Have you called Miele in Australia on 1300 464 353 for support lately?
‘Welcome to Miele. Our customer care consultants are available Monday to Friday, 8.00am to 7.00pm, Australian Eastern Time. To enquire about your Miele order or for product information, please press 1. For all enquiries relating to the service of your Miele appliance, including any changes to an existing booking, please press 2.’
You press two. The phone system clunks down a branch or two in the decision tree. The audio quality muddies as some spineless melody loops in.
‘Thank you for calling Miele. This call is recorded for training purposes. If you do not want your call recorded, please let your customer care consultant know. Due to high volume of calls, you can expect longer than expected wait times. Thank you for your understanding and patience.’
You hang on for a couple of minutes listening to the inane melody go round and round. Hoping the Water Inlet/Drain light that’s flashing red on your Miele WT 945 S Front Load Washer Dryer doesn’t explode in a torrent of H2o and German machine parts. You’ve manually drained any excess water. All you want is a Miele service technician to come out and repair the machine as quickly as possible.
‘We regret the current delay. Thank you for waiting. Our next customer care consultant will be with you shortly.’
29 minutes later you hang up while you still have a shred of dignity and sanity left. Isn’t noise torture banned by the United Nations? Isn’t making customers wait half an hour to not answer their call the exact opposite of customer care? Isn’t that customer disregard.
‘Welcome to Miele. Our customer disregard consultants are available whenever the hell they like, Australian Eastern Time. You can expect longer than expected wait times because we don’t give a flying fuck about your loyalty or our brand. Now fuck off!’
Okay, that’s not what Miele say but that’s definitely what you hear. Which would be fine for a cheap ass brand. But nowhere near good enough for a premium brand
A premium brand requires premium ideas, premium language, premium messaging, premium media and premium service every step of the way. Anything less and premium positioning cancels itself out.
So instead of automatically buying another Miele washing machine for around $4,000, you start looking and considering other brands.
And wondering why you paid so much for so little in the first place.