“The stove doesn’t work,” said my wife. “Uh-oh” I’m thinking, “kitchen stuff.” This wasn’t starting well and it wasn’t going to end well.
The largest, main burner on our cook-top stopped working. “We’re supposed to host Christmas dinner and I need all my burners,” exclaimed my wife. She called the warranty company – because the repair man told us to always buy an extended warranty on today’s electronically sensitive appliances – and this commenced a lengthy exchange. She provided the serial number and the warranty company needed to send out the local service representative to take a look. Two weeks later, the service rep showed up, made a diagnosis, and left. Then, nothing.
My wife called the warranty company back. They never received any information from the service rep. My wife called the service rep. He said that he faxed the information and will resend it. We waited, and waited. My wife called the warranty people, to whom she wished a “Merry Christmas” because the season was upon us and we, well, my wife, weren’t cooking anything on the main burner. The warranty company still hadn’t received any information.
We called the service company, again. Eventually, my wife helped everyone figure out that the service company had the wrong fax number and sent our information to fax purgatory. Finally, my wife connected the service company’s information with the warranty company.
This is why consulting is so easy, sometimes. Large companies lack management skills and processes and don’t test their own products and services. Small and medium business managers can run circles around any big company manager who has a single department specialty and is busy protecting his turf, but I digress.
Our local company sent the information for the third time. We appreciated their persistence. My wife was now on a first name basis with the warranty people and had elevated her concern to the supervisor. The repair was finally authorized, then scheduled and, finally, performed.
Total time: November 24 to January 17. Only 54 days to fix a burner.
Tags: business owner, business owners, Business Success For Life, Customer Service, DUDS, entrepreneurs, Phil Symchych, profit, profitable growth, small business, small business consulting, SME, Symchych, Symco, Symco & Co., why are big companies so slow
