alright...I won't go into the detail of the last 11 days without
heating, but the customer service with this british gas policy (no
it's not an insurance policy, it's a maintenance contract 'sir') is
the worst I have ever experienced.

1) Pushed to provide a senior manager's contact number, they gave us
the Ops director (who when called turned out to be on annual leave)
2) 'forgot' to order the part
3) courier unable to deliver heavy parts on Mondays
4) courier unable to offload the part himself
5) 3 broken day long appointements
6) 6 hours of phone conversations
7) Customer complaints 'closed' without any follow up or conversation
with the customer ! (followed by another offer to close a new
complaint there and then if we had one)

it went on and on...


anyhow...they are finally replacing the heat exchanger tomorrow and as
I'm going to cancel the agreement shortly afterwards I want to ensure
that whatever they fit tomorrow is covered by its
warranty..so...should all radiators be power flushed prior to fitting
a replacement heat exchanger ? my thoughts, yes...otherwise the
manufacturer will likely not cover any fault should it go wrong in
future..there's not instructions/warranty cards/details with the part
they delivered today to look at unfortunately....

On 2008-03-31 17:11:54 +0100, said:

alright...I won't go into the detail of the last 11 days without
heating, but the customer service with this british gas policy (no
it's not an insurance policy, it's a maintenance contract 'sir') is
the worst I have ever experienced.

1) Pushed to provide a senior manager's contact number, they gave us
the Ops director (who when called turned out to be on annual leave)
2) 'forgot' to order the part
3) courier unable to deliver heavy parts on Mondays
4) courier unable to offload the part himself
5) 3 broken day long appointements
6) 6 hours of phone conversations
7) Customer complaints 'closed' without any follow up or conversation
with the customer ! (followed by another offer to close a new
complaint there and then if we had one)

it went on and on...


anyhow...they are finally replacing the heat exchanger tomorrow and as
I'm going to cancel the agreement shortly afterwards I want to ensure
that whatever they fit tomorrow is covered by its
warranty..so...should all radiators be power flushed prior to fitting
a replacement heat exchanger ? my thoughts, yes...otherwise the
manufacturer will likely not cover any fault should it go wrong in
future..there's not instructions/warranty cards/details with the part
they delivered today to look at unfortunately....

I had a very similar experience with them a few years ago.

They also seem to think that it's acceptable to prioritise one type of
customer over another. Their problem is that they still have the
public sector culture and mentality.

I was able to extract a refund of the entire year's payment from them.

Regarding a power flush, the warranty may well require it. The
question, in the event of a claim, is who would honour it, the
manufacturer or BG. Legally, BG will have been the supplier so any
recourse would be with them.

BG may be offering their warranty instead of anything from the manufacturer.

They may offer you a power flush at several hundred pounds.

You could get one done by another firm at half the price.

You could rent the equipment and power flush yourself.

In any event, if you don't continue with BG on the contract, I think
that you would find it next to impossible to make a claim for warranty
for the part.


Given the circumstances, after the new HE is fitted, if you don't know
what to do yourself, I would arrange for a competent local heating
engineer (not plumber) to come and look at and clean the system.
Ideally this should be before the heat exchanger swap but I don't think
you have that option.

wrote:
alright...I won't go into the detail of the last 11 days without
heating, but the customer service with this british gas policy (no
it's not an insurance policy, it's a maintenance contract 'sir') is
the worst I have ever experienced.

To be honest, that has not been my experience - and BG have maintained my
C/H system since 1983.

My fastest response from telephone complaint to BG knocking the door was
half an hour, my longest was one day and my longest 'waiting for spares
period' was four days (delivered to the local PO) and funnily enough that
was also a heat exchanger.

1) Pushed to provide a senior manager's contact number, they gave us
the Ops director (who when called turned out to be on annual leave)
2) 'forgot' to order the part
3) courier unable to deliver heavy parts on Mondays
4) courier unable to offload the part himself
5) 3 broken day long appointements
6) 6 hours of phone conversations
7) Customer complaints 'closed' without any follow up or conversation
with the customer ! (followed by another offer to close a new
complaint there and then if we had one)

it went on and on...


anyhow...they are finally replacing the heat exchanger tomorrow and as
I'm going to cancel the agreement shortly afterwards I want to ensure
that whatever they fit tomorrow is covered by its
warranty..so...should all radiators be power flushed prior to fitting
a replacement heat exchanger ?

No they will not 'powerflush' as part of the maintenance contract - that
will cost you extra (a lot extra).

my thoughts, yes...otherwise the
manufacturer will likely not cover any fault should it go wrong in
future..there's not instructions/warranty cards/details with the part
they delivered today to look at unfortunately....

British Gas will be responsible for the warranty and not the manufacturer if
anything goes wrong.


BRG

Cheers guys,
the part has at least arrived so hopefully in 10 mins my nextdoor
neighbour will call me to say the engineer has arrived also :-)

In terms of service, they did indeed get an engineer round straight
away, the problems started when it required a follow up at which point
I suspect we became a missed target so there's no incentive to
prioritise our job over new jobs coming in. It was explained to me
that as this required 4 back to back appts to make the time, they
would have trouble scheduling it in, which suggests to me they're
focussed purely on the initial callout / high turnover of simple jobs.
Would I expect anything different ? not if I was running the company,
but as a consumer, yes I would.


I am a cynic, so do wonder if there was anything in the fact that the
heatexchanger cost them 500-600 quid, deliverycost them 150 quid and
then there's the day's labour which brings me on to.......


funnily enough, they managed to get a salesman around the same day to
quote me for a new boiler. Simple fitting he said..would use the same
flue whole, no need for a separate power supply for the over-run as he
was going to suggest a boiler that didn't need it, new boiler would
fit in the same place easily, gas meter 1m from the boiler and the
mains pipe was fine, drain point within 1m for the
condensate...couldn't be easier he said. £3500 and that included the
£400 discount BG currently have on for Homecare customers. When asked
to break the cost down he said they don't do that anymore as people
look up the prices on the internet or phone a plumber and
complain...but when pressed he said about 800..no..1000...no...say
about 1500 for the boiler..and about the same again for the fitting. I
think it's closer to 800-1000 for the boiler and a two man job to fit
(including the powerflush)..so that's about £1500 each for a days
work..I could understand the cost if it was 2-3 days as it required
everything bringing up to regulations..but in my case, "simple job" he
said...

Ant.

On 2008-04-01 10:15:09 +0100, said:

Cheers guys,
the part has at least arrived so hopefully in 10 mins my nextdoor
neighbour will call me to say the engineer has arrived also :-)

In terms of service, they did indeed get an engineer round straight
away, the problems started when it required a follow up at which point
I suspect we became a missed target so there's no incentive to
prioritise our job over new jobs coming in. It was explained to me
that as this required 4 back to back appts to make the time, they
would have trouble scheduling it in, which suggests to me they're
focussed purely on the initial callout / high turnover of simple jobs.
Would I expect anything different ? not if I was running the company,
but as a consumer, yes I would.

The point is that their contract is effectively worthless.

They don't guarantee a response time and make arbitrary decisions over
which customers receive "priority". I'm not so hard hearted as to
say that little old ladies should sit and freeze, but the company
should provision such that *all* customers receive a rapid response.
They are not public sector any longer and in any case are not empowered
to act as a social service.

They have poor scheduling, as you have seen. If their system worked
properly, it would have flexibility to accomodate jobs of different
lengths and would substitute when required. It's





I am a cynic, so do wonder if there was anything in the fact that the
heatexchanger cost them 500-600 quid, deliverycost them 150 quid and
then there's the day's labour which brings me on to.......


funnily enough, they managed to get a salesman around the same day to
quote me for a new boiler.

Amazing that.


Simple fitting he said..would use the same
flue whole, no need for a separate power supply for the over-run as he
was going to suggest a boiler that didn't need it, new boiler would
fit in the same place easily, gas meter 1m from the boiler and the
mains pipe was fine, drain point within 1m for the
condensate...couldn't be easier he said.

Especially with you paying.


£3500 and that included the
£400 discount BG currently have on for Homecare customers.

The fact that the replacement, plus fitting would probably cost £2k or
so from an independent heating engineer allows plenty of room for
attractive discounts while still making a bundle.



When asked
to break the cost down he said they don't do that anymore as people
look up the prices on the internet or phone a plumber and
complain...but when pressed he said about 800..no..1000...no...say
about 1500 for the boiler..and about the same again for the fitting. I
think it's closer to 800-1000 for the boiler and a two man job to fit
(including the powerflush)..so that's about £1500 each for a days
work..I could understand the cost if it was 2-3 days as it required
everything bringing up to regulations..but in my case, "simple job" he
said...

£800 to 1000 is a typical boiler price for quite a good one. Anybody
can get that in a merchants or on the internet. Cost to BG about
£600 in volume? There are boilers at £1500, and very good they are
as well, but I don't think that they would be fitting those. He only
upped the boile price to make the fitting cost look less outrageous.

A power flush from BG is typically quoted at £600 - 800 separately. An
independent will charge in the low hundreds. You can rent the machine
for about £100 a day and DIY it. You can *buy* a machine for £800.


You aren't considering doing further business with these people are you?

Andy Hall wrote:


I am a cynic, so do wonder if there was anything in the fact that the
heatexchanger cost them 500-600 quid, deliverycost them 150 quid and
then there's the day's labour which brings me on to.......


funnily enough, they managed to get a salesman around the same day to
quote me for a new boiler.

Amazing that.


Sound business, Why take on old unreliable boilers on a fixed cost
service when you can charge the customer to put in a new one, and have
less reliability issues?