April 6, 2024
Random Acts… Whirlpool’s customer service needs human help
It all started March 5, when I bought a new dishwasher at my favorite kitchen, bath and appliance store, Pirch.
Pirch, based in Southern California, opened in 2018 with luxury showrooms that were akin to a retail Disneyland. A coffee bar with free drinks greeted customers into a showroom where you could take a shower in the bath department to test out fixtures.
My favorite display shared “The Elements of Joy: A Manifesto,” which included sayings like “Live your life NOW,” “Play more, think less,” and “Don’t wait for a special occasion. Life is a special occasion.” All bits of advice I believe in.
Service was always exemplary. Even after installation and delivery, if there was a problem, a human being on the other end of the phone took care of you immediately.
So when I walked into the store in March, a salesman quickly helped me buy a Whirlpool ADA dishwasher that would fit in my limited cabinet space. A project manager contacted me the next week to get logistical details for delivery.
Then nothing.
Two weeks went by and I could not get a delivery date. Emails and phone calls were not returned. This was not the Pirch I had bought things from in the past.
Finally, in frustration, I called the store and reached a human being, a frustrated gentleman who said he was only answering the phone because he felt sorry for all the customers who were calling and didn’t know what was going on.
On March 20, Pirch’s corporate office halted operations, without telling anyone what was planned beyond “temporarily” closing its showrooms. My helpful gentleman, who was a salesperson, said most personnel read the writing on the website and just quit.
I had no idea that Pirch was in financial difficulty, but apparently the company has been unable to pay bills since last fall and is now facing numerous lawsuits. The helpful salesman on the phone looked up my order, which hadn’t been delivered to the store yet, and advised me to cancel the order on the Pirch website, then call American Express and get my money back. Since the order was less than 30 days old, there should be no problem.
Without his help, I could easily have lost the price of the dishwasher. I truly hope he’s found a new job. It’s truly sad when businesses go under, especially stores like Pirch, which had exemplary customer service for years.
Thankfully, Home Depot had the dishwasher I wanted, so I ordered it online. The following week, it was delivered. The installers couldn’t figure out how to install it because my kitchen floor was higher than expected and they couldn’t get the old dishwasher out.
The old GE dishwasher was installed back in 1991, and was just starting to go bad. They don’t make appliances to last like that anymore. Fortunately, the Home Depot installers had a friend who specialized in appliance installation, and he was able to come the next day to install the Whirlpool dishwasher.
Instead of cutting up my kitchen floor, he cut up the old dishwasher and hauled it out that way. The Whirlpool replacement fit just fine, except I couldn’t figure out how to remove the cover from the silverware basket. Instructions said the cover slid off, but it didn’t.
So I called Whirlpool customer service. The automated system said welcome to “the Whirlpool experience.” That was the first clue that the system was designed to never let you speak to a human being. After several attempts to get to one, I just gave up.
After a little online research, I figured out you have to push the sides of the basket in to make the covers pop up. Whoever wrote the owner’s manual clearly had never touched the product.
I miss the customer service at Pirch. It’s a shame that surviving companies like Whirlpool don’t invest more in human interactions with their customers.
After all, people buy dishwashers, not robots.
Dinah Eng 