WTF has happened to customer service? A rant...

Root,

Your post is almost EXACTLY what I went through with Sears recently, 'cept it was for a snowblower, not a mower.

Rewind to this time last year - last big snowstorm of the season, I fire up the Craftsman 'blower, let it idle and run in to grab my gloves. Come back out -- it's stalled and I can't pull the handle to restart it. "Great," I think, "it's seized." Oil level was fine (I check it before each use), so I end up shoveling my 100' long driveway. My back thanked me for the next 3 days.

Fast-forward to this fall, we're in a new house and I figure "I should get the snowblower fixed before winter sets in." Call Sears, go through their IN-FUCKING-SANE voicemail system to get to schedule a service call, which, of course, has to be on a Saturday, as I'm sure as hell not going to take a vacation day to sit around for the repairman.

Service call goes as planned -- good news! It's not a seized engine, but a stuck recoil spring on the starter cord that was preventing me from pull-starting it. The kid changes the plug and oil, runs it for a few minutes and I stick it back in the shed. Bring on the snow, I'm armed and dangerous!

First snowstorm in November. I pull out the snowblower, warm it up, run inside to get my hat and hear BANG-chugga-chugga-silence. I go out to restart and when I pull the cable I hear much clanging metal of loose internals -- not good.

On the horn again to Sears to schedule ANOTHER service call. "We were just out there a few weeks ago." "I know, but something else is wrong now." New guy comes out a week later and shows me my grenaded engine! Yep, threw the piston right out the side of the block! Asks if it was a young kid that came out to do the previous service, and rolls his eyes when I answer in the affirmative. (Apparently, this isn't the first time he's fooked something up.)

Now the fun begins. They order a new engine, which will take a week to arrive. It's due to come in on a Wednesday, and a huge Nor'easter is due to hit that weekend. I schedule the guy to come back and install it on that Thursday (taking a day off from work in the process -ARGH!). After waiting around ALL GODDAMNED DAY -- the service call is "sometime between 8:00A-5:00P" ('natch), the sumbitch is running late on his previous call and "has to" reschedule me. I start to get just a *wee* bit agitated and lean on this guy until he agrees to come out first thing on Friday (ANOTHER VACATION DAY WASTED!!!).

Well, by now you can figure out that he didn't come out on Friday. First he calls to say that my morning appointment will need to be pushed to the afternoon, and then calls again late in the day to say he can't make it, but he'll come out "first thing" on Saturday, sorry for the inconvenience, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Saturday A.M. comes and there's about 10" of snow by 9:00A. The dispatcher calls to tell me the service call has been canceled, and I just about climb through the phone to strangle the bitch. "Our technician can't get down your road," she tells me. I proceed to explain that already that morning the FedEx guy has been here AND the phone company tech has been at my house to fix my DSL line (which had also shit the bed that week), so I call "BULLSHIT" (politely, of course ).

After a half-hour on the phone with her, I get nowhere and proceed to call Sears Corporate C.S. line, explaining to the poor jamoke who happend to get my call that they are currently putting the "cuss" back into "Customer Service" in a BIG FRICKIN' WAY, and they say they can't do anything since the local service shops they contract with are independent contractors, not Sears employees. I proceed to explain "Well, it's YOUR name on the product, and YOUR name on the van, so I'm calling YOU because it's YOUR problem. I'll just send you the bill from the plow guy, since YOU weren't able to find time fix YOUR product that YOUR technician destroyed!"

Since they (obviously) werent' going to pay for a plow guy, I ended up shoveling 18" of snow off my driveway (my back thanked me for a week afterward.) They finally came out the following week and I made the tech fix the thing out in the driveway, in the cold, rather than in the garage...just cause I was still pissed.

Needless to say, that's the last Sears purchase I'll be making...EVER.



('cept maybe for Craftsman hand-tools, if they still have the lifetime warranty)...

 

"If you could go to Cox's for a seersucker suit,

Why go to SEAR'S and get a cocksucker suit"?

I feel your pain
They're the most incompetant, numbnut zombies you could ever hope to meet

I've had to threaten a body cavity search with a broken ratchet to get it replaced. Finally got the right manager who could understand that I wasn't going to take the cheap 2nd line POS as a replacement. Why the hassle

 

Customer service is an historical term that, for the most part, is ancient history.

 

The more expensive USA made shit isn't always better. I've got a whole bunch of Snapon and Matco ratchets and shit like that broken and I have no where to take them. That warranty is useless if the guy driving the truck doesn't stop by once a week, and they only do that if you spend a few grand buying overpriced tools from them.

However, as far as snowblowers go, I've got a '71 Ariens, built right in my hometown of Brillion, that still runs and works just fine. I challenge anyone to buy any new snowblower anywhere and keep it running for 35 years. I don't buy anything new anymore.

 

Glad you enjoyed it;I look forward to his columns every week.One of the best was the 11 year old girl they called out a SWAT team for.

 

Had a similiar situation in Lowes. Bought a new Gas Range (After Home Depot tried to charge a $55 Delivery fee for in store pickup) and came back with the truck to pick it up:

Time 7:15, wait and wait, ask the status a few times. "oh it will be right out"
45 Minutes later he comes some goon rollong a box that looked like the truck rolled over it. "Thats the way it came off the truck"..

 

I used to work for Sears as an appliance tech. Some of crap we had to put up with you would not believe. Just after iI left the re, They came out with a new"box" we had to carry for all the paperwork. All done in a laptop with a very small printer to print out a receipt. Almost reradable. The new ones are equipted with an internal gps and a satallite link!

Talk about big brother!

Now I work for the largest independent appliance repair here in phx area. We call our customers in the morning with a 2 hr. time frame as to when we will be there. I haven't had to go to the shop in 6mo. Taljk to the boss on the phone, route and paycheck get delivered to my house, keep the company truck here. We don't do any advertising, all our work is from word of mouth.

We know that customer service is number one and strive for it everyday. We'd be out of work if we didn't

A customer with a goos experience will tell 3 people, a customer with a bad experience will tell 20.


jerry

 

LOL LOL LOL! Best joke I've heard all day. LOL!

 

Maytag and Amana combined a coupla years ago, now Whirlpoll bought 'em. The biggest 2 problems I have consistently is both brand washers losing the triple lip seal and tub bearing and refrigerators siezing compressors.

As far as I know all the manufacturers have also gone to a 1 yr total warranty as of 1 jan 2006. No more 5 yr sealed system warranty on refrigerators. The only line keeping it is Kitchen Aid.

This ia realyy going to upset some people when their 2 year old $1000 refrigerator compressor siezes and they have to pay about $600 to get it fixed.

Maytag, hah!


jerry

 

With the loss of mom and pop stores due to major dept store its no wonder customer satisfaction has gone to shit. Gone are the days you can speak to the owner and get things solved.

Our local sears store has a seprate maintenace and repair dept that is across the the highway from the dept store. I had to replace something on my sears drill press and got routed to the repair dept by the store counter jockey. The guy behind the counter looked me square in the eye and said "Good Luck Buddy". I didnt give it much thought until I walked in and the girls behind the counter would'nt even look my way. When I finally interupted their conversation about their weekend to ask about what I needed. they said "Look over there" and lazily point off in some random direction. When i came back she rolled her eyes and said "WHAT!!"

Well I went off then raised nine kinds of hell and left. I reported her to the corp. office and she is still there today. I refuse to deal with that dept simply because of the attitudes in that store...

on the other hand I have never had a problem returning a craftsman tool EVER...

If it requires going through the maintence dept, I dont buy it from sears

 

What kind of tools does your mother-in-law sell, and why would you get sears a gift card to buy them?



Mutt

 

When I was a young'un I worked at a old fashioned hardware store after school. I assembled all the mowers, bicycles, appliances, and anything else that needed putting together. The owner insisted on running one full tank of gas through each mower before we delivered it to the customer (DELIVERED it!!!). That way no one could forget to put oil in it, and we knew it worked perfectly. If something was wrong with it, I just assembled the one in the next box. Only happy customers. Sometimes I had 4 or 5 mowers running all afternoon behind the store. Customer service doesn't just happen, someone has to *care*.

Hemi-roid

 

It's not like I paid 600 bux for a mower, it was almost 1700. That more than I gave for my first car.........

 

UPDATE###########

We won.

Took it in today and the store mgr wouldn't even come down and see what I wanted. He sent the dept manager that hated me...... she was a lot more pleasant when their mechanic told her the same thing that I did. She gave me another mower to replace it. Too bad it only took 2.5 hours to get throught this mess. I'll more than likely never buy anything from them again.

 

Sears SUCKS. Similar experience here, although it was a full HVAC replacement for my old house.

 

I know my gravley's will leak a little oil but I can mow grass ,small trees , gopher's and thier mounds ,softball sized rocks , barbed wire, tarps ,lawn edging timbers,the boat anchor,any/all unseen toy's including lost official horseshoes..... and still run great after 30 years +... need parts?

Just take the sears mower back asap ..evening is ok...unload it...and demand a new one no matter who you talk to....do not leave w/o money / credit or a new one ... don't yell or raise your voice.... bring the whole family and parents too and just ask for there best rep. on duty... don't call first to ask just do it with the reciept in hand and dripping oil ... start it running wfo by the front door the tank at least half full... good luck


sorry i was so ready to go with you i did not read all the posts ooops
paperdog

 

Here's a good story about Sears.

A couple of years ago 20/20 did special on them. It seems that they were taking returned batteries, recharging them, and selling them as new.

I wish I would have taped it. The reporter is sitting there with some high up exec from sears, and asking him why they would sell returned batteries as new, and the guy is getting really indignant and snippy, "Sir, we DO NOT sell used batteries, period, now can we please move on!!!!".

Then the reporter whips out the hidden camera showing where they had bought a Sears battery, stamped something on the bottom of the battery to mark it, returned it to Sears, and then found it on the shelf a few days later for sale as a new battery. You should have seen the Sears guy sweating and squirming. It was classic. "UHH, ummm, uhhh, they uhhh, shouldn't have, ummm, that's an isolated incident!!!!" I was laughing my ass off. Of course, in the follow up report they had taken "extensive measures" to make sure that this never happened again. Yeah right.

Here's another good one. When I was in college back in the late 80's, I had a Honda accord. I made the mistake of buying tires at Sears. They were Pirellis. So the tech tells me "sorry sir, but your tie rod is SO WORN OUT that we can't honor your warranty. Oh yeah, and we can fix it for $______." Thanks anyway, but it's under warranty. The dealership informs me that the tie rod was barely worn, and would have no effect whatsoever on the tires. I should have known right then and there that I was being screwed and taken my tire business elsewhere. But hey, I was 20 & needed to learn a lesson the hard way I suppose.

Well, a year later the tires are BALD. I take my car to a reputable tire store and the guy there is like "these tires are only a year old??? They must be defective or something!" Then he looks at the tires and says "Ahhh, that explains it, they're SEARS tires!!!" I ask him to explain, and he tells me that basically Sears had developed a terrible reputation for selling some of the worst quality tires on the market, so they were now sub-contracting with reputable companies to build tires to their specs! He says "you didn't get a Pirelli tire, you got a SEARS Pirelli tire!" and then he showed me the little SEARS emblem next to the big PIRELLI emblem, and proceeded to tell me that Sears automotive was the biggest rip-off artist in the business. And that's the last time Sears got any money from me for anything, period. Screw me once, shame on you - Screw me twice, shame on me.

 

TXRat
Don't worry about her she'll loose her job soon, Sears is shutting the parts/repair centers down.
Judd

Our local sears store has a seprate maintenace and repair dept that is across the the highway from the dept store. I had to replace something on my sears drill press and got routed to the repair dept by the store counter jockey. The guy behind the counter looked me square in the eye and said "Good Luck Buddy". I didnt give it much thought until I walked in and the girls behind the counter would'nt even look my way. When I finally interupted their conversation about their weekend to ask about what I needed. they said "Look over there" and lazily point off in some random direction. When i came back she rolled her eyes and said "WHAT!!"

Well I went off then raised nine kinds of hell and left. I reported her to the corp. office and she is still there today. I refuse to deal with that dept simply because of the attitudes in that store...

on the other hand I have never had a problem returning a craftsman tool EVER...

If it requires going through the maintence dept, I dont buy it from sears

 

people? sometimes i think wede be better of without em! it seems rare to find someone who works for a "CORPORATION" that cares for anything more than pleasing the boss and getting a paycheck. i try to support my local business owner when i can. i know it usually costs more, BUT YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. and you know they make good on whatever may be the situation. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS LIKE A $500 60'S SHOW CAR THATS BEEN STORED AWAY FOR FOURTY YEARS, SOMEBODY KNOWS SOMEBODY THAT HAS HEARD ABOUT IT!!!!