equipment from and financed your warranty from. If the compaany's employers installed or used subcontractors for installatio you may have to duplicate your efforts.

1.Call, hand write and e-mail the owner, president and customer service and/or complaint dept. Use USPS signed receipts for snail mail. Get names and their corporate positions. Explain to them the promised repairs that you have reported have not been addressed within the agreed time limit.

I'm not aware of civil litigation cases in Texas but I hope this helps

2. TJB

3. File a Complaint | Consumer Complaints | Better Business Bureau

4. Ask a Legal Question Now. Get Answers from lawyers -- ASAP

I hoped this helped.
 
MrPants said:
@seadoug ; You're likely very aware, and wouldn't be surprised, if I say the travel industry that has taken a complete nose dive in Customer Service since Covid descimated that industry in 2020.

Once all the package providers, cruise lines, air lines cut everything they could, customer service was almost non-existent and it hasn't come back much to this day. The people they hired after things got going again don't have the experience they really need. My travel agent is constantly on the spin cycle these days just trying to keep things that used to be easy on the rails now and she's really good. It's not easy out there so be kind to your travel agent if you have one!
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm painfully aware. The cruise industry used Covid to let go most of their most experienced (and highly paid) employees, and even though their business has bounced back the big lines are still beholden to shareholders and have decided they can just maintain the lower standard of customer service to decrease costs. I can't imagine being a travel agent these days and having to deal with the current crop of reservations agents. :(
 
What irks me is when you call for service and the first person gives you all the wrong info and can't help you but,

you hang up and call back and get a different agent and they can take care of you no problem. It's like. WTH is going on with these companies?

Do they think crappy help is acceptable ever since covid?
 
seadoug said:
Yes, I need to vent. There were two companies I contacted today that frustrated me to no end.

The first was American Home Shield. We've been covered by AHS for almost 20 years. They have raised their annual rate and rate for service calls significantly. The quality of their contractors has also declined over the years. The past couple of times they've come to the house, they haven't been able to fix the issue and I've still paid the AHS service fee. I now have an electrician, a plumbing company, a garage door repair company and an A/C company that I work with directly.

So, today I called to cancel my contract. After holding, I spoke to someone who asked me to provide all my information. After that, I was told I would need to be transferred to another department. That person asked me to verify my information all over again and simply wouldn't take "no" for an answer. When she put me on hold, I told her I had advised them I was canceling and would be contacting my credit card company to decline their charges. She did come back on the line and lowered the contract price TWICE. I once again explained I had my own service companies and after 25 minutes in total my contract was canceled. My blood was boiling after this. I would never use them again simply because of this experience.

The second company I contacted was Pella Windows. They installed all new windows in 2020 and they've been great, but I need a replacement window screen. That's it. You can bet that if I'd called to have an installation done they would have picked up immediately. I contacted them both through their website chat window and via email with the window specifics and never heard back. I've had an issue with one window not going up and when I called for repair I was on terminal hold so I gave up. I had Pella windows installed because my next door neighbor couldn't say enough good things about them. They are overall great windows but there is no service after sale.

I'm just done with companies like this.
Click to expand...
I've dealt with similar issues, but different companies and been terribly frustrated too.
I do feel for you @seadoug.
I've even gone into things, dealing with a company where I expected to have to deal with the
greed-driven nonsense and hoops that we're forced to jump through just to terminate a membership
or whatever... and walked away boiling mad.

I do hope that the rest of your day goes better.
 
Paco Dennis said:
This should be the #1 goal for every politician and business person.
Click to expand...

Devil's advocate: Why should every business person care? Support/service is a sinkhole for cash, and you can never achieve 100% satisfaction across the board. The focus is sales and profit - and unless people are willing to pay for support, it's just an inconvenience.

Every politician? Yes. We need to find a way back to the days when politicians realized that they work for ALL voters, and not just the ones that voted for them. This may involve compromise on their ideals for the greater good.
 
Ted01 said:
I've even gone into things, dealing with a company where I expected to have to deal with the
greed-driven nonsense and hoops that we're forced to jump through just to terminate a membership
or whatever... and walked away boiling mad.
Click to expand...

Huh, I read an article about this just this morning. From hidden clauses in agreements nobody reads, to simple things like swapping the placement of the OK and CANCEL buttons in the interface, everything is geared toward preventing you quitting.
 
Just a note about the BBB (Better Business Bureau): If I'm considering doing business wih a company I'm not familiar with, my first step is to look them up on BBB. If I see an A rating, and they're BBB approved, I tend to choose them over other companies. But, half the time, searching the BBB comes back with "not found," even though the company name is familiar to most people, and other information about the company can be found with simple searches.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
Just a note about the BBB (Better Business Bureau): If I'm considering doing business wih a company I'm not familiar with, my first step is to look them up on BBB. If I see an A rating, and they're BBB approved, I tend to choose them over other companies. But, half the time, searching the BBB comes back with "not found," even though the company name is familiar to most people, and other information about the company can be found with simple searches.
Click to expand...
That's because they're not accredited with the BBB.
 
Aunt Bea said:
It is frustrating but it must be a profitable business model. 🤔

I see it in the apartment complex where I live.

All of the money, time, and energy is spent to attract new tenants but very little is spent on routine maintenance and quality of life issues in an effort to retain existing tenants.
Click to expand...
They do the same thing at our hospital. They spend all their time trying to attract patients but don't take care of the facility and get us things we need.
 
I had an issue with AHS also. I let the contract expire and then didn’t renew. I didn’t have them on auto-pay, so when the contract ran out, they kept sending me renewal notices until one day they called me and said they were letting me know that if I would require a service, they would not be able to help me because my contract had expired. I said “Good” and hung up.

I had a leaky pipe in my basement, so I called one if their contractors to come out and fix it. I paid $100 per call. I asked the plumber that while he was there would he please tighten the faucet on my wash tub. It took him all but 2 minutes and said that would be another $100. I thought he was joking, but no, he was serious. After I spoke to AHS they informed me that each item he worked on was a call for service.

I thought “to hell with this,” and decided not to renew.
 
seadoug said:
Yes, I need to vent. There were two companies I contacted today that frustrated me to no end.

The first was American Home Shield. We've been covered by AHS for almost 20 years. They have raised their annual rate and rate for service calls significantly. The quality of their contractors has also declined over the years. The past couple of times they've come to the house, they haven't been able to fix the issue and I've still paid the AHS service fee. I now have an electrician, a plumbing company, a garage door repair company and an A/C company that I work with directly.

So, today I called to cancel my contract. After holding, I spoke to someone who asked me to provide all my information. After that, I was told I would need to be transferred to another department. That person asked me to verify my information all over again and simply wouldn't take "no" for an answer. When she put me on hold, I told her I had advised them I was canceling and would be contacting my credit card company to decline their charges. She did come back on the line and lowered the contract price TWICE. I once again explained I had my own service companies and after 25 minutes in total my contract was canceled. My blood was boiling after this. I would never use them again simply because of this experience.

The second company I contacted was Pella Windows. They installed all new windows in 2020 and they've been great, but I need a replacement window screen. That's it. You can bet that if I'd called to have an installation done they would have picked up immediately. I contacted them both through their website chat window and via email with the window specifics and never heard back. I've had an issue with one window not going up and when I called for repair I was on terminal hold so I gave up. I had Pella windows installed because my next door neighbor couldn't say enough good things about them. They are overall great windows but there is no service after sale.

I'm just done with companies like this.
Click to expand...
Believe me, service levels are no better on our side of the pond and, like you, when I find a good tradesman or woman, their number is kept for future use. What I have found though is that a handwritten letter, with a fountain pen, outlining every point and/or detail, adding a date by which you expect to hear from them and what you will do if they ignore you, works wonders. Enclosed with my letter is a stamped addressed envelope so that they have no excuse not to reply and are fully aware that I will pull the plug on them. It probably gets a response because letter writing, especially hand written letter writing seems to have been forgotten. Try it.
 
I had Progressive Auto Insurance most of this year. I had someone else for a time before that. Looks like all of these companies up your premium every six months, just because they think they can.

Progressive doesn't have an app menu choice to cancel policy. I chatted with their online chat person. They told me they could cancel the policy, but I owed them $80 ... the day before the next months premium bill.

I told them no, Insurance is paid in advance. They told me to call the office and I said no, I would call the state fraud department instead, and closed the chat.

I asked the bank to block all future draws from this vendor. I got an email from Progressive the next morning acknowledging policy cancelation and I owed them $25, so I paid that.

They do some weird billing which is intended to confuse customers.
 
Some chipper salespeople with delightful personalities came to our door in May. They were charming, even our dog liked them. They wanted us to buy a new roof from them and since ours was 20 years old and our insurance premium was going to go up if we didn't buy a new one we agreed.

First there were months of haggling with our insurance company since we had hail damage they were supposed to cover.

Finally we settled on a roofing company that would give us a warranty that would cover the life of the house.

Total cost for a roof on our moderately sized 2000 sq ft house $40,000.

One month ago they put on the new roof. We saw some buckled asphalt tiles in the back. We talked to our pastor who is a retired contractor. He came over and saw buckled tiles all over the roof. He said we should refuse to pay the balance until it's done correctly. (We had already put 12K down.)

Now we're losing sleep over this and the company says we should go ahead and pay the balance and the warranty will fix everything later.

Headaches, nothing but headaches for the last five months and we aren't done yet.

For this entire century, every time we've bought something new it's been worse than the old one.
 
Della said:
Some chipper salespeople with delightful personalities came to our door in May. They were charming, even our dog liked them. They wanted us to buy a new roof from them and since ours was 20 years old and our insurance premium was going to go up if we didn't buy a new one we agreed.

First there were months of haggling with our insurance company since we had hail damage they were supposed to cover.

Finally we settled on a roofing company that would give us a warranty that would cover the life of the house.

Total cost for a roof on our moderately sized 2000 sq ft house $40,000.

One month ago they put on the new roof. We saw some buckled asphalt tiles in the back. We talked to our pastor who is a retired contractor. He came over and saw buckled tiles all over the roof. He said we should refuse to pay the balance until it's done correctly. (We had already put 12K down.)

Now we're losing sleep over this and the company says we should go ahead and pay the balance and the warranty will fix everything later.

Headaches, nothing but headaches for the last five months and we aren't done yet.

For this entire century, every time we've bought something new it's been worse than the old one.
Click to expand...
I rarely see attorrneys, but there are times I do, and this is one of them. There is too much at stake to make even one wrong move. In the meanwhile, document every conversation, oral or written.
 
seadoug said:
Yes, I need to vent. There were two companies I contacted today that frustrated me to no end.

The first was American Home Shield. We've been covered by AHS for almost 20 years. They have raised their annual rate and rate for service calls significantly. The quality of their contractors has also declined over the years. The past couple of times they've come to the house, they haven't been able to fix the issue and I've still paid the AHS service fee. I now have an electrician, a plumbing company, a garage door repair company and an A/C company that I work with directly.

So, today I called to cancel my contract. After holding, I spoke to someone who asked me to provide all my information. After that, I was told I would need to be transferred to another department. That person asked me to verify my information all over again and simply wouldn't take "no" for an answer. When she put me on hold, I told her I had advised them I was canceling and would be contacting my credit card company to decline their charges. She did come back on the line and lowered the contract price TWICE. I once again explained I had my own service companies and after 25 minutes in total my contract was canceled. My blood was boiling after this. I would never use them again simply because of this experience.

The second company I contacted was Pella Windows. They installed all new windows in 2020 and they've been great, but I need a replacement window screen. That's it. You can bet that if I'd called to have an installation done they would have picked up immediately. I contacted them both through their website chat window and via email with the window specifics and never heard back. I've had an issue with one window not going up and when I called for repair I was on terminal hold so I gave up. I had Pella windows installed because my next door neighbor couldn't say enough good things about them. They are overall great windows but there is no service after sale.

I'm just done with companies like this.
Click to expand...
You could have just stop paying them(AHS) and your policy will automatically be canceled. There is no need to waste time.
 
OldOld said:
You could have just stop paying them(AHS) and your policy will automatically be canceled. There is no need to waste time.
Click to expand...
From AI:

"No, you cannot simply stop paying American Home Shield. To cancel your plan, you must contact them directly by phone at
833.706.2865833.706 .2865 and follow the cancellation procedure, which usually involves a representative who may try to retain your business.
You will be responsible for paying for any services already rendered and may face an administrative fee and/or have your refund prorated, depending on how long you've had the plan."

There is a contract with stringent policies and there are legal implications involved with just stopping payment.
 

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