The customer service end of it rests 110% on the dealer, no manufacturers deal directly with customers, and real pros know that. Also, Lim did not blame SVC, he pointed to the installing tech's responsibility to ensure proper install and diagnose problems professionally. You keep saying it is Lim's job to do what Steve did, and it ISNT, it is the DEALER'S job. Period. That is the pump industry, and has been for 50 years or more. Manufacturer's only supply and honor proper warranty requests. Everything else rests on the dealer/installer.
I stand by my comments. It is the dealer/installer's technician's responsiblity to provide the testing and the professionally presented technical data that proves the warranty claim is valid. It is the tech's job to prove it is a warranty issue.
In fact, if we want to get to bare knuckles, the dealer makes more money per pump sale than the manufacturer. The retail is usually exactly double the wholesale price and the manufacturer has to pay for the parts, assembly, packaging, advertising, and do the technician's job too??? Just in the structure of this deal, the dealer made money, the customer got a pump, and Lim lost money, both in future sales and in equipment losses.
As for you statement about what other manufacturer do, not in my decades of experience with them. They DO NOT get on the phone or in any way communicate with residential customers. Only on occassion do they even come to job sites for huge industrial projects of epic proportion and cash volume. Thinking Lim is supposed to drive to a residence is nuts. Anyone who expects that is NOT a professional with experience in the industry. I do not care if it is 10 feet away, it aint his job!!! This is the first in my life I have ever even heard of such a ludicrous request by a dealer from a pump manufacturer for residential products. In hvac, we have to wait weeks and even months to get a factory rep to a jobsite with over a million dollars of equipment on it. If my sequence fails, I am not expecting them to send the factory owner to
PR to check the pump.
Also, I should have included in all fairness to Waterway, cutting corners is one of many possible ways this could have slipped through, could have been an employee just taking a bathroom break or a check/test equipment failure or calibration problem.
Part of eing professional is having the experience to know your industry and do your own diagnosing and dealing with the customer. It was the dealer who was not properly staffed with trained and qualified testing personell and equipment. THAT is the industry standard, and has been for a LOOONG time.
Also, Lim never blamed the customer, he placed the blame where it belonged, on the installing technician. Its the techs job to diagnose problem accurately and it should have been done before he left the jobsite the first day the pump was turned on. A problem like that was visibly apparent to any tech who professionally checked over his work, and if he was properly trained, he would know exactly how to describe it in writing to secure the warranty. Steve did it for you, not Lim, he should bill you. THAT is the industry norm.
In building controls we charge $110 to do that, per hour. If it takes two hours to hook a pump up while we drink coffee, that is just too bad for you. A man has to drink his coffe to be able to work hard now doesn't he? And here is the kicker, we would not even tell you the pump was bad, we would tell you our controls data indicates it may be bad, you will have to call a product oriented service company to verify it and do the replacement. Then we can come back to verify it has been replaced and the controls data now indicates it runs properly. I bet that would wrinkle your shorts real fast. But hey, that is the truly professional way to do it. Otherwise errors could be made, and in critical applications, errors are intolerable and possibly fatal. I mean, you don't want to wind up doing the 220v jig do you?
Also, we do not tolerate cheapo coffee, or we WILL leave the jobsite to get some for all the employees, both ours and yours. Like they say in the IBM research facilities, "Hard work is hardly work. Who brought the donuts?"