I'm not much good at large appliance repair.
While usually not a big deal in my everyday life, this makes me feel particularly vulnerable when my refrigerator or oven breaks down and we need to call in a repairman. And as you might have anticipated, I have had to deal with both situations within the past six months.
Sad fact is, my wife and I — and most consumers — are pretty much at the mercy of whatever a repair person tells us is wrong. What makes it very frustrating is that you have little recourse to verify their diagnosis of the problem — and the cost to fix it — without bringing a separate repair person into the picture at additional time and expense.
Much like many people distrust auto mechanics, it's hard to 100% trust that the repair person is being completely honest with you about the problem or the most economical way to fix it. You can be suspicious, but unless you really know the inner workings of these things, all that does is leave you with an uneasy feeling.
The primary "fix" for both my refrigerator and oven turned out to be very similar — they both needed new master control boards. Seemed very coincidental and maybe an over-the-top fix. Do appliance repair people tend to go for the easy solution that is perhaps more than needed and requires the most expensive part?
It made me think a bit about the honesty and trustworthiness factor of people responsible for servicing your needs — be it appliance repair, car maintenance or financial and insurance planning. A new MDRT survey reveals that consumers view those two traits as the most important for advisors, trumping "delivers results" by a practically 2-to-1 margin.
The MDRT Financial Harmony Study, released July 14, asked U.S. consumers to rate their financial advisor/professional in terms of honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge and delivers results. Financial advisors were asked to rate themselves across the same attributes. Results highlighted a significant gap between how advisors rate themselves and how clients rate their advisors. Consumers ranked honesty (39%) and trustworthiness (29%) as more important than delivers results (19%) and knowledge (13%).
Advisors, on the other hand, went with trustworthiness as the top attribute, at 41%, and honesty second at 29%.
