Check with the Better Business Bureau.

It's said that a person who has a positive experience with a product will tell, at most, three people. A person who has a rotten experience will tell at least ten people. Posting on the Internet has probably multiplied that effect many times.

posted 11 months ago

Michael -

In a perfect world, companies would see the value of customer loyalty and therefore make quality customer service a priority. Sometimes, though, the real or perceived value isn't there, or at least isn't part of the equation in how a company chooses to do business. Sometimes, even when a company DOES care about customer loyalty, there are institutional issues that prevent them from delivering effective customer service. Often, it requires more resolve to address such severely dysfunctional systems than can be mustered.

In such instances, it can be a real problem for individual customers because individually, they simply haven't the weight to overcome the massive amount of inertia preventing any sort of positive change. Unfortunately, it sounds like you may be finding yourself in such a position and so have every right to rant at this point. And when customer service fails this badly, it's likely you're not the only one experiencing difficulties with either the product or the service.

As a consumer, it's better to start smaller and escalate your actions according to what sort of responses you're getting or not getting from the company. You've already spoken with customer service and attempted to have a service technician address your issue, all without satisfaction so far. If reaching a manager is challenging, ask for a time to call since they may be in a different time zone. Explain your situation and frustration to see if someone at that level is any more inclined to help out.

If you purchased your appliance from a retailer, it may also be worthwhile to contact that company to see what sort of help they can provide. Carrying defective products from an unresponsive vendor makes them look bad too.

Depending on how completely Thermador has abandoned any notion of customer service or caring about the value of customer loyalty, you may be able to get some satisfaction - or at least some company for your misery - by seeking out others who have experienced similar issues. Customers banding together can sometimes make themselves heard in ways that an individual customer can't.

A quick search of 'Thermador customer service' yields pretty good results straightaway (links below) - you may be able to find even more/better sites or groups if you deepen your search a bit.

The advantage of such third party sites is they aggregate the customer complaints in a public forum that makes it far more noticeable both to the company and to consumers. This raises the stakes and therefore makes it more worthwhile for them to get their act together.

If you decide to post your story to any of these sites, I recommend you don't stop there. Send a copy to the retailer where you purchased your appliance and perhaps even go so far as to suggest they stop carrying such faulty appliances from this manufacturer. Send a copy to your local media, especially if your local newspaper or television station has a reporter specializing in consumer advocacy.

At each of these increasingly escalated steps, announce your intentions to Thermador and copy them on the communications as you actually carry them out. Look for parties who may have an interest in your experience of dealing with their company. If customer service agents and managers/supervisors aren't it, perhaps the director or vice president of that department would be more receptive. If that doesn't work, the person in charge of Sales or the sales manager working with your retailer would surely care. Keep escalating up the chain until you get to the CEO if you need to, though I would not recommend starting with the CEO.

Obviously,.this requires far more effort than you should reasonably be expected to undertake. Your other option is to just walk away - either quietly or loudly, your choice - and let them deal with having lost you as a customer. If you do stay with it, though, you just might get some satisfaction down the road.

Good luck with it!

Kimm

Links:

• http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/thermador.html
• http://www.complaints.com/directory/2005/june/26/19.htm

posted 11 months ago

This is advise to help you in the event that you have utilised all your time, options, energy, money and patience trying to reach out to the company's customer service department including at their top most management levels at the company's head office and you have still not got any satisfactory response / deadline for completion of necessary action / solution : -

1} Seek the help of the company's ombudsman, if there is one, file your complaint/ grievance with him officially.

2} Send them a notice through your lawyer threatening legal action / consumer court case and provide a deadline to them to close your issue/s before you proceed.

3} In the interim, share your experiences with consumer forums / lobbies / activists and write your feedback on consumer review sites like http://www.mouthshut.com/ (or whichever is applicable to you.)

4} If still there is no response / action / solution in sight from the company, then proceed for a consumer court case, sue them for mental torture, harassment, inconvenience, etc. demand compensation over and above the expense claims to cover all your expenses inclusive of court / lawyer charges (all your legal expenses), travel expenses, postage / courier charges, phone calls bills, printing & stationery, paper, medical expenses (if any), expenses arising out of loss of man days and pay for attending court hearings and previous visits to the company's office for following up, not to forget the monetary loss you have incurred for having purchased a defective product and the interest calculated on the number of days you were made to stick with that defective / faulty unit / product because the customer didn't respond, loss incurred if you weren't able to carry out your business functions because you couldn't service your customers due to the faulty product, etc.

The company will rush for an out-of-court settlement, as apart from losing money, they'll be generating lots of negative publicity in the eyes of the public and dissuade potential customers...

But, you must back all the facts with evidence of your follow attempts and the snubs you got from the company in order to receive satisfactory sympathy from the court while disposing off your matter.

Normally, companies get serious about resolution of issues the day they receive a lawyers notice threatening legal action so you might be spared having to even file a case in the appropriate court of law !

Links:

• http://www.mouthshut.com/

posted 11 months ago

Here's another site to check out.

Links:

• http://www.consumerist.com/

posted 11 months ago