The AC Saga Continues

Posted on September 3, 2002 in Weather

Communication skills seem to be in short supply when it comes to repair people and insurance operatives. The actual story is this:

The air conditioning people have not had enough time to determine where the leak is. They need to keep running the pressure test (the name of which seems to change with every person that I talk to!) for a few more days. This is fine with me: they sent the numbers they’d gathered so far to the insurance company and the insurance company jumped to the conclusion that our air conditioner had no problems.

I had a long talk with one of their technicians, at the conclusion of which I figured out what was going on. In plain English, they need to keep testing. I asked him point blank if they were finished. “Yes,” he said. “So you’re not coming back?” “I didn’t say that.” Well, you sure as hell answered my question like you had, I thought. But I continued to wrestle with him verbally until I got the facts.

Then I called the insurance people to set them straight. You will remember from yesterday that they had determined from the last report that there was nothing wrong with my air conditioner! I was routed through a couple of people before I got someone who read the log and agreed to call the repair people to set things straight. Or, rather, the repair people agreed to call the authorizations department to set up a second test. I asked that Authorizations give me a call, but they aren’t allowed to speak to the consumers. Just technicians. (Lord help me!)

A few minutes after I concluded the call, Customer Relations called me back. How did you know that your air conditioner was broken? she asked. “It wasn’t cooling.” “How do you know that there’s no freon?” “They told me.” You’d think that this would have made their records, but I had to run through the whole story all over again.

I think they are fixing it now. “We’ll be calling you back” was the last thing Customer Relations told me. OK….