British Gass EMERGENCY - what a joke

[Deleted User]

Lets face it, if you offer an emergency service and you don't attend urgently - I.e. within 1 day.

You won't be called out for your emergency service again.

Yes you don't have to come out just like BG, but you just won't get a call out from this person or people who they tell about your "failed" service in their eyes.

If you offer emergency service then customers tend to expect a quick response, and if you don't provide this they will not be customers any longer.

Nothing more to this situation. No wrong done, no good done, = 1 lost customer.

By the way, if they had attended what is the chance of fixing the issue.

Me = British Gas call out = 8 return visits = still no parts = more return visits = fix on 9th visit = £200 compo for me :rotfl:

southcoastrgi

i understand what you are saying (& my eye sight is fine you didn't need to increase the font size), but the thing i have found is that people will just call you out on an emergency because they can't get hold of (or they don't offer emergency service) their normal guy & then they never ever phone you again & just go back to their reg guy, so i for one am going to look after my regular customers first & if i have time go out to the emergency, it doesn't mean i'm wrong or i am not going to go i just put my customers first, sounds abit like the first post in this thread doesn't it.

Pincher

What on earth do people expect for £79?

If they want commercial level response time, they have to pay for it. For the Y2K bug, I was paid £300+ on 31st December 1999, just for having my mobile phone with me, just in case. If they called me in, it's triple pay on New Years Eve. I think the managers got more: what for, since all they can do is call me. Well, they are needed to authorise the over-time, I suppose; and to keep telling the Vice Presidents we are working on it.

Regular maintenance, backup systems, disaster recovery plan: don't have them? Well, SUR--PRISE!

daffodil

Southcoastrgi:)

The difference between you and British Gas is that British Gas is a mamouth company and people notice their advertisements and believe what they read. British Gas know exactly what they are doing - I bet they dont advertise their Terms and Conditions where everyone can see them.
This poor couple and their son trusted what they read, thats all, and whats so wrong about that? - everything it seems.
I have been wondering lately why there is so little trust in the world.

I am not criticising you at all, I am sure you turn out if you are able to.
Hope you had a good xmas.:A

C_Mababejive

Emergency= danger of death,threat to life and/or property i.e the sort of thing that vehilces with blue lights do.

[Deleted User]

I agree with what has been said!

If you are fully booked, then so be it, but I for one would find it hard to accept that I have to wait until Feb! As stated above with BG they are huge and you can expect them to employ additional contractors/staff.

I suppose most emergency service contractors make money from inflated prices, because as you say these customers do not provide regular business.

So BG lost out on some work this time, I think that's about the bones of the situation now. Most of us will think twice about calling them out - well I like to (homecare wise) as they always end up paying me! I make more from them than I pay them. "MAD" :rotfl:

grahamc2003

tired_of_it_all wrote: »

This is absolutely true and happened this afternoon:

Elderly couple with a disabled son. Boiler packed up, no central heating or hot water.

]

While I sympathise with what must be a horrible situation for them (but as others have said, pretty easily solvable by calling local tradesmen who are prepared to come out Christmas eve - only don't expect it to be cheap) - if they are elderly and have a disabled son, then surely they should ensure they have made provisions for when things go wrong? Either by getting on some vulnerable register or other, or, like the rest of us, paying out for some sort of emergency insuance with defined response times. Bleating about how a company runs its business - whoever it is - is pointless. They offer a service, and you have the option of taking what is offered, not dictating to them what they must offer.

macman

Even the BG contract service does say 'Limited availabiity at weekends and public holidays'. So anyone without a contract is hardly going to be top of the list when they want a call out 2 days before Christmas.
An emergency means a threat to life or property, which this is clearly not, unless of course the son's disability requires a constant supply of hot water and heating. In which case they need a permanent service contract anyway.

VincentFM

I have an annual contract with E-on, which I pay monthly. I usually wait 6-7 days for a call-out but on 17 December they took my additional £50 call-out fee and then said they could not repair my heating until next year (2 January 2013).

Does anyone actually repair central heating quickly?

When my car breaks down, the phone is answered within minutes and someone is usually there to repair the car within an hour so why, when I pay 8 times more for central heating cover, does it take 30+ minutes to answer the phone and 7-15 days to turn up at my house?:mad:

Are all of these companies over trading by taking as much money as they can when they clearly know that they do not have enough staff to provide the service?

Profit before service as usual:exclamati

southcoastrgi

i subbie for one of the monthly pay schemes (i'm not gonna say which one), the way it works with us is, we get a text giving us the customers details & whats wrong (basic description from what the customer has told the call center) we have to phone within 15 mins & action the work within 12 hrs (although that normally means the next day)