Ward Jack & Sons Plumbing Co

Tech was fine; Customer service was not.

Posted by chrisaga on 8/4/2009

I called this company on Sunday to clear a blockage at the main sewer line. I knew ahead of time that this was probably due to tree roots in the line due to a cracked main line and told them up front that this was probably the case. The technician came out and cleared the line; no problem. We were planning on following up next month to have this line repaired. It is currently Monday morning and water is overflowing all over the first floor. I call this company back and ask them if they could send a tech out because we have water overflowing again and need someone to take a look at the main line. The guy I spoke with was pleasant and said sure, we will send someone back out. I did not say we were dissatisfied with any service that we had received up to this point or even indicate it because we were not dissatisfied; we already know that our main line needs to be repaired. I get a call about 20 minutes later from a lady who seemed very confused and very defensive (not to mention offensive). I answer the phone and say "Hi". She says, "Who is this?" Even though she called me and should already know who I am, I am polite and say my name. She then proceeds with, "Did you call us again this morning"? I said yes I had called to see if we could get a technician to come back out. She asked me in a pretty rude tone who owned the house and I told her that I did. Then she said well who is this person who paid for Sunday's visit? I said it was my husband. She seemed to feel the need to point out that we don't share the same last name (like that should actually have bearing over the fact that I have an inch of water all over my floors and we are trying to get this fixed). So I politely informed her that no, we do not share the same last name. I still don't know why that mattered. Anyway, then she says to me "Well, you know this won't be a call back....they found roots in the line so we don't do call backs on that". I am pretty close to losing my patience at this point. Number one, I never said I was dissatisfied with the job the first technician did on Sunday and never asked for free maintenance today. I fully expected that we would pay the bill due. She seemed to think that we were wanting them to come back for free...we weren't. Number two, it does seem pretty silly to think that tree roots can grow back in less than 48 hours once the line had been properly cleared, so even if I were a dissatisfied customer asking for a "call back" you would think she would have handled that with a bit more customer service instead of jumping to conclusions and being rude. She said they wouldn't be able to get anyone out until late and to be honest, she sounded like she didn't even want to send anyone out at all. In this economy, there are plenty of other companies out there who realize that customer service is key to running a successful business. No, the customer isn't always right, but you should at least be polite when explaining to them why their expectations cannot be met. The customer should be treated with respect if you want their business. We had fully intended on hiring this company to dig up our front yard and replace the pipes to fix the problem once and for all, but now we are going with American plumbing instead. They are much more pleasant to deal with. I have a difficult time giving a company repeat business when their first instinct is to get defensive and immediately go into "cover our rear ends" mode. It makes me wonder now if there is a reason for it.