Adventures in Customer Service - Longs Peak Landscape

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
My Hot Mom is on the mend. Everyone's relieved about this turn of events (especially her), but the fact of the matter is that she just had back surgery and she's in her seventies. She should no longer be shoveling snow off her drive and walk, and she lives 65 miles from the Big Yellow House. So we're not exactly in a position to help her with this particular chore. At the recommendation of one of her local friends, I contracted Longs Peak Landscape to come out and shovel her drive and walk whenever there was .5 inches of snow on ground. They were going to charge me $40.00 for each instance, and we signed a contract to that effect.

Since signing that contract, there has been two instances of snow where they should have come out and shoveled. In neither case did they do so. The first time, the friend who recommended them called to complain, and they apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. The second time, I sent this e:mail:
I contracted with your company on 1/4/2013 for snow removal at my mother's residence. Since that time, there have been two snow falls that have met the criteria for service as detailed in our agreement, and in NEITHER CASE has your company fulfilled its contractual obligation by performing snow removal. Can you provide some reason for your failure? Or provide any reason whatsoever that I shouldn't terminate your services immediately and enter into a contractual agreement with a competitor?
Their response, provided on February 25 at 9:02 a.m.:
Janiece, All I can do is apologize! I know you are on the schedule and I personally reminded the snow managers of your mothers residence on each occasion to go service her home. I have forwarded your email to the snow managers as a complaint and have asked one of them to contact you regarding this. Again, I am so sorry!
So I waited for a "snow manager" to call me. I waited for them to e:mail me. And the silence rang out like thunder. And it's supposed to snow again this evening. Lovely.

So I sent them the following e:mail:
Since your snow removal supervisor never contacted me I can only assume your company really doesn't have any reason whatsoever why I shouldn't give my business to a competitor and then leave scathing reviews all over the Internet about how unreliable your company is. I can assure you that I'll begin that work with far more urgency than your snow removal crew showed.
And that's what I've spent the evening doing - leaving entirely factual, negative reviews on the Internet about how this entirely unreliable company basically left my mother housebound by failing to meet their contractual obligations. I even joined Angie's List so that I could leave a negative review there, as well.

The thing that's so entirely infuriating about this is that I'm not in a position to close the gap. I'm in Bellevue this week, it's not like I can drive to Longmont and dig her out. And even if I wasn't, driving 65 miles one way on a work day in order to shovel snow is not exactly conducive to my continued employment. This is why I wanted to hire THEM to do this work, because I can't. And they basically just blew me off, blew my Hot Mom off, and left her very gracious and kind neighbors to do the work they were supposed to do.

Do people who fail to perform the work for which they're paid realize how their poor execution affects other people? Do they care? I honestly don't know. But in this case, I'm going to shout that failure from the roof tops.
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Today's positivity: My Hot Mom's neighbors are honestly the kindest, most gracious human beings EVAH. I don't know what we'd do if they weren't there and so utterly, completely helpful.

2 comments:

vince said...

Hurrah for kind, generous neighbors.

I don't understand how businesses that act in that manner, particularly small businesses, stay in business, but obviously some do.

mom in northern said...

Add "kind" and "cheerful" to the remarks about A & P...