Customer Service is a Choice

Yes, I'm one of those guys. I send letters to companies who don't provide good service. It's a choice to provide good customer service...and when a company doesn't, they need to understand that I will not pay for their services. Simple as that. Would you pay for poor service? If you say yes, you are beyond me.

That said, I've had 2 companies in particular get under my skin recently. TruGreen and American Home Shield. These two companies are massive...hundreds of thousands of customers with full service offerings and decent reputations. However, I have some bad feedback for them that I'd like to pass on to you so you make the right decisions when looking at these types of services.

American Home Shield:

It was an early morning in July of 2017 when I awoke in a sweat. I went and checked the thermostat, and noticed it say 78 degrees, but was set to 70. While my A/C unit was 25+ years old (inherited with the house when purchased 2 years prior), it was running in good order and had been serviced. I went out to check the unit and it wasn't running...but the fan was on the indoor unit. So, I submitted a claim to AHS. Now, this was a Saturday...so I didn't hear back from them until Monday morning. At this point, my fiancee and I moved in to my sister's basement with our 3 dogs, as the heat was in excess of 90 degrees...this was July, mind you. Not a great situation.

AHS finally responded to my request and sent out Best Way Mechanical, one of their top providers in the area. When I looked them up, my right eyebrow raised when I noticed they had a D- score on the BBB. Not a good start. Anyways, they came out 2 days later (on day 5) and noticed I had a unit that was designed for energy efficiency, installed in 1989, that was working properly. This unit was designed to turn off the unit for 15 minutes an hour, every hour, during peak power usage times to save on energy. What he said was this can cause the compressor motor (the part that failed) to wear out over time. 29 years...I think it all worked just fine, and we were talking about pure wear and tear.

AHS decided, due to this, that they would deny my claim to fix the $325 part due to the fact a 3rd party unit cause the failure. Not true...a stock, factory provided unit that worked flawlessly didn't cause the problem...29 years of use in the state of Georgia cause the fault. Simple as that. Well, they tried to use that provision so they could continue pocketing my $60 per month and not pay to replace a $325 part.

After being on hold for, no joke, an hour and 45 minutes, I was able to get a 5 minute conversation in to get a second opinion. I was told that due to the problem being an outside unit issue that I didn't need to be home. So, I went to work...big mistake.

The next company, 10 days later, came out to help...we are now on day 16-17 at this point. They said the problem was the compressor motor, maybe, but needed to check the thermostat to verify. Because they couldn't, they are denying my claim.

I called them back repeatedly and waiting a combined 3 hours of my time for them to answer with no luck. I chatted with them online and got no resolution. So, I cancelled it.

After doing the math, my A/C unit cost $7000 to be replaced by Casteel (talk about amazing service). I spent $60 per month for the past 2 years, totaling $1440. If I would have taken that money and just saved it, I could have hired a company to fix the $325 part and had my A/C back up and running with money left over. Or, I could have used that $1440 and put it towards a new unit. Either way, I threw away that $1440 and added a ton of stress in the meantime. IT ISN'T WORTH IT.

My advice to AHS? Hire more customer service reps who are trained on systems they support while also focusing on the customer...a happy customer means a paying customer. An unhappy customer means a future non-customer. Again, it's a choice to provide good customer service. Follow through on your claims rather than making the process so slow that your customers just give up. Stop finding loop-holes to screw your customer so you can provide a "Gotcha" and just keep the cash rather than actually being a valued vendor. Work with quality technicians (and yes, I'd pay more for a quality technician over one with a D- BBB rating), as they are the face to your customers...they are representing your company, and if you feel a D- minus rating is good enough, then your priorities are way out of wack. It makes me feel AHS could care less about their customers and only the profit and how to maximize it. Sounds like an insurance company...weird.

TruGreen Lawn Care:

This one is a doosey. I spoke with a really nice and thorough sales guy 2 years ago, who sold me a plan for $68 per month for my front and side yards, including aeration as it hadn't been done in years. The yard I inherited was in terrible shape, but was about 75% grass at the time. So, I wanted to get rid of the weeds and promote the Bermuda grass to grow throughout, overtaking the Fescue that doesn't grow well in direct sunlight (thank you previous owner!). 12 treatments a year, aeration once a year, and I can call them to come back out if it isn't working any time. Great.

After the first couple of treatments, the dandelions were gone, and the grass was coming in good. Then, my yard started to dry out, even though I was watering and we had some decent rain. I needed the aeration badly, as it hadn't been done in over a decade from what I could tell and my yard was hard-packed. So I called them to get out there in the fall and take care of it. No one answered at the local branch office...3 phone calls, no answer or call backs from messages left. I then called corporate and told them I will not pay my bills unless they provide the service.

I was called by customer service to collect on my bill once my pre-paid plan was over and I was now on month-to-month...not called to discuss my complaints. I told them I will not pay until the local office calls me back and schedules my paid-for-in-advance aeration. Never...got...the...call. So, I sent a letter to corporate. The entire C-level, VP-level, and Director-level. I cashed in every point I had accumulated on data.com over my career of being a recruiter to get their direct email addresses, and I sent them a 5 page letter explaining their utter lack of care for their individual customers and that I was not being provided the service I'd already paid for.

I immediately received a call from one of their Directors of Customer Care, who addressed my problems directly and said he would do everything in his power, free of charge, to get my lawn back in shape. At this point, about 50% of the grass that was left was now dead due to poor treatment and lack of aeration (every time they did come out, I was noticing more and more grass dying...). They promised to kill the weeds and rebuild my lawn with new sod free of charge. Well, 12,000 sqft of grass is a lot of pallets of sod. I only received 1 pallet of sod and some guy with a can of Round-up.

So, I reached out, again, and asked for my aeration. Never received a call back or follow up from either the Director or the GM of the local facility. They thought it was over, I guess. I then stopped paying my bills...guess what? I got a call back! From a Collection company!! Yay!!

Given my yard was a standing bill-board to how terrible TruGreen was, I was thinking about erecting a sign on it saying "TruGreen Did This" so my neighbors would cancel their service if they had it.

If you spend more time sending customers to collections rather than addressing their concerns, as an organization you are focused on the wrong things. It's shameful to disrespect your customers, especially when you destroy their lawn. My advice? Go with a local company...truly local. One that actually cares about the community they are in and has to earn your respect as a customer through good practice and follow through on service. I got a call this morning from Grass Root, a local company who is almost half the overall price of TruGreen and has already provided better customer service than I ever received from "the experts".

Customer Service is a Choice, not a Requirement, it seems. With a name like TruGreen, the lawn care provider for NASCAR and other large organizations with, I guess, grass, they assume their name is how they get their customers, which is true in a sense. But retaining customers is about constantly earning their business, never taking them for granted. Just because you have a big name doesn't mean you are the only provider out there...you're not. You have to always be earning your customer's business, constantly striving for perfection and staying close to them...building a relationship, not just a transaction. AHS is just as guilty...they are the largest provider of home warranties in the country, yet have the worst reputation (check out their Facebook page when you get a chance, truly hilarious the amount of people who echo my remarks above). Why do they have a bad reputation? Their utter lack of customer service...it's the voice to all their customers...the only people they interact with. I'll never meet a VP there...ever. It's the customer service reps I speak with. If they are incompetent, naive to the domain they support, or are terse and condescending to their customers (especially after a 1:45 hold time) they how do they ever expect to retain them?

I will make an effort to focus on all of my customers due to these experiences. It's helped me take a serious look at how I treat people I interact with every day. The candidates I work with...I'm the first voice they ever hear from my company. If my service suffers, the perception of the company is at risk. If I don't work effectively with my hiring managers and communicate appropriately and promptly, then my entire department looks bad.

Take a look at how you treat your customers and ask yourself...do you try to earn their business with every conversation? Have you chosen to give good customer service?