Last week the Bennett family toaster died. Its last moments were spectacular with arcing, sparks and flames.

I suspect it was also dangerous.

It’s a Tefal model we purchased just over a year ago. When it gave up the ghost we did the usual sales receipt hunt so we could take it back to the shop and get a warranty replacement or refund.

Although the toaster is roughly 13 months old and the company claims it isn’t covered by the warranty, New Zealand’s Consumer Guarantees Act suggests otherwise.

A new toaster should toast for more than a year.

The issue is moot because we lost the sales receipt. Someone – probably me – wasn’t quite anally retentive enough.

I called Tefal’s 0800 700 711 customer support line to report what looked like a dangerous finale and was routed to what sounded like an Australian call centre.

When I started explaining what had happened the representative told me  to take the toaster to a repair centre.

At this point I hadn’t mentioned the missing receipt although, technically I could argue proof of purchase isn’t the point. Goods should be fit to do whatever they were sold to do regardless of paperwork.

But that’s not my point. The toaster only cost $80 – which I had already written off. In fact by this point we had already bought a new toaster – though not from Tefal.

You see I wanted to report the dangerous arcing to the customer service representative. My aim was to give them valuable real world feedback that could potentially save people’s lives and certainly could help the company build a better product.

But the customer service representative I spoke to wasn’t interested.

I also had a very clear impression she was trying to get me off the line as quickly as possible – that’s possibly some call centre productivity thing.

When pressed she said she was “transferring me downstairs” whatever that means.

The call transferred to a voice mail line where I left a short message and a telephone number where I could be contacted. That was 36 hours ago. The phone hasn’t rung.

So the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Tefal isn’t interested in a potentially dangerous problem with its products.

This scares me.

Moreover, what is the point of a business having customer relations when this kind of information isn’t collected? Or am I completely out of touch with realty expecting a manufacturer to care about these things?

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This is rocket science Image via Wikipedia

Customer services team leader Justin Flitter discovered managing knowledge workers isn’t rocket science. In his role he gets to spend 80 percent of his day working directly with the people who report to him.

That’s not always the right percentage – but he’s on top of the most important point here, to manage knowledge workers you need to lead from the front rather than hide away behind a desk – or worse, in a remote office.

If you’re not spending the largest slice of your time, meeting, coaching and and working alongside the people who report to you then you’re not a leader. That’s not rocket science.

Priorities of a Team Leader | Justinflitter.com.