Extended service bumps
This is Day Too (long) of the great inconvenient refrigerator test. Our food stayed outside, all night (in a campground cooler) while we realized that warm milk isn’t really that good. And the telephone call at 08h00 did lead me to think that we would soon be back to business as usual.
Nine hours and five minutes later, the weekend began. In between, I had a patient day of waiting for another call, or a door bell chime or anything else related to customer service. You see, the woman (back at the top of the morning) had mentioned that we would hear from someone, today, but that there were issues. Service tech #1 was ill, service tech #2 had personal family matters and service tech #3…
At 17h05, I called the in-WATS number and learned that office hours were over until Monday next. Not to be put off, I tried again. Same answer. Come to think of it, the voice was identical. But, my telephone display showed a different number from earlier on, so I called that and had an odd circular conversation with Amy.
She didn’t find any reference to yesterday, or today. No record of my existence. And she was really surprised that I could have received a phone call from her number, given that she worked for an unnamed call centre (in a nearby nation, by the accent). I explained that when my phone had rung, I’d answered, so my having her number wasn’t that odd. Little matter. After fifteen minutes of her assuring me that she could start another service ticket, but that would require a confirming call from the people I’d spoken with yesterday, and that firm was closed until Monday. Progress, by very tiny increments.
I asked to be “bumped up” to a supervisor. After several iterations of the hold melody, Isaac came on, and I had the chance to identify myself and my problem, again. He did agree that this wasn’t how their system was supposed to function and after some deep thought, he called the local service firm. They remembered my incident. They agreed that this wasn’t an ideal situation, what with rising temperatures for the weekend. The agent, Nicole, promised to do her best to resolve things, maybe tomorrow and we bid each other a fond adieu as they “knocked down” the circuit.
Oddly, the refrigerator is cooler than yesterday. Not cold, but… I’ve put the food back in the box for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll party like it’s 1999 (drink a lot of milk, eat a lot of cheese, make some sandwiches with the cold cuts, swim in yogurt). And I’ll remember that an extended service contract means waiting an extended length of time for service.
