Gorenje: bad customer service in Belgium

Interesting things happen to consumers. Buying all this stuff on the shelves, testing new things, enjoying the advances in technology…And then there is the superb invention called “warranty”, that supposedly helps you preserve the item you bough at least during a certain initial period without problems…Yes, emphasis is on “without problems”. See the story with our Gorenje fridge.

We bought it when moving into a new flat in November 2005. Decent value for money and I played a bit the “national card”, convincing Saray to go for Gorenje. Why did I bother? It broke down two weeks ago on a Sunday, in the middle of the summer (not that summer matter in Belgium, it rains anyway and its on average 15 degrees). Since it was well in the 2-year period covered by the warranty, we called Media Markt, where we bought the fridge, on Monday. No success. Nobody would answer the phone. So we use our lunch break (since everything in Belgium closes at 7pm) on Tuesday to drive to the Media Markt where we bought it, which is some 15 minutes from the Brussels EU area. We wait a bit and get the number of Gorenje in Belgium.

OK, calling that number didn’t help. The lady on the other side certainly has not heard about Gorenje in her life and even if, the fact that she would only speak Flemish to us, did not help. So, we wasted our time to go to get the number in our lunch break, instead of just looking for it on the internet. Which we subsequently did and got the right people on the phone. They promise to call back and schedule an appointment.

We indeed get the appointment and the person shows up on Wednesday morning in our flat to confirm the fridge is dead. Great, can we get a new one? Of course, the man said. They will call us to confirm.

And so they call to confirm that we will get a new fridge, but only after the summer. The person would simply repeat that they do not have deliveries during the summer break. Fantastic. We were given a choice to pick it up ourselves at the Media Markt (where they keep on delivering, since it pays…) or at their location. Neither was an option, since we do not own a van or similar and honestly would not want to waste time off work for this.

So I tried to write to Matjaž Geratič, the head of Gorenje Belux, in nice Slovenian asking for help. It has been a week now with no reply. I have also left a note on the Gorenje website, that by the way does not give any contact to their Communications or Services department. A further email went to the general info@gorenje.si, since they don’t offer anything better.

Since we go on holidays this Thursday they basically won the battle – we’ll get the fridge after the summer. If. Hope the service is better in other places. They have a good excuse in Belgium – they are not worse than others:)