My Bosch Experience (long)

[Melaine]

I just sent this email to the president of Bosch USA.


Dear Mike,

Let me introduce myself. I'm a blogger, ghost writer, and social media influencer and am in the middle of the worst customer service experience of my life with your company. A few years ago, my parents shared their love of their Bosch dishwasher. I was very impressed with the reviews and their personal endorsement, so, after some research I wrote the a blog post called "Bosch Dishwasher: Worth Every Penny".

This February, I began shopping for a new dishwasher for my home, so of course, I chose a Bosch dishwasher. I was very happy with it, until a plastic piece cracked on the outside of the handle in July. Bosch sent a replacement and scheduled a repair appointment to have it installed for me. To make an unbelievably long story short, my dishwasher has not worked since the moment they attempted that repair. For over two months, I have dealt with an ongoing nightmare of a total of six service calls, countless hours of hold times and fruitless customer service interactions with Bosch. Dealing with no dishwasher has been difficult, but following up with your company's incompetence has been unbelievably infuriating. I'm absolutely floored at the lack of customer care I have received.

For the last two months I have endured a series of incredibly inconvenient, frustrating, and incomplete customer services interactions with both Bosch customer service and the technicians and office staff of Mr. Appliance of Lexington. I have lost hours of work time and dealt with repeating frustration as I have had to continually rearrange my schedule to accommodate so many service appointments with Mr. Appliance. Unfortunately, I have had to constantly follow up with both Bosch and Mr. Appliance to continue to chase down resolution that has yet to be provided.

I was assured over THREE weeks ago that a replacement dishwasher would be provided and that my replacement was approved. I have contacted Bosch at minimum four times since asking for an update on this replacement. At one point, I spoke with a rude customer service rep from Bosch who first told me she had no information on my account at all and then went on to say I had been called and a message was left hours before. I had ZERO missed calls and ZERO voicemail messages on my phone. I have also asked for details on the technician who would be receiving the replacement dishwasher so that I would have some reference to follow up, but this request went ignored like most of my other inquiries.

I have repeatedly asked for a manager to contact me on the phone and via email. Instead I was directed to call back and the main number, and the one time I spoke to a "manager" she assured me I would be contacted to make sure my concerns were addressed and that never happened. That was two weeks ago. I still have not received a call from someone who is actively working on my case; instead I receive incomplete canned responses via email and they usually only arrive after I send multiple requests for information, at times with more than a week without any response at all.

In my optimism, I hoped that at some point, the right person who had a vested interest in Bosch's reputation and my experience as a customer would see my situation and work to rectify it. This has not happened. I am beyond appalled at this fiasco which is well over 2 months old. To be without a dishwasher, again, has been very inconvenient during COVID-19 of all times. But to be put through this horrendous experience as a customer is completely inexcusable. I will be publishing a retraction to my endorsement of your company and I will continue to share my story in my Facebook group with 1300 members, on YouTube, and on other social media outlets. Consumers need to know what they are getting themselves into when they choose Bosch.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Did you also post on their social media? Same with the appliance store. They don't want the bad public publicity. Posting to your personal pages isn't nearly the same. Twitter, Facebook...

[AnnieW625]

Yes to what Snuggle Buggles said. I would also post a blog about it and contact a local tv station about doing one of those consumer affairs segments on it. Great letter and I hope your issue gets solved quickly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[chlobo]

Canned responses are the worst. It's like a robot is responding. They clearly haven't read your email. I feel for you. And I hope we don't end up in the same place. We have aBosch too.

[westwoodmom04]

I also had a bad experience with Bosch. It was probably 10 years ago at this point so I don't bring it up when people are seeking feedback. Basically, the keyboard control unit died in year two -- it was a $400 repair which I actually had done. After doing a ton of internet research , I eventually found out it was a common problem with that model for that year. It took six months to get money back from Bosch for that repair (and it was partial), but I won't ever buy their product again.

[Kindra178]

I’m so sorry this happened to you. Our seven year old Bosch needed a 400 part, so we ended up getting a new one. I know appliances are hard to find right now. Keep at it.


Sent from my iPhone using Baby Bargains

[Kestrel]

Have you thought about what you want, in order to resolve? I would ask for written extended warranty . Maybe you want a higher end model instead? Just think about it, so you don't have to answer on the spot.
So sorry you're having to deal with this mess.

[Jeanne]

Love it! Try to publicize the ever loving s&$t out of it. I’m beyond done with nonsense like this. You don’t get to call yourself a durable good when you are anything but.

[Melaine]

So unfortunately I did miss a call back from Bosch Executive Office. It did sound like the woman was sorry about my experience. She left a voicemail: "I am so sorry for everything you've been encountering. I wanted to reach out to know that we received your email and that you are aware we will address everything that's been going on with your file and address that with the appropriate teammates you have been in correspondence with. I can be reached directly at xxxxxxx"

She went on to say that my replacement dishwasher is in the "shipping process" and will arrive by the end of next week. At that point the installer will call me to schedule the replacement.

I called her back within an hour and left a message but she did not return my call. (this was thursday).

There is absolutely nothing Bosch can do to fix this situation for me. I believe what they should have done was offer me a higher end dishwasher and more importantly, to overnight it to me or expedite the shipping. No such offers have been made and in fact, when she "checked" on the status of my order if it is still a week from delivery I wouldn't be surprised if she placed the order herself. It was only supposed to take 7-10 days and theoretically would have been ordered three+ weeks ago when I was told the issue was being resolved. What I wanted, was to be able to talk to an upper management supervisor and explain how incredibly frustrating this situation has been, and to get some kind of explaination. The problem for the consumer is, I have dealt with SO MANY DIFFERENT Bosch customer support employees from the beginning to the end and NOT ONE looked at my situation, checked the dates, and said, "Wow, this is taking way too long and we need to resolve this situation for our customer". Not one of them did that. Which tells me this is a widespread problem with their company that extends across multiple levels.

Bottom line, Bosch seems to think it is acceptable for a 6 month old dishwasher to be broken for 9 weeks without doing everything in their power to stand by their warranty and honor it for the customer. They do not mind their customer having to spend hours HOURS of time on the phone trying to get resolution. Bosch's customer service team makes statements that are completely incongruous with whoever is answering their customer service emails. They do not take proactive action to serve their customers. They do not call in response to multiple requests for updates. Even the managers do not do what they say they will do (I simply asked for someone working on my case to CALL me, manager said she would have them follow up, they did not). There is no way this lack of customer care was isolated to my case because I dealt with so many employees and not one of them did right by me. I'm beyond shocked and will be sharing this information with everyone I know.

[dogmom]

I am wondering how the pandemic has effected any of your customer service experiences. More people are spending more time at home using their appliances more and they are breaking and or upgrading. I’ve read several articles of how popular appliances are back ordered for months and they don’t expect the supply to catch up with the demand until mid 2021. Things are breaking more and repair people are hard to find and booked out. I think sadly this is probably normal for now.

Honestly, I would be grateful if it was my dishwasher that went this year vs an oven or a washing machine. I can hand wash my dishes easier. It would suck, but the others are worse.