Ferroli boilers - any one else had trouble with service?

[Agile]

Anything mechanical can break down at any time.

Your sensor is a very minor fault.

They have such confidence in their product they can give a five year warrantee.

In spite of your expectations all the manufacturers onlt give a five day working hours attendance.

Just a very few engineers like me will sometimes go out at other times when the customer has used a CORGI installer.

If the customer demonstrates "attitude" then that can delay attendance for quite a few days!

One tonight THREE times did not answer my question about the CORGI number of his installer! His installer has not returned my call!

Tony

 

[Notmsr]

Thanks for your replies Tony, as someone who has never had anything to do with boilers before I am learning a lot about the industry. The following is honestly meant to increase my understanding not to cause insult to anyone. I can certainly count on a straight answer from you.

Also just to clarify my attitudes and position I have the utmost respect for indendant plumbers, as I said previously the one who installed the boiler couldn't have been more helpful - he is the one who came out at 7pm to inspect the first fault and on a Sunday to fix the Ferroli engineers fault. My gripe is with big multinational companies such as Ferroli who are quite happy to make big marketing claims and take our money but when things go wrong the person becomes an inconvenience rather than person with a life, family and commitments. I also realise that any Plumber has a life, family and commitments that is why it is up to the senior management of multinationals (the ones who earn the big bucks) to ensure that their are customer friendly procedures to provide for the human factor.
(Also I am actually a very polite person except when I come across company 'procedures' that are immovable).

Anyway my preamble and question is, the milk man delivers my milk at 4am, the postman delivers the post at 5pm, I can see the teachers at my pupils school at 7pm, I can buy a DVD player from Currys at 9pm, I can get petrol at 10pm, the electricians at the company work 7am to 7pm, the plant operators are on 12 hour shifts so the plant is covered 24hrs, I can go to the dentist on a Saturday, the hospitals Doctors and Nurses are available every hour every day, is their no boiler manufacturing company at all who provides a plumbing service except in office hours? What are the hours the boiler manufacturing companies provide plumbers to fix problems?

If any company or any independant plumber can answer this then please do.

Also how many plumbers are attached to multinationals and how many self employed? What is the plumbing industry like at the moment? The papers say we have a shortage but is this true? Has the plumbing industry moved on from the 70's in the same way as other industries?

And before I forget - thanks to Tonybhoy, I will be passing that information on to someone else looking to buy a boiler and needs the customer service side of things to be spot on.

thanks again

 

[Agile]

The boiler companies operating in the UK probably employ about 880 staff engineers and they and others call on perhaps another 600 service agents as and when required.

BG employ about 5000 boiler engineers and plumbers.

In addition there are a total of about 130,000 people registered with CORGI and perhaps 20,000 of them might do some boiler repairs to a greater or lesser extent.

I am not sure what the relevance of these figures are to you.

What is more relevant is that the price for boiler sales just does not cover making out of hours visits for warranty repairs. Thats no different for your car, fridge, TV or any other similar appliance.

The crux of the matter is that you are not willing to pay the extra for out of hours visits. No one ever offers to pay me extra for unsocial hours visits and so they just have to wait for the next available working day.

In your case for a minor repair, the installer could have fixed it himself but it seems between you it was decided not to do that.

Boiler engineers are pretty average people who like to work fairly regular hours and have time off with the family at weekends. I am pretty unusual in being known to often go out at a weekend and a bit later if necessary. I am going out shortly to something I was to have done yesterday but ended up staying at home but I have a bit of a cold so thats my excuse.

Tony

 

[The Baker]

I might agree with you but with my experience of Ferroli customer service then I am not convinced. I can't loose sight of the fact that a 6 week old boiler should not have broken down in the first place and if it does then the paying customer shouldn't be inconvenienced when getting it fixed.
Nice talking to you this evening - I must go now.

To paraphrase Dolly Parton " **it happens" and the purchasing public should be accept that most manufacturers do their best to put things right.

Like Tony Glazier I try to get Boilers up and running ASAP if some thing goes wrong, I will do what I can to assist the manufactures engineer.

One thing the Public should take on board is that its the sole traders, the blokes in old motors and old vans who turn out at week ends, bank holidays unlike the flash merchants the large companies, in their new vans, who don't answer the phone after 4.30 on a Friday.

Tim

PS it would help the rest of the caring installer out there if you were able to let us know what the actual fault was.

 

[gas4you]

I'm working 7 days a week and evenings to keep up with demand at present.

Most of the time I'm like a walking zombie, being so tired, but I try to put my customers first.

The manufacturers I deal with have normal office hours, but engineers cover 363 days a year.

 

[Burt999]

NEVER BY A FEROROLI BOILER SYSTEM, you get what you pay for!! an unreliable boiler prone to break down from new. DON'T BE FOOLED by the lure of a 5 year guarantee, the backup "service" is appauling. You will be kept on the phone for upto literally 1 hour, speak to inexperienced staff in a call centre who could not care less that you have no hot water in -5 conditions with kids under 3 years and will be completely unhelpful,making a booking in about 4 more days when you have to take more time off work at again your own expense! DON'T DO IT!! , pay a couple of hundred more for Worcester Bosch is my recommendation.

 

[Agile]

I am not sure that a posting like that should be permitted on a public forum even if it was not tagging onto a two year old thread.

By all means recant your own experiences in detail including what the fault actually was and then WE can draw our own conclusions as to the service level provided by the manufacturer.

As for buying a Worcester, why Worcester ( apart from the lovely jacket they sent me )? What about Vaillant, Viessmann or Biasi?

Tony

 

[Burt999]

Thanks for your input TONY but it isn't you who has just had to fight through without doubt the worst experience of "so called customer service" i have ever experienced and there are some pretty bad ones out there, so thanks all the same but i stand by my comments.

In relation to Worcester i speak from my past experiences which were positive, i foolishly tried something else to my detriment clearly.

I won't know what exactly the fault is until an engineer attends, but who knows when that will be?

I don't claim to be an expert in the field of gas engineering however i do feel, as should most members of the wider public to be able to comment on what is obviously the demise of customer services in the UK, thanks largely to the call centre industry. I will take my business elsewhere in future .

 

[Agile]

I still stand by what I said. Your experiences are those of just one person who happens to have one particular make of boiler. That does not mean its in any way typical of Ferolli as you may have just been unlucky.

There will be someone, somewhere in the UK who has received very poor service from EVERY boiler maker.

I have just been told by a lady that her Worcester boiler has not been working for a week in spite of several visits by Worcester staff engineers.

It turned out the fault was an external wireless stat but although the staff engineer could have disconnected it and left the boiler working, he was young and inexperienced and refused to even do that. So she had to call ( and pay ) an electrician.

Tony

 

[Happyplumber]

The last ferroli i was called out to had fault on the divertor valve,now the client had five year warranty on it,i phoned ferroli and they had their engineers out in couple days

Absolutely fantastic service and very nice lady who i spoke to ,who got the job done to my and the customers total satisfaction


I must say i had excellent experience as customer and the service was second to none,this totally unbiased opinion of the ferroli service i recieved

 

[Burt999]

I can't help but think ...much like most companies, such as banks and the like that from your responses the apparent service afforded to tradespersons such as yourselves is very different to that received by the individual client. This has nothing to do with bias but could it be that companies offer an improved service when called upon by those in the trade because they rely on people such as yourselves to market the item. Once it is sold to people like me it is clear their interest levels wain somewhat.

 

[Happyplumber]

Burt i phoned customer service just the same as any normal customer and explianed the fault,there was no special treatment because i am an RGI ,appointment made ,job sorted one happy customer

I was polite and factual and she sounded like a veru charming helpful lady,very impressed by the service

By the way i have no affiliation to Ferolli and those who know me ,will also contest to the fact i speak whats on my mind

 

[transam]

We installed a ferroli boiler , it was installed for 2 weeks , think it worked for about a day , in 2 weeks we had 3 service visits , & I made 24 ( no exageration ) calls to there service dept ' in the end we took it out , & installed an alternative make , had trouble getting a refund think it took 6 weeks , never used ferroli since !
Biasi U.K , repaired several of there boilers under warranty , attempted to get parts replaced , did'nt want to know , eventually sent some rep down , picked the parts up , again never replaced , wrote to them , was told they would be investigate the spare part issue , that was 4 years ago ! Biasi decent product , company waste of space !!

 

[Burt999]

Likewise, i hear what you say and i am quite happy to say what is on my mind . I am certainly not going to defend what quite frankly is extremely poor service level, nor make excuses for it, even if i am the unluckiest customer in the UK, i am making my opinion known based on my experience. Equally i don't think it helpful to take the apathetic stance, "that is what everybody else does...." if that is how it is then good luck to the industry , it is not something i would be proud of and companies should be striving to offer the best available service. I can tell you that was not my experience...So i do not speak with bias tongue, i am not in the industry, i simply represent a paying customer who expects a little bit of service and has purchased a boiler that doesn't work exhasberated by a "customer service experience" that was and is a total nightmare....keep smiling out there...

 

[transam]

Burt999 , there are very few installers , that have not lost time money , customers , & had there reputations damaged by boiler manu's ! they are all to eager to blame installers for every thing that go's wrong with there appliances ,
I've listened to them stating how much installation faults cost them , you never here what the cost is to the installer , due to manu. faults !!!