Sears Lower Prices Equal Expensive Headaches

When I first started on twitter I remember how a few companies were working on improving their customer service by listening to their clients and improving the overall customer experience using twitter and other platforms.

A few days ago I read about my friend Chris Brogan’s issue with Dell where his tablet died on him and it took a long time for Dell to answer him back on his issue.  Made me realize how lucky I was when I dropped my iPad and Apple replaced it although it was my fault.

At one point Dell became the model company to recover from a bad image to being number one in taking care of customers. Dell had its moment where they showed they cared.

Other than Dell, Sears has Been Consistent

However other companies like Sears have been pretty consistent in not caring much about what their customers say or write online. They had no reason years ago to listen to criticism much less do anything about it. Why would I expect them to do it now.

Lame Excuses instead of Customer Service

Today, I get an early morning call to get notified that the mattress that I have been waiting all week will take 4 more days to get here. The employee did not apologize other than putting the blame on Sears System and team because he was notified today. The least I want to do is here lame excuses when Sears has dropped the ball already multiple times.

After putting off buying a mattress since May 2013 it was time for frugal me to retire the Air Mattress (things entrepreneurs do when they have to establish a new business).

The Lower Prices Are not worth the Headaches

After reviewing all mattresses I decided to make my purchase in Sears where it appeared they had lower prices in what we were looking for.

Price Glitch

When I look at both mattresses that were in my budget I noted that the pricing did not fit the advertised discounts.

For example the Mattress that was at $1,300 with 50% (which should have been $650 was at $424) was being advertised as a lower price than a mattress with at 1,150 at a 60%.  (which should was at $460).

I mentioned it to the sears salesman and he agreed to give me the price they had mistakenly put on the sign.

Lazy Salesman

After explaining how important delivery was for me he decided to not really care and tell me that delivery was maybe 12 days out which was not acceptable.

I asked him if he could work something out and he did not move a finger. It was my perception than having to give me the mattress at the lower priced mistakenly advertised was not in his best interests.

So I decided not to make my purchase and share my thoughts on twitter.

I almost bought a Mattress at @Sears but the the poor customer service made me leave without a purchase.

— Raul Colon (@rj_c) February 2, 2014

 

A bit more than 11 days later

After exchanging a series of tweets where @sears acted like they where helping it took them 11 days to finally have someone reach out to me.

I had a phone call with one of their representatives since I had not made the purchase of the mattress yet I decided to give them a chance. They gave me a gift card to cover the delivery although I was still going to pay more than what was posted on February 2nd, 2014 in store.

The service representative agreed she would call me this past wednesday and see if she could work on matching the price in store which was around $423.   I ended up paying 549.99 + tax which if I take the gift card into consideration is around $70 dollars more than I should have paid for the mattress on the date I did not receive adequate customer service.

Impossible to Contact Sears HQ

I tried contacting Sears HQ and the phones that were in their emails for some reason are popping up to another company. I have emailed them multiple times since wednesday when I was suppose to hear from them and I did not get a response.

No System Override

When I finally got someone from Sears Puerto Rico on the phone I was informed that since the order got cancelled nothing else could be done. So that means systems runs Sears not actual humans. I rather do business with humans.

Fragmented Communications

Sears is such a large organization that in the past they have huge issues communicating. My negative experiences have been from years ago having internal employees creating fake accounts to leave negative comments acting as trolls while they were on a sears server to many other under par in store experiences which I won’t go into detail, including the one I just shared.

My Priority was Delivery Date

If they only listened when I complained they should have contacted me immediately. Made sure that they would get the delivery date correct since it was my top priority and maybe even look into having me get that earlier than stated.

Instead they call me at 7am on the delivery date morning to tell me my mattress would be arriving on the 25th.

For many years I had not bought a single item and this past summer I made a home appliance purchase which is reflected on my Sears Rewards account. Based on that experience I preferred to go to Best Buy on my next purchase because they offered better customer service and a hassle free pricing structure including delivery on time as promised.

I rather buy In Borders, Blockbuster, and Circuit City

So dear Sears I regret to inform you that its more probable of me stepping into a Borders, Blockbuster, or Circuit City before I step foot in one your stores. ( I only ask of your management to understand why they went out of business).

I won’t ever again waste my time and much less trust you with any other purchase and could care less if you have the best price because for me being able to trust those I do business with is more critical.

I wonder how many more times your employees call people and give them no options when your process and company has dropped the ball. I am sure that many more have gone through this and here I go waiting on my refund which might take a few days so I can purchase a mattress elsewhere.

In summary every time I do business with you this Video pretty much summarizes how I feel.