James Lileks had to do the leg work himself to track down a part to fix his stove. After finally getting it, he wanted to express his frustration to the company that sold the stove (but didn’t carry the replacement part he needed):
So. I called Centerpoint, asked to speak to a manager, and had a nice friendly conversation about the fact that I found the part with elementary googling, and I had to pay for it and wait to be reimbursed.
Manager: we have supply channels and have to set up payment contracts and we can’t find anything, and what’s more blah, blah, blah.
To which I said I understood, but the fact of that matter was: I found the part in seconds, which means someone entered the part number into your system, it came up null, and that was it. They’d done their job. They’d checked the box. Move on to the next. So what I get as a customer of your service is that you don’t really look for the part. You search one closet and call it quits. Apparently there’s no leeway for your people to look elsewhere.
She understood my dissatisfaction, of course, but
AAHOOHGA
NEVER “BUT” YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF MY DISSATISFACTION.
Lie to me. Lie to me over and over: I understand your dissatisfaction AND I will be adding this company to our database. I understand your dissatisfaction AND I will be sending my boss a letter about expanding our searches and allowing for more individual initiative on the part of the part-procuring people. I understand your dissatisfaction AND apologize you’ll have to carry a $476 charge on your card while we process your request. I don’t care if none of that’s true. Just say it.
I still think they’re going to try to wiggle out of this somehow. I think my wife was right: they don’t want to fix it. They don’t want to pay for it.
All it took for me to be that cynical was a manager invested too deeply in company policy. I would have trusted them more if they’d lied.
