Alpha aftercare service contract / insurance

mechtrev

We have a service / insurance contract with Alpha aftercare costing £180 a year.
Our combi boiler wouldn't work when we came home from work on Friday 8th March I telephoned the contact number as shown on the contract on Saturday morning to report the fault. Aplha telehoned my wife back during Sat afternoon to check status of boiler i.e. lights and gauges. She told them I had done all these checks on Friday evening. An engineer came out to us on Monday afternoon spent an hour checking the boiler deciced it needed a new part and he would have to order one from Alpha and would be in contact when part arrived.
Had not heard from anyone by Wednesday evening so telephoned them again to be told that Alpha was now closed for the day and that someone would contact Alpha Thursday morning check progress of part and get back to me. At 10am Thursday morning I had not heard anything so I phoned them
girl on phone at Alpha told me that part had been ordered from Italy and they were waiting for it, would check status of order and get back to me by 2pm. At 2.30 I telephoned them as they had not got back to me to be told that the part was in transit and would be with the engineer AM on Friday.
I telephoned engineer on Friday at 1pm to see what time he would be with us so I could arrange someone to be at the premises. "Not got part yet will ring you when I get it"
I telephoned help line again got put through to Alpha to be told that part on it's way they would contact me after they had checked status of delivery. I had not heard anything to ring back at 3pm.
3.30 not heard so phoned again, got put through to Alpha got a fem on phone said hang on let me check, came back with "part in our stores have you not been told hang on let me get someone"
Bloke came on phone then to tell me the whole story.
" part was dispatched on Tuesday carrier could not get a signature for it so returned it back to Alpha, too late to get out today would be sent out on Monday for Tuesday delivery"

We have now been without heating and hot water for a week and still we will have to wait another 4 days. We have just had the coldest week of the year with no heating.

For this privilage we pay£180 a year.

If anyone is considering buying an Alpha boiler I would recomend you not to,this is obviously the servicethey provide with their aftercare. I know that when our boiler is up for renewal I would not even put Alpha on my to look at list.

keystone

and your local indie would have gone down the road to his local stockist, picked up the part he needed and have it all sorted out in 24/48. These big monolithic companies with large computer systems running slightly bent off the shelf software packages that nearly but don't quite fit the business model can't cope. Its not unique to Alpha by any stretch of the imagination. The other side of the coin is that if you are only paying £ 180 a year then margins are very slim and their systems are slow because they ae designed to contain costs to a minimum - like not hold stock for one thing.

Save your money. Put the dosh you would be spending on insurance in a "boiler support" building society account every month. Call out you local indy when you need him and pay him from the fund.

Cheers

mechtrev

the bit that got to me was when they said that the part was in transit and would have to wait for courier to deliver.
When I pointed out to them that you can track a parcel anywhere in the world and I asked them for the tracking number their attitude changed.
Unbeknown to them at the time I work for a major UK machinery manufacturer I have to buy parts in from all over the world and ship them out again so I know how long it takes to ship parts from different countries to the UK