On the weekend I managed to kill my Bissell vacuum cleaner; it’s nothing major, just the hose collapsed.

Trying to organise the warranty claim for the hose is a bit of a joke, but was at least resolved to my satisfaction within one day.

I began by calling the Bissell enquiry line (a 1800 number, so at least it was free).  None of the options specifically covered warranty claims, so I selected the “Service and Parts” option.  This transferred me to another company in Melbourne who had no idea about the warranty situation for NSW.  The guy on the phone was quite helpful and suggested I contact Bissell again and talk to someone in the NSW office, he also suggested I could arrange to send the collapsed hose to him along with proof of purchase and he would send me a replacement hose.

I called the 1800 number a second time and selected the NSW office from the options.  The lady who answered the phone told me that warranty support was provided by my place of purchase.

My third phone call was to Chandlers in Lismore.  They checked their stock level to determine if they could just replace the hose from their normal stock, unfortunately they did not have any of this vacuum cleaner in stock.  They told me I could either bring the vacuum cleaner into their shop and they would arrange to send the whole machine to the service agent, or I could contact the service agent and see if they had another solution to get the hose replaced.

My fourth phone call was to the service agent in Brisbane.  The service agent said there would be no problem, but I would need to talk to some guy named Peter Cosgrove.  They provided me with his mobile phone number.

My fifth and final call was to Peter Cosgrove who turns out to be an employee of Bissell.  He told me to fax through proof of purchase and a note about the problem, he would then arrange to get a new hose sent to me.

I am now awaiting a new hose in the mail.

Peter seems to understand the idea of customer service and warranty support for Bissell products, and it would have been a much easier process to get sorted out if the phone system at Bissell was better configured, or if the staff at Bissell had just forwarded my call to Peter without making me run around to get his number.

Over all, I am happy with the end result of this process, but I feel the process could be better streamlined in future.

In February 2008 I purchased a Daewoo Electronics Fridge from Chandlers in Lismore.

The fridge has run well for 1 year, but it is now making some nasty noises; noises that Daewoo has said could be due to a faulty part in the fridge.  As the fridge is only 1 year old it is still under warranty (it comes with a 2 year warranty and I paid the extra for the 5 year extended warranty).

I called Castel Electronics (the Australian distributor and warranty provider) and logged the fault.  After a couple of days they called me back and said they have no-one who services my area and they have been unable to find anyone who can assist.  They then told me there would be a $55 call-out fee for a service agent from Lismore to attend my house to investigate the fault.

I decided that this sounded like a rip-off and tried calling a local fridge repair company (I looked it up in the yellow pages).  They recommended I call a person in Casino who is often in the area.

I contacted Russell Kennedy (from Kennedy’s Appliance Repairs) and he told me he is an authorised service agent for Daewoo, he also told me that he is in my area twice a week and that there is no call out fee.

Since then I have tried contacting Castel Electronics twice.  The first time the person I needed to talk to was unavailable so I left a message for him to call me back.  I missed the call at 18:15 whilst I was riding my motorbike home in the rain.  I then called again today and was told he was once again unavailable.  I wonder when I will get a call back this time!

Basically I think it is showing poor customer service for this company to have been unable to locate a local repairer (when I was able to do so with just 2 phone calls and no more than 15 minutes of my time).  Additionally, having only one staff member who is able to handle my warranty situation is also poor and reflects badly on Castel Electronics.

I don’t think I will buy another Daewoo product again!