A&E Factory Service

If I could leave no stars, I would. I have been without a working dishwasher now for almost a month (the dishwasher is 2 years old and top-of-the-line KitchenAid. So, it is something that you should easily find parts for). The timeline is as follows: We placed a service request with American Home Shield & assigned to A&E. A&E called me to schedule an appointment and when I talked to the help desk, I gave them the gate code for the neighborhood. We waited a week to get a tech to the house to diagnose the issue. They give you a time slot between 8 & 5 p.m. (nah, we don't work for a living) they don't provide a courtesy text notifying you they are on the way. The original tech shows up and takes five minutes to diagnose the issue and tell us he has to order the parts. Orders the part. It takes over 3 weeks to get the part (delivered to the house). We have to schedule the appointment online for the return visit to fix it (wait a week). New tech shows up (between 8 & 5 with no text that he is on his way), he has no gate code & leaves. I got an email that he could not get in (could have texted me) & I will have to reschedule again. Now I have to take another day and wait for them.

The repairman was very unprofessional and rude. He did not know how to talk to or treat me as the customer. I have to say he was very confident in himself and seemed to know what he was doing but was unable to communicate effectively with me the customer to explain the problem and let me ask questions before I approved the $400 repair. He said he had four more customers to go. (Indicating he didn't have time to explain the problem). I told him I was his present customer. He called his company from my kitchen and told someone that I was cussing him out and was using vulgar language with him. He lied about that. ( The only thing that I can think might have been the least little bit offensive is the word "h***" which wasn't directed at him). I asked him to let me talk to his supervisor. He declined. I asked him to have is supervisor call me and he declined. He complained that my roads were tearing up his van. When he first drove up to my house his first words was "I have 15 minutes left in my lunch". I told him to park under a shade tree and finish lunch. Later he came in my house and said he had 3 minutes left for lunch before he could start working. My wife witnessed his behavior. Finally he left without repairing the oven.

I gave an overall grade of D because in the end my oven was fixed. It was the process of getting there that was frustrating and infuriating. My oven started beeping and showed a fault code. I have a service contract so I called that number. They put me in touch with A&E. A technician came out the day after my first call. He diagnosed that the relay board needed replacement. He ordered the part which arrived about 4 days later. A second technician came out and said that the relay board was not the problem but the control panel, and he ordered that on an emergency basis, but still didn't come for 4 days. The second technician said we also needed an electrician because there was no power going to the oven (he had disconnected it, according to the next set of technicians). Two more technicians came out, pulled the whole oven out of the wall, replaced the control panel AND relay board. This was all done under my service contract so I did not have to pay anything. HOWEVER, we paid plenty in time and frustration and discourteous and horrible customer service. The customer reps do not speak English as a first language, so it is difficult to communicate with them. When I asked to speak to a manager several times, first they told me the manager would tell me the same thing, and then they hung up on me. We called several times to find out when the part would be delivered so that we could schedule the service visit. They gave us a tracking number and said "You can look it up yourself." We asked to be connected to the parts department. They said there is no phone there. This is 2015! How could there not be a phone there? And each time we called, the person told us to call back and ask for them, but when we did that, no one knew who we were talking about. In my opinion, this repair did not need to take two weeks. If the first technician had diagnosed the problem correctly, the correct parts would have been shipped out and the second technician could have fixed it. Although I doubt that, because the second technician thought he was here for a dishwasher and not the oven, and said oven repairs require two people! And by disconnecting the wires to the control panel, he made more problems than we had to begin with. When I called the service contract provider, I told them about this terrible service, and they said next time I could request a different service company. It seems that A&E is a Sears service company, and we have had other difficult interactions with Sears over other appliances. I'm just happy that my oven is working now. Next time I might pay a reputable service company for parts and labor, rather than get free service and parts through this very difficult company.

we have found out that now both Sears and Home depot have contracted out their repairs to this national repair service company. the problem? several. first, the different repair guys don't trust each other. for one stacked washer dryer machine, I am told by one that it is better to have the stacked unit lean towards the back so it won't move, while the second one stated that is not correct, attempted to fix the problem and did not succeed. second, to repair a washer, they have to come over 4 times because they keep forgetting something. third, they don't call if they are late and if you do call the customer service, they have no idea where and why there is a delay. one day I had scheduled a repair for my washer, and it was supposed to be between 1 and 5. by 4:30 no one has showed up and I called the 1800 number. they did not have any idea where the repair guy was nor they wanted to reschedule, as I was suggesting. they asked me to wait and when i called them back at 6pm to tell them that no one showed up and I needed to leave, they still had no idea of where the repair guys is. I asked to call to a supervisor and they hanged up the call. I tried to call back 4 times and the same thing happened. as soon as I ask for a supervisor, they hang up the phone on you. forth, they are not responsive to customers. when trying to reschedule the appointment described above, they kept hanging the phone on me. so I had to call Home depot and talk to the person who sold us the washer who called their headquarters to get someone to schedule another appointment... even with that, only because by chance that day I had the repair of a dishwasher, the A&E repair guy intervened and called his boss to get someone there and finally 24 hrs later someone showed up. last, it is impossible to make any complaints. the customer service hangs up on you when you try to talk to a supervisor, if you leave a bad comment with the survey at the end of the service, either it gets deleted by their computer system or no one ever calls you back. so beware, if you are going to purchase anything from Sears or Home Depot, you will have terrible repair service from A&E.