www.ihateviessmann.com effecting my business (The Youngster)

John R. Hall

As soon as someone has a gripe about products and services they can post their displeasure on the Net. It then becomes a global issue. I wonder how many Wallies and visitors here realize that at this very moment there are websites where their customers (or former customers) are raking them over the coals -- without them even being aware of it. For every website like the one in this story, there are equal numbers of ones that you aren't even aware of. I've given a couple of them free ink in prior published articles and feel free to e-mail me offline if you'd like their URLs -- no sense giving them any more PR at this time.

It's a shame that one person can do so much damage with the click of a mouse. This is an interesting topic and I thank everyone for giving me fodder for another feature story.

Josh_10

I was trying to sell a customer on the reliability of a Vitodens 200 today and my customer quoted www.ihateviessmann.com.

I managed to put my customer at ease and sell the thing based on great local representation and a good supplier.

I hope this guy realizes what he's doing. It isn't a problem with Viessmann, it's a problem with his local representation.

Now its my problem and I'm over 2000 miles away!

Weezbo

the problem with being informed is

you have Got to identify the Source... and to be truly informed one needs examine the Source. opposing viewpoints are great. that helps clear up propaganda , self interests and private agendas...

DanHolohan

But, Josh.

You made the sale and that's a credit to you and your ability to show your client the big picture. Well done.

Josh_10

That's true Dan.

I guess I was a little frazzled because one of my focus points on the sale was reliability. I'm just glad I knew the facts first.

Imagine how it would have turned out if I wasn't an informed "Wallie!"

Weezbo

Good for You

"thats a Fact, Jack!"

i Love this place

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)_2

You might

want to take a few minutes to document what occured. The Internet has proven to be fertile grounds for legal actions. Although the HO in question claims he's simply trying to give Viessmann friendly advice, the web site's URL would indicate he'd rather communicate with a club. Had he chosen a less classy company to denigrate, he might have found himself tangled up in an ugly and very costly lawsuit. The fact that his actions caused you problems indicates he may very well be adversely affecting Viessmann's sales and possibly doing so without reasonable merit. Freedom of speech carries with it a burden of responsibility.

Paul Fredricks_3

Actually,

Josh, the website helped your business. Nothing makes you a better salesman, and we all are one way or another, than having to fight this type of information. You are better for it and have grabbed one more wrung on the professionals ladder.

Unknown

As long as the incident occurred, the homeowner is not committing libel or slander, so I'm not sure exactly what kind of suit you think could happen?

He could sit out in front of viessmann headquarters with a sandwich board and flyers too, totally legal.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)_2

not exactly

If your actions directly and adversely affect a business, you can be held liable. But, even if you can't be held liable, the costs to defend yourself can be daunting.

Starting off with IHATE anything is not a friendly gesture, no matter how you frame the content that follows. (That'd be like us having a conversation about your design business - starting with me punching you in the mouth! Naturally, I'd expect you might feel entitled to punch me back. If you were a really nice gent with a turn-the-other-cheek attitude, I might get that first cheap shot for free, but I sure as heck wouldn't expect to get a second one for free!) You'd have a tough time making the case that you were really just trying to offer just a bit of reasoned and friendly advice. Most folks, from what I've read, don't read far beyond the title.

Here you've already got one contractor noting it caused a customer to question the product. Although he was able to overcome and allay the customers' concerns, it raises the issue that the HO's URL and site have adversely impacted Viessmann. You & I both know that out of all the companies we deal with, Viessmann stands heads & shoulders above the crowd - along with a select few.

There are other lesser companies, and you know who I mean, who would have already unleashed their lawyers.

Weezbo

))

i just got a screaming deal on a 200 . Lol. maybe they are doing Viessmann a favor. i really don't believe in advertisement , however, i once heard it said, "that even Bad advertisement is good advertisement"

whatta DEAL!

God always looks out for me . man i am a lucky chap:)

Say, i wonder if someone would mind bad mouthing Wilos Stratus for me )

Derheatmeister

*?/:) Whatever if you can not reveal youself! Richard from heatmeister. ho ar yu?

Derheatmeister

Hey .Josh how many 200's do you have out there?

Home owner_2

Viessman

I have to agree with the homeowner the service (if True) was horrible. There are many contractors and supply houses selling boilers and they do not stock any spare parts for them. I think most homeowners assume when they buy a well known product that parts are readily available. If this persons website makes other owners aware of the problem obtaining parts for a boiler it may make them ask more questions when they have one installed. How many customers know they need to ask their contractor can you get parts for this boiler in a timely manner? or do you know how to fix it? Thumbs Up for his website.

Weezbo

every time i get side swiped by the bots

lose all my posts and saved threads i begin to wonder.

my pen name is Weezbo

Maine Doug_70

The title of his

website is an expression of his feelings or thoughts of a company. It is not a statement of a false fact about the company. He documents a series of events that took place and it appears that there is sufficient information from other sources that his statements appear to be factually correct.
If Viessmann were to bring suit, I bet the outcome would be a lot of worse publicity. The web would be full of blogs in a day about how a homeowner bought an expensive boiler that stopped working, how he and his family were left without heat while he and his contractor went around in circles trying to get a common part.

Lesser companies would have unleashed their lawyers precisely because they are lesser companies and use lawyers to achieve what they themselves can not do which is to be greater companies.

Josh_10

I completely disagree. This was an isolated incident. We DON'T have that problem in our area. It's not Viessmann, it's his supply house.

Unknown

they could unleash lawyers, sure, but he's done nothing illegal. it would be an intimidation tactic only (perhaps successful, but still not a question of legality).

It's not slander. You are allowed to be pissed at a company, and you are allowed to recount your experience to as many people as you like, including registering a web page and posting the whole story there, standing in front of the company's entrance with a picket sign, talking to your friends, taking out radio ads, whatever.

As long as you are not making stuff up, it's legal. It's not illegal to "hurt someone's business". It's illegal to make stuff up to hurt people's business.

edit: you already said all that. sorry!!

jp_2

whistle blower then held liable

your logic then asserts that a whistle blower can be held liable.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

nope, missed the intent and point

Rob, thanks for seeing the intent. JP, whistle blowers don't get much protection. Recent case in point - TMI video of sleeping guards. Not saying it's right that the whistle blower ended up canned, but that's the harsh reality.

Run up against someone with deep pockets who files suits at the drop of a hat & you'll be facing huge legal bills. The legal system in this country does not punish those who file no-merit lawsuits as they do in England where the loser pays for all costs. In this country, you can be sued for anything by anyone at any time without really needing a sound reason. Being right doesn't equate being immune from legal costs that can wipe out a lifetime of savings.

I'd want to be on rock-solid ground before taking a broad swipe these days. Remember the two-part expose I wrote about getting certified as a home inspector? Everything I put in that article was factual. I had (still do) evidence to back up what I wrote. We narrowly averted a lawsuit and the offended party had already retained a lawyer in my home town to begin action on the case. As I came to learn later, that's the owner's style & habit.

If you're up against someone or a company that doesn't care about tossing multiple thousands to squash free speech, you're going to be spending freely to defend yourself.

Whatever happened to the contractor being sued by some larger company (in NY???) because the big deep-pocket company decided he (the little guy) couldn't keep his company name? They wanted it.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

bingo

Maine Doug_70

The whistle blower

change appears to be recent. Previously Whistle Blowers were afforded protections from vengeful government administrations and corporations. As usual money buys corporate protection for their bad deeds and mis-behaviour.

It is a bit much when guards are sleeping at nuke facilities and the company is allowed to persue a whistle blower. Why arn't people outraged about this? The infamous Department of Homeland Security is only concerned with some types or kinds of security? Maybe we should rename it the Department of Homeland Obscurity.

Just eat that burger that the other Department of we are watching your Food Supply. Otherwise known as DOPOOP. Department of Protection of our Patties.

Bruce M

I have to disagree

I read Dan's posts and his website. He clearly stated that he was treated rudely by Viessmann. Now it is just smart business sense that if a company is selling a premium priced product that they should offer premium service and polite customer service. The longer the supply chain the bigger the risk of problems. In this case the part comes from Germany and goes to Viessmann USA and then to the wholesaler and then to the service person/contractor and then to the customer. If Viessmann does not require it's wholesalers to stock parts that can mean an unhappy customer. Does your wholesaler stock parts in any quantity?

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

PA

is a terminate-at-will state. You can fire anyone for any reason. That's why we have unemployment compensation and wrongful termination suits. Not saying that's a fair deal, but it is what it is. TMI is less than 10-miles from my home. Not sure how the WB handled exposing his employeer, but the video has been seen round the world and made the National News.

dblagent007

No Sympathy for Viessman Here

Viessman got what they deserved. They treated this guy like crap and they are getting exactly what they dished out. I mean how hard is it to overnight the part to the installer when it is a freakin EMERGENCY!!!!

I recently priced a Viessman boiler/water heater combo for my home and it was $10k more than the Prestige boiler/water heater. I went with the Prestige. However, if I had plunked down an extra $10k for Viessman, you can bet that I would expect them to move heaven and earth to get a part to me so I didn't have to sit in a cold house for four to five days.

Bruce M

Not Exactly

Pennsylvania may be a terminate-at-will state but PA law does not supersede Federal law. You can not fire someone for age discrimination, sexual orientation, religion or nationality. If you try to do that you will surely regret it.

jackchips_2

Now Bruce,

we all know what Dave meant.

Most intelligent people, when they fire someone, don't say "and that's for being an old, Catholic, Polack, white male". Of which I am all four, except old (only 61).

They don't have to say anything except "You're fired".

But then, you knew that.

Jack

Constantin

Hmmm....

... I don't disagree that being without heat for a couple of days is unacceptable. That said, consider a couple of things...

Any manufacturer that bypasses the distribution chain will be blacklisted by wholesalers, even if its only done on an emergency basis. Repair parts offer some of the fattest margins in the business, no one wants to be cut out of that loop. Instead, the wholesaler will insist on the parts being sent to him/her, so that they can still apply their markup.

You could build your business on the Dell model and do everything direct, but even Dell is now cutting deals with bricks and mortar places to extend its distribution.

The bottom line is that installing hydronic heat is a novelty for much of the US. Spare parts are thus not going to be in such great supply as parts for furnaces... on average, about 12x more furnaces are around as boilers... On the other hand, I imagine that getting parts for furnaces in Europe could get interesting, considering that 99% of EU homes use hydronic heat.

While I can empathize with the homeowner who was without heat for 4 days, I do question why the installer had no better options available for his customer to tide him over. Whether this means keeping a lineup of boilers ready for installation / cannibalization, a small boiler that can be plumbed in for emergencies, trailer-mounted solutions, window furnaces, etc. Either way, there are lots and lots of different ways to keep the place warm while parts are in transit.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

I don't know about the heaven & earth thing...

but every time I've needed pieces/parts my wholesaler contacts the rep and things get done - rapidly. Whenever I've wanted technical help, the folks at Viessmann have been quick to respond. Maybe we have an unusually great team of distribution folks who "get it" where customer service is concerned.

York used to be like dealing with the Slowskis (TV turtles). That kind of wait was the norm. In the past few years, they've juiced up their response times & they're now a pleasure to deal with (in my area). Same or next day is now the norm.

Everyone in the industry should take a lesson on how Graingers handles orders. Smooottthhhhhh!

Nelson_5

domain names and trademarks

I am not a lawyer, but my guess is that Viessmann could shut down the site via a domain name dispute (www.icann.org) since the usage is a bad faith violation of Viessmann's trademark. I've read about several similar disputes that have all been resolved in favor of the trademark holder.

Tim

[Deleted User]

grainger or mcmaster-carr

are A-#1 in my book! in fact, grainger replaced a complete unit heater free of charge for my customer recently, when they couldn't provide the warrantied heat exchanger for the old unit

and by the way, is that a proprietary gas valve on the viessmann?

Paul Pollets

BTW

I'm amazed at the response this has generated. As it turns out, Viessmann shipped the part within 3 hours of the call. The screw-up happened at the Michigan end of the shipping chain.

For the Prestige owner, it sounds like you're pissed that Viessmann costs more...That's the way the world turns. Better products and engineering have a higher cost, especially when you price the Euro vs. the dollar. Do people curse at Mercedes after they buy a VW because it costs more? Or wish it ill will? Small Thinking.

There are always 2 sides to a story. Many want to jump on a company's reputation without really knowing the real deal.





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Uni R_2

Why Tim?

I was under the impression that domain name disputes were for "having" access to the name / URL. Do you think Viessmann would want to be the official registrar for that domain name? I'm sure if all it took was bad faith to shut down a web site, www.microsoftsucks.com wouldn't exist.

Bruce M

We May Know What he Meant

Yes, I agree with the fact that we may know what he meant but in most cases so does the person who was fired. If they fall into one of the protected classes you can be fairly sure of a complaint.

dblagent007

Paul, I don't know where you are getting three hours, but the timeline provided on the website sure doesn't support a three hour turn-around. The guy's boiler died on Wednesday. The part was ordered on Thursday:

"Nu-Way Supply faxes the order to Viessmann, but doesn't follow up to make sure Viessmann received the order. Viessmann now claims they never received an order from Nu-Way Supply, thus the blame finger-pointing begins."

Now, one party is at fault here, and I don't think we can rule out Viessmann.

By Friday, Viessmann knew all about this guy's problem. They even initially approved the HVAC guy as a dealer to get the part to him by Saturday - well until the higher-ups kaboshed the whole deal. They still didn't ship it on Friday. They finally got it to him by Monday afternoon, but they should have had it there by Saturday at the latest.

I have no axe to grind with Viessmann based on my experiencee. I made a cost/benefit judgement that $10k extra for the Viessmann was too much for the added benefit over the Prestige.

The point of my original post is that when you spend top dollar you expect a lot in return. If I had spent $10k extra for a Viessmann then I would expect them to do whatever it takes to get me a part. Now if I had bought the "sucko" brand boiler, knowing that it was the cheapo option, I wouldn't be surprised to have to wait five days for a part. See the difference?

The homeowner got screwed, at least in part, by Viessmann. I think he was right to create his web page and voice his frustration. Maybe they will try to do a little more the next time this happens (like ship the freaking valve out on Friday for Saturday delivery, even assuming they didn't receive the order on Thursday).

dblagent007

Do you know how callous that sounds?

Homeowner's translation: screw the homeowner, we wholesalesers cannot give up the "fattest margins" imaginable just because you are cold as hell, your pipes are freezing, you have to shower at the neighbors, or whatever. WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU STUPID HOMEOWNERS. YOU'VE ALREADY COUGHED UP THE DOUGH FOR THE BOILER, NOW GET LOST!!!

I don't think anyone is advocating that Viessmann should switch to a direct sales model. However, can't we just have a few circumstances that maybe, just maybe, would qualify for an exception???

GW

No heat

I'm amused at the fact that an American homeowner will take great offense over a no-heat situation. When the same person's brand new car breaks down, does the manufacturer/dealership sprint out to the guy's house with a loaner car, throw the car on a flat bed, bring it back for service, and return it all good-to-go? What a joke.

Did the installer command such a premium dollar figure that he can afford to stock every part for this boiler? Is the installer a wealthy man, who should just simply spend money on parts, have them collect dust, with the understanding that most of the investment in these shelved parts will likely be wasted money at some point in the future?

I'm amused that the home owner had to spend his hard earned money on electric heaters, as if it's a mortal sin. If the electricity went out for 5 days, would the anger be at the same level (another stupid question)? No.

Sometimes things in life cost more. I was in Colorado last weekend for some training. The rental car agency had the nerve to charge me 10 TIMES what my bank makes me pay (per day) them for my nice little family mini-van. When I was at the airport, I paid incredibly more money for a cup of joe than what it costs me to make basically the same thing at home.... I could have waited I guess to save the few dollars. These stupid analogies must be stated to draw some sort of balancing point of the two extremes. Added costs in life happen, this should not be new to anyone in the American food chain.

I think any home owner reading these posts should demand an iron-clad warranty stating that there shall be NO down-time for x-period/years. If anyone imposes these unrealistic conditions on me, my price will need to adjust to overcome the various situations that come up from time to time. You, my dear home owner, will pay far more that the Viessmann-hater spent on electric heaters and added electric bill costs. Can someone out there try it and let me know how it works out for you?

It stinks when the ball gets dropped; it's even more lame when someone has to rub the stink in other people's noses.



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jim_156

Lets see how this could have been avoided.

I personally have no problems with Viessmann. But this whole issue could have been avoided by the company overnighting the part. Customer word of mouth goes a longway in this industry, in my opinion Veissmann got what they deserved. If they overnighted the part, the customer would be happy and recommend their heating systems to their friends. I have installed many Veissmanns without issue's and attended their plant in RI for a 2 day seminar. But I feel they should have handled this case a little bit different.

dblagent007

I agree

You are absolutely right. However, there are a bunch of people here that act like we want Viessmann's CEO to give us his first born child. Just FedEx the part, it's really not that hard (I promise, I have FedExed stuff before).

Maine Doug_70

I would have

promoted the guy to manage the operation and can the sleepers. His new job would be to sneak around and catch employees that are being paid to do a job that does not include sleeping.
But no, they can the guy who is awake and life goes on. Another example of corporate stupidity and poor security. But the Security Plan is safely in the files of the Department of Homeland Obscurity. Where is my masking tape and roll of plastic?

dblagent007

Gary, you are using analogies that don't correlate and you are taking things to the extreme.

The beef here is not that Viessmann's boiler broke down. The beef is the way it was handled. The finger-pointing (the distributor saying he ordered it and Viessman saying they didn't receive the order) and Viessmann's unwillingness to overnight the part to the installer are the sources of the homeowner's anger.

As for your car analogy, it doesn't work. The consequences of your car breaking down are much less severe. If you have to, you can borrow someone else's car or rent one. The homeowner with a broker boiler doesn't have similar options. If my car breaks, it is inconvenient, but I'm not living in a 35 degree house wondering if my pipes will freeze.

The electricity situation is a closer analogy. In fact, the electricity went out in some areas around here for five days. Were the people angry? You bet they were. The electricity company had to pay them for their losses (food spoilage, etc.). Maybe Viessmann should pay this guy for the heaters!

You don't have to go to extremes with your "iron-clad warranty" threat. Most reasonable people understand things will break. However, they aren't as willing to understand when the response to the part failure is finger-pionting and unnecessary delay.