And more cold shoulders.
So the continuing story of our Northwest Natural nightmare continues. I called my mom after the last post, to make sure I wasn’t crazy and see if she had any suggestions. We both came to the conclusion that I needed to call back and talk to a supervisor.
I called, talked to the first available person and was treated to a much more pleasant experience. The operator, who gave me her name, but I didn’t catch it, listened to a short monologue on why I needed gas turned on today, but, inevitably, she returned the same information as on my first call: no gas until Tuesday.
Using a similar tactic from the morning, I asked if there was any sum of money I could pay to get someone out here. With that, she said she’d look into after-hours services (which, obviously, cost more). I would have been fine paying more, but she returned with no solution. This weekend (a holiday weekend for some, apparently), they can’t seem to bring anyone out.
At that point, I asked if I could file a formal complaint, which she said she could and then pass along to a supervisor. With that word, I asked if I could get bumped up. She said they would have to call me back, but I pressed until she sent me up to a 2nd Tier Senior Representative. They, essentially, said that they would just have a Supervisor call me back because they couldn’t do anything, so I pressed that I get a call back immediately, and she indicated that she could.
I hung up the phone, a little worried that I wouldn’t hear anything, but I got a call back within a few minutes. Unfortunately, it was the Senior Rep. again, telling me that they could push it back to Monday and at no extra charge, to boot. I accepted and thanked her, trying to think if it was truly good enough. I’m going to think some more, and see if I want to press once more to move it back any further. I have a feeling that if I insisted on speaking with a Supervisor, I could get it moved to tonight, as they don’t work on weekends (and they better not think Friday is a weekend, it’s my weekend, but I don’t supply always-on utilities for countless homes).
The best thing to take away was that everyone was nice this time around. I’m guessing it had something to do with everyone getting their morning shot of caffeine, but the Senior Rep. actually empathized (real or not, it doesn’t matter) over the trouble of starting service with moving into a new home. Which, I’m happy she did, but, ultimately, it could be resolved for many new homeowners by taking my postcard suggestion.
Update (2007-11-09 10:02am): I decided to put another call in and just ask that I get a call back form a supervisor. That was well accepted and the guy that I talked to was quite helpful. He just got my information, sent it off, and now I wait.