When Adam’s oven died in the middle of baking a batch of cookies, he did what most modern, hyper-connected people would do: he complained about it on Facebook and Twitter, asking his friends for help. Help instead came from a new friend: a Whirlpool employee monitoring the social media, looking for unhappy customers.

Two days after Christmas my wife was baking a few batches of cookies
to take to a friend’s party our 3 year old Whirlpool oven died in the
middle of a batch. The oven cooled down and the display was blank.
After checking the breakers and performing basic troubleshooting, I
posted the following message in frustration on Twitter and Facebook.

Our whirlpool oven just died 3 years after we bought it. No display or
controls – just the burners still work. Joy. Any suggestions?

The next day I had a message in my Facebook Inbox posted by a Whirlpool employee:

Hi, my name is Stephanie, I am a Whirlpool employee and would like to
help resolve the situation with your product. Please respond to this
e-mail address (NAR_Customer_Solutions@whirlpool.com) with a phone
number, the best time to reach you at that number, your model & serial
number and I will call you. If you would prefer to call me at your
convenience, please call 1-800-331-2689 and we will discuss the
situation with your product.

I played phone tag with Stephanie for the next few days and by the
time that I was able to actually talk to her I had already had a
repair man come out and replace the electronic control unit. Even
through the unit was not within its warranty period, Stephanie agreed
to split the costs of both the parts and the labor.

Thank you Stephanie!

Well done, Stephanie! Keep scanning those Internets and making customers happy.

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