THE DIARY OF DYSON BY FIONA CUMMINGS

Those who know me who have read my stories over the years may remember how I have a bit of a reputation in our house of breaking vacuums! No, I don’t do it so I can get out of cleaning our floors, they just break on me. I said to Hub some time ago, I’m the one who has them break on me because I’m the only one who blooming does the floors…

I was half joking, well a quarter, as at weekends, he does the upstairs including the stairs. But I use the vacuum twice a day, you have to with dogs… Well maybe I’m slightly obsessed with clean floors and with dogs you can never have 100% clean, can you. They just need to breathe and their hair drops off. With having wooden floors and tiles the hairs are so very apparent too.

 

So, after going through almost every brand on the planet, we crossed our fingers and paid the money to get a Dyson. As I have written before, if you buy anything Dyson like a hairdryer or fan for example, you get a large deduction in the next purchase of anything Dyson just by calling the company direct. And when my machine came, I thought they had sent me a toy. Why? Because it’s so light, I was in disbelief that such a light machine without any wires to activate it, could be so efficient. And it was.

 

Our vacuums before either worked on hard floors not carpets, or carpets and not hard floors. My favourite one on hard floors was a little guy with a very regal name who was fantastic, but not on carpets. But he kept falling over. And the wires? Oh, dreadful and I can only say that now I have used a vacuum without wires. It’s so easy.

 

Again, readers will know the trouble I have with guarantees. Now, they come in a box, you look at the box details a code or whatever, then go on line and register your item. Then hope. Not with us as we can’t see to look at the box. We have got our Son to do that for us in the past took the code down on Dictaphone but the websites have not been friendly with our software. Well Dyson, you call you order, they automatically sort out your guarantee. Yeah, right…. OK, time to put that to the test.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was happily vacuuming my floor. I say happily as I do rather have some kind of fascination with cleaning floors whether it be sweeping vacuuming or mopping. And suddenly the lid snapped off the bin. So, when that happens the vacuum stops working or the dust will go everywhere.

 

Hub was ready to put it in the bin. He said buy a cheap one. I said no they don’t work but I couldn’t justify the price of another Dyson. Ours was only a year and a half old.  So still under the fantastic guarantee of 2 years. I went into my emails and found the email with our information of our guarantee. But whilst doing that I multi tasked and ordered a cheap wire free alternative from Amazon. It came the next day so I didn’t have to go a day without cleaning my floors. I was sure that my Dyson would not be guaranteed for whatever reason. They said I didn’t have to do anything, but you watch, I bet I had to register it somewhere. Somehow.  

 

I got through within minutes. The short time I was on hold with Dyson, I was given useful information of their products. I was told what number I was in the queue. I wished other organisations/companies did that as even if I was number twenty, and I wasn’t, I was three. Psychologically, my number was coming down.

 

 Now, a lady answered. Within three minutes on the phone to her, a couple of minutes waiting to be answered, I spoke to a very helpful polite lady who told me she would send a new bin out and not only that but she would send someone to fit it for me.

 

I put the phone down in total shock. “Did that actually happen? Was it could it, be that easy?””

 

And it was. The bin arrived within three days. The man came out after nine days. Wow, double wow. In the meanwhile, I have been using the dreadful very heavy horrid vacuum we bought last time when I broke our vacuum a couple of years ago. After learning it was rubbish, we bought the Dyson. It is good on carpets, but cumbersome. Well downstairs we have only hard floors and our Son said it wasn’t picking up anything. And this was very expensive. My good branded cordless vacuum came. Oh, my it is for a dolls house. It’s so cute, but has very very little effect on our floors. Hard and carpets.

 

I was ready to put the heavy one in the bin, but it would fill it. So, give it to a charity? Well is there a charity for weight lifters?

 

The man who came put covers over his shoes. Good start. He was so incredibly polite. He had that kind of voice you just trusted. I knew he was a good guy. He even showed me how to change a filter I never knew was there. I had found one filter, but not the second. When I say change, I meant take out dust down wash dry and replace. So, no need for that stress of having to try to buy the right part.

 

Those who have Dysons it was the filter that is on the part that looks or feels like a flower. It’s the bit in the centre, as he called it the nipple you pull out and it’s so very easy to put back.

 

Five minutes he had gone. I was so happy. I am so happy. I want to tell the world just how good the aftercare is with Dyson. I learned it’s a British company. And it was like stepping back into old Britain 30 years ago when you got the best service. In my lifetime I have long forgotten such brilliant service as you just don’t get that any more.

Well you do if you buy from Dyson.

 Just on this experience, I will certainly look into buying from Dyson for other products.