In which Homeserve and Vaillant redeem themselves

I'm almost scared to write this in case it all goes horribly wrong again, but I have to give credit here it's due. We appear to have heat again. And hot water! Don't think I've forgotten how utterly useless Homeserve and their agents Vaillant (proper spelling this time) were yesterday. I won't, not for a long time. They have, though, redeemed themselves today.

However, I got an e-mail to the blog e-mail address from one of the managers in Vaillant saying that they wanted to restore my faith in the company. I replied with a little more detail than I gave here yesterday and they sent somebody out this evening. The poor man who was sent out was one of their senior technicians who covers all of Scotland but, fortunately, lives a few miles up the road. He could not have been nicer and he left he his mobile number without being asked and without checking whether I was a scary stalker who would ring him in the middle of the night, which, for the avoidance of doubt, I would never do. I'm quite protective of people's work life balance even if I don't tend to practice what I preach myself - which is partly why I'm in the health mess I'm in at the moment.

Thankfully the problem seems to have been easily resolved - although there may be another one which isn't covered by the contract (but may be by another contract I have).

I am wondering, though, how many people put up with terrible service every day. I will be watching out for Homeserve and their agents from now on, given that everyone who replied on various internetty places who had ever had anything to do with them said they were various degrees of bloody awful. Useless was the best assessment of their performance I got.

I said to them in my e-mail to them today that I wanted them to use my feedback to provide a better service for everybody. The two people I've dealt with today were really good and made a big effort, despite the fact that the original problem had nowt to do with them. The guy who came out went out of his way to do and it is very much appreciated.

One amusing legacy from the last few days is that Anna has made it quite clear that she likes the hot water bottle lark and wants one tonight despite the fact that it's warm again.