You Just Never Know…

…who’s reading your blog.

Some of you may have read THIS POST from a few days ago.  Just a few minutes ago I received this comment on that post:

“Kathy, this is Vikki with GE. I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for what you've been through with your GE refrigerator. Please email the details to us at eResponse@ge.com and let us see how we can assist you.”

I have responded to Vikki as follows:

“Vikki,

“Thanks for posting a comment on my blog.  Here's the sequence of events:

“1.  My refrigerator quit cooling properly and quit making ice in mid-August.  I called GE repair service and made an appoint with a service technician for the following day.

“2.  He diagnosed the problem as a bad evaporator fan motor.  However, he didn't have the part on his truck, so he ordered it and said that GE would schedule another appointment as soon as he received the part (he made arrangements for the part to be shipped to him).

“3.  A week later I got a call from GE saying that the part was on backorder until mid-September and they would schedule another appointment once the part arrived.

“4.  On September 14 I called GE to inquire about the status of my part and was told that it was now on backorder until October 7.  The person I spoke with suggested that I call GE Consumer Relations.

“5.  I spoke to Jenine in Consumer Relations who told me that the part was actually on backorder until October 1 but that she would contact a parts specialist to see if one could be located.  The following day, I received this email from her:

“Hi Kathy,

“The part that you need is on back order until October 1.  Give it about a week to be in the warehouse once there they will ship it out next day.  Thank you for your patience in this matter and if there is anything else I can do for you don't hesitate to e-mail me and I will get back to you as soon as possible.  Thank you for continuing to be a Loyal GE Customer.

“Sincerely,

“Jenine

“Consumer Advocate

“6.  On October 4, I contacted GE again to inquire about the status of my part.  They informed me that the part was now on backorder until December 22.  Do you suppose they were just going to leave me hanging and never tell me that the backorder date had been extended?  Again, they suggested that I contact consumer relations.

“7.  I spoke to Shiloe in GE consumer relations.  She told me about another customer who had been waiting for a while for a part that was backordered and that this customer did an online search and found the part herself.  She thought I might want to do the same thing.

“8.  It took me about 5 minutes to locate a parts warehouse that showed the part in stock.  Just to make sure, I called the warehouse to verify that they did indeed have the part.  They did.  I ordered it, and paid extra for 2^nd day air shipping.  It was important to me to get my refrigerator repaired before the end of the week, since I am leaving the country on Monday for two weeks.  This was last Monday.  They said the part would be shipped the following day and would arrive on Thursday.

“9.  I called GE consumer relations again and attempted to reach Shiloe (she had given me her extension number).  However, her line was busy, so I opted to speak to another person.  He cancelled the order for my part and scheduled my repair for Friday between 8 and 12. 

“10.  The part that I ordered actually arrived a day early on Wednesday.  The curious thing is that a duplicate part also arrived that same day from a supply house in Tuscaloosa.  When I called that supply house to find out why they had shipped the fan motor to me, they said it was requested by GE consumer relations.  I'm curious as to why GE could not have obtained my part in this manner when they first determined that my part was on backorder.  I suspect that nobody even tried.

“11.  The serviceman arrived Friday morning, and in 15 minutes he had my refrigerator fixed.  He could not believe it had taken this long.  He remembered coming to my house back in August and had assumed that a different serviceman had been sent to do the repair.

“I have been a loyal GE customer for years.  I built new houses until about three years ago, and I used GE appliances in all of my new construction.  I still remodel for various clients and always recommended GE.  This experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Perhaps in the future GE will do a better job of attempting to locate repair parts for their customers instead of simply throwing up their hands and waiting for backordered parts to be shipped to GE.

Kathy Beaumont”

It will be interesting to see how they respond.  Do y’all think there’s any chance I’ll find one of those cool French door refrigerators with the bottom freezer sitting on my front porch one day soon?  Probably not.