Dear Sears Roebuck & Co,
I have quite a few choice and un-Christian words to say about your service department and your severe lack of customer service! Here is one more example of you, Sears, being the big company with the head honchos making the BIG bucks, taking advantage of the little person and not even blinking an eye.
This debacle all started 6 long weeks ago when the steering mechanism on our lawn tractor broke. Steering is a little important when using a large automated mower with sharp blades, so we called right away and was told the first available appointment was in mid-June. That seemed outrageous but since we could borrow our neighbor’s tractor, we decided to be patient.
We got our automated confirmation phone call giving us a “window” of sometime between 8am and 5pm. To me, that’s equivalent to the Grand Canyon, not a tiny window that I can plan my day around but we were still relieved that you, Sears, had not forgotten our appointment.
So why, exactly, if you want the image of being reliable and THE place to buy our appliances, WHY wasn’t I notified that the service tech called out sick and wouldn’t be keeping appointments? Why did I have to do YOUR job and call YOU at 3:30pm to get this news? Didn’t your mothers teach you simple common courtesy, that if you’re going to be late or have a change of plans, then call and don’t let the people who are waiting for you hang?
Do you really think that all of us stay-at-home mothers have nothing better to do with our days than to sit at home and wait for your truck to show up? What about the working moms who had to take time off unpaid to wait for your service tech; did they get a phone call so they could leave their homes and get back to work and earn their paycheck?
Sears, I may be “just a mom” but I have some good common sense and have also been a part of the business world, so let’s analyze the basic fundamentals of what’s wrong with your company, shall we?
First, the tech called in sick but the call wasn’t received until 1:30pm. OK, so why wasn’t I called at 1:35pm and given this news? Better yet, after discovering that the tech was due to work at 8am, why wasn’t I called by 9am and asked to reschedule? Why did I waste an entire day waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen?
Note to Sears, this is BASIC common courtesy.
Second, when I spoke with the guy at the routing office to ask what your policy was for contacting customers, he informed me there was no policy and they were far too busy with incoming phone calls to handle the cancellation calls. But I could call the routing office at 7:45am every day to see if anybody has cancelled so I could get their appointment.
Note to Sears: I am not doing your job for you. If you are so short staffed that you can’t put one person in charge of calling your “bumped” customers and you can’t handle the volume of phone calls, then analyze how much you’re paying your employees and make your work environment a place where people WANT to work, not a place they want to run away from.
Third, I was informed by somebody (I’ve forgotten who at this point) that they are overwhelmed with calls for lawn tractors and they just don’t have enough technicians to handle all the calls.
Note to Sears: see above note about making your workplace enticing so you can recruit more techs and while you’re at it, look into the problems with your lawn tractor that is putting such a strain on your service departments! It doesn’t make me feel good or feel like you have decent products if everybody else in my town is on your waiting list, too!
In closing, big corporate Sears and its head honchos, you would be wise to revamp the way you do business and reinstate your customer service. Without US, the wee little customer, you wouldn’t be in business. We’re not at a loss of places to shop for home appliances and lawn tractors.
