We had received a good recommendation for the blue crew for our furnace repair. We made an appointment two weeks in advance. We were told they would be here between 8am and noon. I spent PTO in order to be home. At 11:30 I got an automated call notifying me that there would be delays an asking me if I was available after noon. A forced reschedule by phone is a joke, as there is no way to negotiate. If I say 'yes I will be home after noon', will I later have the opprotunity to specify how much later? Will I be locked in to a noon to 5pm window when I will need to be leaving by 1:30?
I hung up on the automated dispatcher (possibly a bad idea?) and called the home services number myself. After the obligatory automated dispatchers and waiting times, I was transferred to a heavily accented call center staffer, where I managed to get my appointment rescheduled for the following week, again in the 8-12 timeslot. I was told by the call center guy that I would also 'put at the beginning of the route' because of the missed first appointment. After this the call center guy then proceeded to try to upsell me on an 'free, in-home consultation for home improvement'. I did my best to politely decline, concluded the call, and went to work.
That afternoon my wife called me from her job, very confused, after having received six seperate calls from the blue crew — all of them saying that we had not answered the door at our house when the repair technician stopped by at 1:40, and attempting to reschedule (again?). After the sixth call, she turned off her cellphone, as the calls were interrupting her at work.
A week later, after again taking the morning off to be home, no one showed. After calling the call center and waiting again I was put through to another heavily accented person, who informed me that I did not have an appointment, and that I had not rescheduled the missed appointment from the previous week. (This after one explicit reschedule by me, and 6 calls to my wife to confirm?) When he attempted to schedule a new appointment, and started asking for the complete description of the service we were looking for, I informed him not to bother.
We are out 9 hours of vacation time from my job, 2 hours of cell-phone minutes, 2 hours spent fighting with the sears blue crew scheduling service, 3 calendar weeks, are now heading into November in Minnesota with a partially functioning furnace, and have nothing positive to show from our experience with the blue crew.
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