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Customer in way of 12-hour service window

In his July 15 column (“The customer is always in the way,”), Steve Smith hits the bull’s eye with his comments on declining customer service. His piece deals mainly with service at retail stores and services.

This comment deals with another aspect of the problem, i.e., agonizing customer service at home leading to service wars and rage. It starts like this.

“Hello, this is BCD from WXY plumbing. We will be at your home tomorrow sometime between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.,” commands the dispatcher-in-chief.

So the homeowner waits and waits and waits. There are reports at the coffee houses of men and women having heart attacks, strokes and dying of old age from the stress of waiting.

We all are well aware that if you give any high school student in Newport-Mesa a cell phone, he or she can locate, talk with and make precise plans with any friend or classmate in the country. To the minute.

We can rocket an astronomical number of miles to far-away planets, moons and space stations with a time of arrival estimated within seconds. We have little trouble maintaining voice contact the entire time. We can even see them on monitors.

So why can’t a customer-service dispatcher get the serviceman and homeowner to the same site at the same time in less than a 12-hour window. After all, down here on Earth, we do have cell and land phones, satellite radios and global positioning devices that can locate you and the serviceman.

Much of this overwhelming customer service is necessitated by thousands of new technologies, electrical appliances, computers and sophisticated toys of status. This latter problem is made worse by the affluence of Orange County. Gone are the days when the milkman and paper boy were the only daily intruders to our homes.

Now, back to the chase. On the morning after the call from your “friendly” service dispatcher, those pesky, pathetic, impertinent trucks line the once peaceful curbs like platoons ready for battle. Often you are taken prisoner by trucks blocking your own driveway.

A few suggestions.

1. When the dispatcher calls, give your cell and land phone numbers. Now you’re not a hostage in your own home. Tell them to call you 20 minutes prior to arrival or if they are severely delayed. You should do the same if you are delayed. This ultimately helps everyone;

2. Customer-service dispatchers and repairmen need to realize it is the customers who pay their salaries. Having already paid once to purchase their products, we are now paying a second time for repair because they didn’t perform as well as advertised;

3. Some companies get it right. Adelphia gives a two-hour window and if late gives you a $20 credit. FedEx gives a four-hour window and calls you 30 minutes prior to delivery;

4. There is some humor in all this. Last week, my wife smelled gas leaking from the outside meter. It seems the utility company “upgraded” our meter while we were gone. A day later they arrived for a second try. The next day it leaked again. On the third try, they missed the 12-hour window by an hour. Evidently, the meter wasn’t screwed in tightly. Had we known we could have asked two neighbors to twist the service man while he held on to his wrench!;

5. Remember stuff does happen. But it shouldn’t happen all the time. So why a 12-hour window for local customer service? This isn’t rocket science ? but then again maybe that’s the problem. We’ve made all this much too complicated.

But if you need to reach me or my wife, we will probably be home waiting for the customer service guy.

MICHAEL ARNOLD GLUECK

Newport Beach

Time to make the beaches even better

So, Newport Beach is going after homeowners who are using the beach for their gardens. A good step. The next step will be to get them to support beachfront improvements. Beachfront owners have a long history of opposing anything that might obstruct their view.

The beach at Newport Beach is one of the prime attractions of Orange County. In spite of that, there is inadequate parking. The bike path has not been widened in years, and there are inadequate facilities.

In three miles of beachfront, there are only three bathrooms. Jetty Park has none. The Wedge, a world-class bodysurfing destination, has none. People relieve themselves in the nearby alleys.

Compare that to Huntington Beach, or, better, Santa Monica. They have wide paths that accommodate bikes and skateboards as well as pedestrians. There are also showers, food stands and bathrooms every thousand yards.

Newport Beach has to decide what is more important: the unobstructed views of beachfront owners or adequate facilities for users of this public space.

WILLIAM H. DUBAY

Costa Mesa