My wife and I have never experienced customer service as bad as Reliance - ever, for any product in any industry. It is so long that I need to space this out into different days:
On Wednesday, June 27th - two days before a long-scheduled trip for the August long weekend on Friday, July 29th - the tankless water heater that my wife and I pay $50 a month to rent suddenly stopped working. We called Reliance right away and were on hold for 25 minutes before being able to get in touch with anyone. Finally my wife was able to speak to a representative who was rude, unhelpful, and put her on hold for half an hour before ultimately saying that a technician could come to take a look at it the next night - no effort was made to send a technician that night. The representative was rude enough that I called separately, and after being on hold myself for a while, got nowhere either. The window for the technician to come was 4-8pm the next day.
Thursday, June 28 - The technician came late - after 8pm - poked around for a while, and determined that the entire heater needed to be replaced. He told us we had to call separately, the next morning, to book an appointment, because it was a "separate department." With our vacation plans fast melting away in front of us, we immediately called a service representative again, who said we had to talk to a different rep. We then called again, my wife spoke to her for some time, and was then disconnected. My wife then called another person, who was friendly and who insisted - after we were again put on hold a couple separate times - that a technician would come by on Friday morning between 7-11am to replace the heater. We were relieved, but had no faith at all that this would actually happen.
Friday, July 29 - Sure enough, as we were tentatively packing our bags for our trip, Reliance called at 8:30am to let us know that the rep the night before had made a mistake - there was no technician available to replace the heater at any point on Friday, but they could come on MONDAY - five full days after the first call. We were at our wits end by this point, having already booked our trip and taken time off for it. My wife pleaded with the rep to find a solution, and after initially being told there was nothing that could be done, was finally transferred to the customer retention department (after, again, being put on hold). After another hour and waiting for a call back, it was finally confirmed that the company would contract out the replacement, and that they would come between 10-2pm (we were supposed to leave at 1pm). They showed up at 1:50pm, but by that point we were just happy to have them there. They fixed it. But wow, what an ordeal. We will most certainly be exploring all options to end our contract with Reliance.
