Siemens

The Siemens story has been going on for years. We begin here with recent events, in the last month. 

It's specifically Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances (BSH), but I hold the Siemens brand responsible, as it is the name I have on the appliances in my kitchen.

Many emails, phone conversations, meetings and technical visits down the road, in an hour-long phone call with the CEO of BSH South Africa, he told me that he was as high as it would go and that he would not put me in touch with his boss. 

So I wrote on the Siemens Facebook page and (with them deleting the post) I was put back onto someone new in South Africa. Here's his letter:


Good Morning

I hope this email finds you well.

I received your post via Siemens this morning.

As far as I understand the matter, it is your contention that we owe you money for services rendered? I understand that you do not want to go into the matter but I find myself in a bit of a quandary here because the person you were dealing with no longer works at BSH. I am therefore unable to properly avail myself of the situation properly. I hope that you will understand my predicament and help me with the facts. Please could you send me the correspondence relating to said consultation.

Please note that with reference to your comment "if you want to speak to me you pay", I cannot agree to such terms but I can assure you that I am sincere in my efforts to understand the situation and your point of view.

I hope you have a good day.

Kind regards

Murray Carter
Marketing Manager
Export and CP Sales Manager
Regions: SSA

 

I responded with this:



Good day, Murray

My name is Robin, as you can see from my previous correspondence. You may address me as such. I am excellently well, thank you.

If you feel in a quandary, imagine how I feel, dealing with this matter for over two years now, having workmen in and out of my house, dealing with corporate incompetence, and simply not being heard, to mention a few points. The reason I am billing you is because of the quandary you present to me.

I make it my business to get out of quandaries, though, using innovation and uncompromising determination. So a mutually beneficial outcome that makes the world a better place is the only acceptable outcome here.

You are agreeing to the terms one way or another, because we are already in a relationship. Also, I am your customer, and I will ensure that I do not continue to pay for your bad service, as I have done so far. You have been paying, too, so far with 4 Siemens and 1 Gaggenau fridges (all returned faulty), a great deal of time from a number of (seemingly unavailable) people from the South African office, and, of course, growing brand damage on an international scale.

Even my answering this email is on your account. If you (as Siemens) embrace it, we can fix the problem. If you fight it, as your offices here have done, it will escalate and you will pay for all of it. The outcome will be better, acceptable and even exemplary service. An enormous thank you to me is actually in order.

As I said, it is your job to research this. If I have to compile all correspondence and sent it to you, it will be at the fee stipulated of 10 000 Euro per day, plus legal fees. I am sure you understand my situation. I have spent weeks of my professional time dealing with the same kind of expectation from Siemens, with no results. I do not work for you, Murray. I bought your products and then suffered through your service. You are going to correct this until I am satisfied.

So Mr Kai-Henning Florschuetz, CEO of BSH South Africa, with whom I spoke a few weeks ago, seconded from Frankfurt and seemingly a Siemens man for life, has left without a trace? As have Troy Omant, Paula De Freitus, Alister McKay...?

It seems that you are taking a lazy and disrespectful approach to this matter. I request and suggest that you do your job properly before you write to me asking me to do more work while you try to reject my terms. This is what I have been dealing with all along. It is very arrogant of you.

As you will see, I have included my attorney in this correspondence, as I have done throughout. Please try not to waste more of our time.

I have responded here because I understand your situation. The time has come for you to deeply resonate with mine.

All best wishes
Robin

_______________________________________________________
Robin Wheeler
Entrepreneur, international speaker and author : Being yourself for a living
www.bentrepreneuring.com




Murray then wrote:


Good Morning Sir

I hope this mail finds you well.

I will be having a meeting with the relevant parties involved in this case this afternoon. I hope you can be patient for a little while longer as I feel this issue needs a diligent approach.

I will revert to you as soon as possible.

I wish you a good day further.

Regards

MC



Instead of him reverting, I received a lawyer's letter: 2012-10-01-BSH-WHEELER



I wrote the following response:

Letter to Siemens and their lawyers: 2 October 2012 : Robin Wheeler

Dear Louis

Siemens’ service sucks. There is no disputing it. They know it, hence the defensive approach. I found the feedback from various stakeholders (Margaret Hirsch, Dion Wired) consistent with mine. We are going to correct this. For as long as I have Siemens products in my house, we are in a relationship. There is no way out but a dramatic improvement. Siemens will live up to their brand.

As a customer, I claim my full satisfaction. I do this, too, as a self-appointed representative of the broader consumer community. To achieve this, Siemens needs to change significantly. I am going to ensure it happens.

As an entrepreneur and consultant, I will help Siemens achieve my satisfaction as a customer. The company and brand will be exemplary and known for it. Business will boom, plus staff and supplier relations will surpass their wildest hopes.

Siemens has two options, one choice.

The choice is a win/win situation in which:

• Siemens stops being bad at service, wakes up, fulfills their social and business obligations, embraces their full responsibility, succeeds in a visionary way, and impresses the hell out of me
• I make sure this opportunity to solve some of the world’s pressing problems first hand does not go un-seized. This forms part of a broader initiative addressing the same problem with other service providers.

The two options are:

1.       For the fee of the BSH CEO’s annual salary (plus VAT), I will run a transformation process in the business and a rebranding process externally, with his full sponsorship and participation. (This is a starting offer that is good value and will go up if they do not work wholeheartedly to achieve the win/win situation.)

2.       For ten times the BSH CEO’s salary, I will sue Siemens, make a media case about it as part of a broader campaign, and film this for television, give radio and television interviews, and so on. Then, in the best interests of global, consumer and corporate wellbeing and sustainability, Siemens will co-operate and we will do the transformation process mentioned in Option 1 above.

One remarkable outcome, two ways to get there. Whether we take the short or the long route, we will get there.

Option 2, Siemens current choice, is much more expensive, as they are surely seeing after five fridges, staff time, meetings with you, your fees etc., plus my time and patience, of course, which are on the account. (In my hour long phone conversation with the CEO Kai-Henning Flourschetz recently, I told him it was also on his account, and he asked if I meant his phone account. Either he has a dry sense of humour, he is unfit for his position, or he was being obstinate). You do all respect my time, don’t you? It's taken me a day to write this.

You may respond to every point in this document systematically, addressing every issue, unlike your letter, which didn’t address what I had written to Murray Carter and on the Siemens Facebook page. Or you could drop this nonsense, and get on with Option 1. Show some respect, please gentlemen.

Option 1 means optimal investment of funds for the mutual benefit of all involved without delay. I am impartial, though, to which option Siemens chooses, as they are both the same to me.

I was taken by your insistence in your correspondence that I treat this urgently. I wrote on the Siemens Facebook page over a week ago. This problem has been going on for years. I am assuming that this is your sense of humour, which is wonderful, because having fun is a significant part of this transformation process, and of thriving in business today.

If Siemens continues to choose Option 2, I will continue with Option 2 from my side, expanding innovatively and causing all sorts of fun and exciting waves until I feel absolutely satisfied as a customer, and as a representative on my own authority alone of what I see as basic human dignity and simple intelligence. This is all very obvious, not complicated at all. Bad service; ongoing refusal to take responsibility; caring, clever and committed customer; phenomenal outcome. 

Money is payable in full upfront.

BBM Attorneys do not represent me, they are on standby to take action on my instruction. I don’t need them, though, because I am right. Siemens shouldn’t need you either. But if they insist, we can add another legal team to their payroll. I am keeping BBM informed, as I have done since I bought 3 Siemens products around which I had designed and built my kitchen. The one product let me down (the other two have been great, give or take a few irritations outlined in previous emails to Siemens). I am now in the renovation business and not recommending Siemens. And the service continues to suck. Your letter was not a co-operative gesture. It denoted zero insight.

This is what we are going to fix, one way or another. Every time I look at my Siemens appliances, which should be for the next ten years at least, I am going to feel fantastic. They will remind me of great breakthrough success we achieved together. Germany will be very impressed, too.

It was Germany I asked to be put in touch with on Facebook. Instead I got marketing in South Africa, whom I had to brief (one more time), and now you. Not looking co-operative to me at all. This on top of a very bad track record that Siemens admitted to by giving me the Gaggenau fridge in compensation for the previous 4 and the days of my time plus emotional distress. Then the Gaggenau didn’t work properly either, and the attempted repair was a disaster. More of my time and distress. They know they are a mess, that is why they have sent you to represent them. I take it as further supporting evidence for my uncompromising endeavours.

Either I will take this letter (consider it an open one) and whole situation to the press, and to Germany this way, plus directly, or the South African operation will go to them to turn things around.

I will continue to contact whomever I choose at my full discretion. I will take no instructions from you or anyone at any time.

I will co-operate enthusiastically with all intelligent behaviour and continue to initiate it. Sooner or later, one way or another, Siemens will come to exemplify it. I await their enthusiastic and immediate co-operation.

Come to think of it, I have been patient long enough. I am going to the media with this anyway. It is an example of an utterly unacceptable broader apathy. It will be one of the examples of how this global problem is being turned around.

Best wishes
Robin


I received this letter from their lawyers in response: 2012-10-15-BSH-WHEELER


Clearly this attorney is being obstructive and disrespectful, so I will not deal with them any further. I am Siemens' customer, however, and will continue to exercise my consumer rights as such, using all media at my disposal.