Modern Technology & Customer Service = Mutually exclusive

fold a dish towel in the bottom of the pan? broiler/cooling rack if small enough?

and yes, the chat functions are generally pretty useless imo.

enjoy your chutney!

tomcat said:

Being peak season for fruits, I ordered a simple canning pot with lid & canning rack (to prevent jars from sitting directly on the bottom of the pot).  Best deal I found was from Walmart.

Yesterday it was delivered on time, so I rushed out to buy ingredients for a spicy peach chutney.

When I brought it inside, I discovered that the canning rack was missing (the pot was not packaged, it was just delivered open to my back porch).

On the Wallmart web site, through the Chat function you can return an item, or report it either missing or damaged, but there is no way to report a missing component.   So, 1-800-WALMART.  

The wait was not too long, and the service person understood the problem (after I explained it twice).  He put me on hold for about 30 seconds, and then came back to report that they have no way to supply the missing component.  He credited my purchase in full, and told me to keep the parts that I did receive.

In searching for a rack only on Amazon, I discovered that the pot supplied by Walmart is slightly smaller (11.5/8" diameter) than the industry standard (= 12"-12.1/2" diameter), so most racks are too large for this pot.  Most of the racks that could fit my new free pot have 2-4 week delivery schedule (and my peaches won't last that long).  The only one that was available in 1-2 days also cost as much as the pot (OK, since I got credit from Walmart).

And this is progress?

you may be able to fake something out using heavy duty aluminum foil if the dishcloth suggestion doesn't work. I have done this for another application where I needed a rack in a pot.

I am with you on customer service. I have had an especially bad customer service week and I blame AI for most of it. Not necessarily directly, but it is really clear that companies are scaling way back on human powered customer service. It takes forever to get to a human and the humans are restricted in their ability to actually help.

I recently ordered a package of four light bulbs from Home Depot; they offered free next-day delivery.  (yes, I know I'm lazy, but it was really hot and I hate going to HD.)

Came home to find four 60-pound sacks of builders sand on my doorstep. 

Called the number on the receipt (which clearly indicated 4 light bulbs), finally got a person and, after explaining several times, the rep told me to call the store and gave me the phone number. I called the store, explained the issue twice and was told that it was a different store. Called that store, explained again, and was finally assured the system said my order had been delivered and was now complete. 

It took longer to call repeatedly to try and fix this that it would have if I'd just gone to HD in the first place.
Which I did, and gave the sand away on the local freecycle.

This isn't 100% relevant to the conversation, as it's not a negative CS experience, but your story reminded me of this.

I bought a vitamix foodcycler a few years ago which comes with a small bucket and lid for your food scraps before the bucket goes into the machine to dry out your food and turn it into "foodalizer". Anyway, I lost the bucket and lid and needed a replacement, so I went on the website and bought one, buit the bucket had no lid. So I wrote to them:

Hi! I just bought a replacement Foodcycler bucket and discovered it doesn't come with a lid. I checked the site and not only does the bucket NOT come with a lid, the bucket WITH a lid has been discontinued so I can't actually replace the bucket I lost because I have no lid. I can't buy a lid, but if I buy a whole new Foodcycler, I can get a bucket with a lid. What am I supposed to do with your bucket if I don't have a lid?

So Vitamix informed me the product support had gone back to the original company that made them, Food Cycle Science, and cc'd them on their reply.

One day later I get this email:

Thanks for reaching out, Dom here from FoodCycler, we've taken over support from Vitamix so I can help you directly.

Sorry you can't buy those lids anymore, don't worry though we can still help.

Like dragons from stories we horde these lids like golden coins, but since you are such an excellent customer we can send you one from our prize collection.

No charge for this, we just need the best address to send the lid to.

Could you also please confirm which unit you have so we can make sure to send the right lid.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Have a great weekend,

Dom

I give them my address and they send me a lid. However, it's the lid to the wrong part of the FoodCycler - I already have that one. So I write back:

Hi Dom,
I really appreciate your work on this and would like to thank you for tracking down and sending me the lid at short notice. Unfortunately, and it pains me to write this, this isn't the lid I was asking about.

The lid that arrived today is the lid for the Foodcycler itself, also known as the Processing Lid (according to the manual.) The lid I need is for the bucket, also known in the manual as the Collection Lid. Vitamix used to sell both bucket and collection lid together (https://www.vitamix.com/us/en_us/shop/foodcycler-replacement-bucket-lid) but now they only sell the bucket as a replacement or the filters, but I needed to replace both the bucket and the collection lid for the bucket (when I purchased the bucket I didn't know it didn't come with a lid, which is why wrote to Vitamix in the first place.

By any chance do your dragons still have any of these in the lair? I'll be willing to return the lid you sent (as I don't need that one) in exchange for the correct one.

To which they responded within 2 hours:

Thanks for writing back, sorry I sent you the wrong lid. (Totally my fault, I even wrote down what you needed correctly, just grabbed the wrong one)

Don't worry though! This dragon recently pillaged our warehouse and is sitting on a mountain of parts.

I'll send you one of those bucket lids, don't worry about returning the other lid, keep it as a spare in case you need it in the future.

It will take me about a week to get the lid to our courier (I have to drive them across town each Monday) but I will get the right one out to you.

Sorry again!

Dom

The correct lid arrived 2 days later.

ridski said:

The correct lid arrived 2 days later.

Congratulations on reaching a customer serpent representative.

Humans — 1

Automation — 0

DaveSchmidt said:

ridski said:

The correct lid arrived 2 days later.

Congratulations on reaching a customer serpent representative.

Humans — 1

Automation — 0

Deliberate Em-Dashes. Way to stick it to the machines.

Oh, "and please listen to all of the prompts since our menu items have changed."

Me: "Operator."

Bot: "Is it a problem with .... or.... or ....... or.....?"

Me' :  "No, customer service."

Bot: "What is it you need help with?  If it is ...., press 1.   If it is ...... "

Me: " I need my **** wiped. Can you help me with that?"

Bot: Please hold, while I transfer your call to a service agent."

In general, customer service for online purchases is horrific.
Some companies have no way for you to reach a human being on a phone. It drives me crazy.

Had an extremely positive PSEG customer service experience this week with a human. Nothing particularly notable was going on, but I was shocked I could get through to a live person and was re-shocked at how helpful she was. Shouldn’t be that way. Shouldn’t be shocked to be helped!!