Reliance Cold Comfort & The Soft Power Of Print Media
We received a cold call on Monday morning.
Carol Mepham is a retired legal secretary who lives in suburban Amherstview, near Kingston, well out of our readership area. She told me that she is 88 years old. I don’t know where she he found our phone number.
Carol explained that her gas furnace had not been working since Christmas Day. She purchased the furnace from Reliance 5 years ago, and paid for it in full at that time. She said it is under warranty. A service technician arrived on Boxing Day, and looked at the furnace, but could not fix it because it needed a part. Six days went by, during which time Carol heated her house with an electric fireplace in the basement, two space heaters that her daughter brought to her, and her kitchen oven. She called Reliance often during that time period, and they said she should buy new space heaters and they would cover the purchase price.
The part came in on December 31, directly to her, by Purolator. A second technician arrived on January 1st to put in the part. But the part was the wrong one, and she was told that new parts needed to be ordered, and would not come in until January 6th.
She said she had called her MP, who told her to call her MPP, who told her she should look into suing Reliance.
Her story was rather alarming, of course, and it was pretty cold, and stormy, on Monday. I told her we did not cover Amherstview, but I would call Reliance about her case anyway, to see if it would help get her heat back sooner.
I got the particulars about her account, address, etc. from her, and then phoned the same 1-888 number that she had been using all along
I asked about the case, and said I was phoning from a newspaper looking for comment. The person on the other end of the line said that the part was on order and would be coming in on January 6th. When I said again that I was really looking for comment from Reliance for a story, I was referred to another person, this time in the complaints department. I explained the situation again, and when I said I was not trying to lodge a complaint, but looking for a comment, I was told that a manager would get back to me. It was about 11am by this time. I did not hear back from Reliance on Monday.
I called Carol Mepham on Tuesday morning to see if she was still waiting for heat, and she said she was planning to call me, to thank me.
She said she got a call from Reliance at 11:30am on Monday. She was told that a technician was coming that afternoon, but this time it was going to be Ian, the man who usually services her Reliance equipment. She asked the person on the line if this had anything to do with my call to them, and they said no. She received calls at 1:15, 1:30 and 2:26. By the end of the last call, she had been told that she will receive a cheque for $500, in addition to a cheque for the $293 she is out of pocket for the space heaters, and that Reliance will cover her January Hydro bill. The cheques will be delivered on Thursday.
Ian arrived at 2:50pm, with parts. He went into the basement and Carol sat upstairs in her kitchen.
“As soon as I saw Ian I knew I was going to have heat, because he could rebuild a furnace if he had too. Within 20 minutes I could feel the heat from the heat register in the kitchen” she said. Ian stayed for a little while to make sure everything was running properly, and left just before 4pm.”
After talking to Carol on Tuesday morning, from her toasty home, down in Amherstview, we received a call from Sakshi Bamba, from the media department. She was looking for our email address. A few minutes later, the following statement came in, via email.
“At Reliance, we take customer concerns seriously and are committed to delivering an Outstanding Customer Experience. We are aware of the situation. Our team worked with the customer to resolve it, and the customer is now satisfied with the outcome. – Reliance Home Comfort”
While Reliance did not indicate that the resolution of Carol Mepham’s furnace issues had anything to do with the Frontenac News, Carol Mepham thinks differently.
