It shouldn't be this way

It's Monday.  Need I say more?

I love these short work weeks, as I'm taking Friday off to make a four day deal out of the Labor Day weekend.  I remain messed up pretty much all week, and will be so next week, too.  The cost of taking time off...

I often express my frustrations about customer service issues in this space, and am about to do so again.  But let me first mention some instances of really good service!

I can't really think of any, so here are some negative experiences I've had recently.

My wife was involved in a fender-bender not long ago while I was on a business trip.  She and the occupants of the other car were all unhurt and she reported the claim (our first) to a very nice representative at the insurance carrier we currently use.  Did not hear anything for nearly a week, so I went online to their portal, where I had set up an account, and found the electronic version of a letter that the claims rep had apparently put into the mail.  You know the type of correspondence, here's your claim number, here's how you can reach me, etc.

So I sent this person an e-mail asking what was happening, and asking if she needed more info from us.  She responded a day later saying she had been trying for some time to reach my wife, but in our exchange acknowledged that she didn't call the number from the claim report, she used our old landline number that was listed on the policy info.  Not good.

They finally spoke, she got the detail confirmation she needed and then a few days later sent a list of body shops from whom we could get estimates and to have them send her these quotes.  I contacted a body shop we've used in the past with good success, sent her the estimate and, again, crickets.  I then sent the two pictures my wife sent, and she simply said thank you.

This morning a man identifying himself as an independent insurance adjuster for this company appeared, saying he had been trying to reach us since Thursday and thought he would take a chance and stop by.  He needed to see the car and take photos, so I contacted my wife, who was not home at the time, to return so that he could do his part.  If he said his name I don't remember what it was, and I did not encourage him to enter our house.  My wife came, he took his photos and thanked us and left.

Our claim will be three weeks old on Thursday.  We're still waiting for action.

On the plus side, I discovered about ten days ago that I had a crack in the windshield of the car I drive, one that we bought a little less than a year ago.  Went to one of the national chains that does glass repair, they looked at it and stated I needed a replacement.  Provided the policy info, and it was approved on the spot.  Pretty automatic, it seemed.  I get that installed Friday.  On my day off.

Despite how well the glass claim seems to have gone so far, we'll be shopping for insurance after all is said and done.

Here's another.  I was on the business trip noted above and was pretty tired from a hectic day, so ordered a pizza from a national chain with a store nearby.  I did not specify I wanted contactless delivery, which is a thing now, and by chance found that my pizza had been dropped at my hotel room door about thirty minutes earlier.  Needless to say, I relayed this to the store in my review and a regional guy contacted me with a great apology and a code for a free pizza the next time I ordered online.

You can guess what happened next, I attempted to use the code last night and was advised online that it was only good at the store where the problem occurred.  Fat chance I'll be ordering from there in the future.

I'm sure I could think of more, but, you know, sometimes you just have to put these things aside and move on, right?