For those who have been following our experiences with Gutter Helmet over the last five years (collected articles here), it’s time for an update.

About three weeks ago, we were contacted by the regional Gutter Helmet franchisee for New England, trying to find out what they could do to make us happy.

Why would they do this?

Well, if you do a Google search for “gutter hemet”, one of my blog posts detailing our negative experience back in 2005 is the third unpaid item on the list. It seems that they have gotten wise to the effect my simple blog posts were having on their reputation and brand.

Just for reference, I went back and looked in my logs for as long as I have them. I get on average 500 distinct page views a month for my Gutter Helmet posts and this number goes up substantially during peak gutter installation season.

“Gutter Helmet” is the number one search term coming into my site. And what people see when they get to my site is likely not the message the Gutter Helmet folks want to get across.

[Editor's Note: As someone who writes mainly about Web performance and social media, this traffic trend is disturbing. But it also shows that you never know what will resonate with your audience until you write it!]

This past Friday, Gutter Helmet sent someone out to repair the situation. He found incorrectly installed (or missing) flashing and improperly installed helmet on both sides of the house. In the end, the entire helmet installation was replaced, and new flashing was installed.

Until we get Fall rains and the Winter snow returns, we won’t really know how successful this new install was, so stayed glued to your browsers for further updates.

Flying back from SFO after a long and frustrating week introduced me to a new rule that UAL gate staff have been asked to start enforcing. Apparently, my Premier status, which I realize is the lowest of the frequent-flyer levels, means even less now than it did in the past.

Over my career, I had settled on UAL as my carrier of choice. Flying out of SFO for the first 4.5 years in the US meant that UAL was the primary choice to get anywhere. After a while, I became a devoted UAL fan when I realized that in this day of limited overhead bin room having Premier status got you the vaunted 1 on your boarding pass.

I could accept that First-Class and 1K flyers got to board ahead of me – hell, they’re on a first-name basis with most of the flight crews. This didn’t bother me because I knew that I got to board next.

Friday, that changed.

Apparently, the rule is that Premier Executive now rates between the Red Doormat Club and the Premier status flyers.

I have commented in the past about how people who travel a great deal assume too much from their airline frequent-flyer plans. I do not want to become one of these people. All I ask is that this single privilege I had grown accustomed to having be re-instated. I know my travel money doesn’t have a huge effect on your bottom-line, but I stuck with you through thick and thin.

But now this is a really thick move, and my patience has grown thin.

So, in my second rant of the day, I am falling back to my favourite target of tension: Gutter Helmet. This long-running saga in one that I wish I had never been involved in, and in 20/20 hindsight, I wish that I had just chosen to go with standard gutters, rather than some gadgety gimmick that is installed by a company that seems to value customer service about 14th on their Top Ten list.

The latest installment has come about because one, if not more, of our downspouts is now blocked with … something. The thing is that these top-of-the-line gadgets should never become clogged. And if they do, we have a lifetime maintenance guarantee.

Well, they guarantee that maintenance will occur sometime in my lifetime.

It will be nearly 8 weeks since I called before the service person can come out and clean out a downspout. They said that it would happen this week (week of August 17th), but then changed their minds and moved the date out to the week of (maybe the day of?) September 3rd.

It’s not a hard fix. It shouldn’t take that long. And I know that the weather hasn’t been that great. But 8 weeks is a little long, especially for someone whose installation experience is already so far past acceptable.

So, below, I have created a little poll to get a feeling for how other folks with Gutter Helmet installs feel about their decision. Let us know!

[poll id="3"]

I actually upgraded my phone through T-Mobile about a month ago, and it was a mistake. I went with the Free upgrade (mistake number one) and chose the Samsung SGH-T619.

It’s a piece of crap. I guess I should have known that when I chose the free upgrade.

My biggest complaint: it won’t send text messages. That’s right, one of the core features of any mobile phone, and this lousy hunk of plastic won’t do it. Every time I try to send a message, the phone says it couldn’t do it, retry?

So I send an email to the customer service at T-Mobile. Complete form letter reply.

I’m going to throw this lousy phone in a drawer, and likely pay the penalty to switch to Cingular/ATT Mobile.

I am finally fed up.

Tags: T-Mobile, TMobile, Samsung, T619, SGH-T619, SMS, Text message, lousy service

So, I called United today to see if there were any special procedures I had to follow when we arrived at Logan on June 26, as Ms. Wiggles is going to Canada with us.

Turns out that they had completely screwed up our flights. And hadn’t bothered to inform us that they had changed the flights.

So, I forced someone cold and impersonal operator (who I am STILL on the phone with) to re-book our tickets so that we had enough time at O’Hare to actually make our connecting flights.

That’s it. They blew it. United is done.

Sorry United. You will have to do something pretty damn special to get me back as a customer after this.

Technorati Tags: United, UAL, customer service, customer disservice

Ok, finally got some action from the people at the Customer Service Centre for Gutter Helmet towards helping us fix the final drip between the house and the gutter. This drip is, of course, right over the back door and targets anyone leaving the house when its raining.

The Customer Service Centre was having some trouble reaching their technician. Lucky for them, the technician was across the street, working on our neighbour’s house. Maybe we should have told them…?

So, I call Samantha, and Samantha goes across the street to ask the gentleman to call in and speak to the rep handling our case.

Samantha called me after she did this and said that the technician did everything short of growl and bare his teeth at her.

Look, Gutter Helmet: your on-the-ground “technicians” are the face of your company (except for the fast-talking sales dudes). This is the third — yes, THIRD — technician we have encountered who has had the customer service skills of a molotov cocktail.

We don’t ask for much; a little civility is all that is required.

“Yes ma’am. The Customer Service Rep got a hold of me and I will come over as soon as I’m done here. Thank you.”

That’s all it takes.

<SIGH>

UPDATE (to the update): When Tracy from the Customer Service Centre called me back to follow-up, I told her that the technician had been and this had been confirmed by Samantha.

I then told her about the technician’s attitude. In fact, it was the same technician who had come out previously, and given us some attitude. And the bad news was, he had also given Tracy some attitude.

Maybe this will be the final post on this topic.

Hey everybody! Looks like someone else had a bad experience with a Gutter Helmet installer. [here]

Berry was dismayed to discover that his $3,500 gutter-protection system appeared to be inviting one of the very maintenance nightmares it was supposed to protect against: roof rot. Two leaks sprang up after the pricey helmets had been installed, he claimed, which caused rainwater to build up underneath the custom-fitted panels and drip down behind the gutter “for days” after a rainfall.

Hmmm…I sure hope that my local rep manages to find some time in his busy schedule to call me back. Soon.

IceRocket: Gutter Helmet, gutters, contractors, customer service

The update on my Gutter Helmet posts (1 and 2) is that there is no update.

We received a phone call from a local Gutter Helmet rep about 2 weeks ago. He spoke to Samantha who, outlined some of our concerns and issues. I then called and left him a message last week, re-iterating these same concerns, and noting that there was still a leak between the new roof and the new gutters which needed to be fixed by flashing.

Nothing. No response. Silence.

I know it’s Gutter Helmet’s busy season. I know this because the number of hits to my previous posts are increasing.

Maybe some customers are experiencing better installations; I hope so. All I can do is continue to recount my experience to you.

IceRocket: Gutter Helmet, gutters, contractors, customer service

Rumour over at Techdirt is that United Airlines is going to offer very pricey WiFi to their passengers. [here]

Scoble tells us that SAS offers this service for $30. On a flight to Europe or to the West Coast, $30 for connected WiFi is a very good deal.

However, Scoble also points out the other problem: power.

United is where I collect my airline loyalty miles. If they would get some customer service, I would be happy to fly with them more often.

Peter Davidson has more on this here.

TECHNORATI: WiFi, United Airlines, Scoble, Boeing, SAS

Seth Godin pointed this out. [here]

They will probably start legal action against me for posting this.