Crappy Customer Service

I’ve posted here before about customer service, both good and bad.

Here’s an example of really bad.

On January 8, we purchased a new refrigerator at Best Buy.  It’s a high-end Kitchen Aid model that my wife and daughter had found and really wanted.  It was not the cheapest purchase out there, but had some nice features they wanted.  The unit has 2 doors above, and a freezer drawer below.

The refrigerator was delivered and installed on February 5.  We noticed over the weekend that the light switch on one side was not working correctly — the door would be opened and the light would not come on.  It was almost certainly not working from the moment it was delivered and plugged in, but we didn’t notice right away because of the way we put things in: we didn’t open that side much.  Even so, we opened that door no more than 1o times before we noticed the problem.

Because of travel and other appointments, Kathy was only able to call Best Buy today.  They referred her to Kitchen Aid’s service hotline and said it was Kitchen Aid’s problem.  So Kathy called them to arrange to have someone fix this.

Here’s the rotten punchline — the refrigerator we paid a premium for, that we have had for less than a week — is out of warranty!  They have a 30 day warranty against defects, but they claim it starts from the date of purchase!  Thus, we are going to be charged to fix a problem that was present in the refrigerator when it was delivered.

Needless to say, this is the last appliance we buy from either Best Buy or Kitchen Aid.   I recommend you seriously consider avoiding both for any of your purchases, too.  It is clear they only care about the sale and nothing at all about customer satisfaction.

 

Update 2/12

The service guy came out today and found a faulty circuit board.  He admitted it was faulty and told us that whoever we talked to on the phone from Kitchen Aid was wrong.  He replaced the board, reset the controller, and there was no charge.

I am a bit less upset now with Kitchen Aid, although their phone service center people need some training.  The Best Buy 30 day warranty, however, is still a pile.