How would you like to do business with a retailer who absolutely HAMMERS on you with no way out? If you buy or get service from Sears, get ready to be a NAIL.
My wife and I haven’t purchased a major appliance (or much of anything, frankly) at Sears for many years. They do have a good selection of appliances and many more solid installers than does, say, a Best Buy, so when we were in the market for a new oven and cooktop we bought one from the local Sears store. The saleswoman was absolutely top-notch and she handled all the details…
…but that’s where the communications nightmare began with the “Sears marketing machine”.
We purchased the two pieces and scheduled installation for mid-January. Even before that installation had occurred, my wife (whose email address was on the order) began being inundated with emails from Sears and calls to her mobile phone (her mobile number was also on the order). She told me, “I have been deleting them so I can’t say an exact number. But I can say it has been too much! From 24 hour sales to requests for feedback, I have heard from Sears more than I have heard from my family since we bought these appliances!” Yep. She’s pissed.
We then upgraded the oven to a convection which delayed the installation to February 14th. Since my wife was taking a 12 day European trip on business in mid-January, we changed the phone number to mine since these robocalls could easily come in while she’s sleeping and also cost her $1.60/minute.
Putting my number on the order so Sears or the installers could communicate any issues to us seemed innocuous, but I had NO IDEA that a Sears installation survey robocaller (with the caller ID of 312-951-1276) would call not once, not twice, but SEVEN TIMES over the last two weeks or so! The calls came in each time to my mobile number, I was unable to answer, so the robocaller still hasn’t connected with me and will continue until I either answer its survey or it (hopefully) timesout.
Last evening I called the store to talk with our salesperson and department manager to see if they had suggestions on how to STOP THIS CALLING AND EMAILING. Unfortunately they had NO clue what to do. So I decided to connect with @MySears via Twitter hoping I could circumvent trying to call and connect with David Friedman, the new President of Marketing for Sears Holdings. Too bad that the people monitoring Twitter for @MySears didn’t followup all day today so I connected with them. They have now informed me that they’ve tossed me to “@SearsCares” but that I should know “…that the center has been affected by the snowstorm.” That’s shorthand for “Don’t hold your breath on having someone help you.“
Look. I do this web/internet business all day, every day. I understand the impact and necessity to engage in social media and what the best practices are for taking care of customers via these new channels. THAT is why I’m trying to connect with these people so that I can learn how to get in to a system like theirs and figure out how to bend it toward what I need which in this case is GETTING THEM TO STOP HARASSING MY WIFE AND I with all of their supposed “helpful” communications. Maybe they will learn something too.
If I’m unable to get these robocalls stopped and emails to cease by Monday or Tuesday of next week, I will do what my wife wants me to do right now: cancel the installation; get a credit for the oven and cooktop; and never, ever shop at Sears again.
UPDATE 2/21/11 THIS WOULD BE FUNNY IF NOT SO SAD: The Sears “Social Media” contact, Robert, has called me twice about the “$100 gift card we’re sending” and to check up to see if it has yet arrived. Someone else called AGAIN TODAY, more than TWO WEEKS LATER, to see if it has arrived and no, it hasn’t. This is getting sadly comical.
UPDATE 2/5/11 at 1:45pm CST: ‘Robert’, my ‘point of contact’, called (I assume my tweeting the last update, and including David Friedman, President of Marketing for Sears Holdings, got some attention). He ensured that “all your numbers are removed from our call lists” and is sending me a $100 gift card for my ‘trouble.’ Nice gesture for certain and I appreciate it, but if they’d NOT instituted such cheesey marketing practices and followed up promptly with their social media monitoring, the $100 would not have been necessary. These Sears folks have some work to do if they hope to be in-the-game 3-5 years from now.
UPDATE 2/5/11 at 11am CST: Yesterday afternoon a young man from “Sears Social Media” called me from Austin, TX. He said he’s my “main point of contact” and we talked about this issue and promised he’d “…send an email with my contact info immediately after we hang up.” That was 19 hours ago and you guessed it: nothing has arrived (and yes, I checked my spam inbox). I think these people need to go through a “Social Media 101″ course followed by a “How to Give Great Customer Service” one.
About Steve Borsch
Steve, I had a similarly annoying problem with a retailer who wouldn’t quit sending me advertisements. First, I threatened to contact the FCC. Then I actually did. The advertisements ceased immediately. Try this link to file a complaint: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm. Good luck!
Nice post though you should just give up. Like an old lumbering railroad company that didn’t “get” that trucking was fundamentally changing their business, Sears doesn’t understand retail today. They ‘think’ they understand, but consumers are 10x savvier than they are.
In a way, it’s like seeing Grandpa at a computer on DrJays.com wearing his Coogi studded jeans while he picks out his hoodie. Sorry Grandpa…you’re trying WAY too hard to be hip.
Every so often I get the beginnings of an automated survey about service that repeats the same question over & over on my answering machine. From Googling, I see this number is Sears – BUT – I HAVE NOT HAD ANY CONTACT with Sears Service in probably 2 years. I can’t even REMEMBER for sure when I bought my stove at The Great Indoors! Haven’t bought anything at ALL at Sears (even a shirt) in 8 months. Haven’t bought ANY appliance ANYWHERE in at least 8 months.
Thanks for this post. I had Sears out to repair my washer this week, so that explains why I’m getting calls. Next time I’ll answer it and see if I can get them to stop. Sorry you had such a frustrating experience.
We had an all-too-long and nightmarish experience with Sears trying to get our washer fixed. Here’s our story: http://www.kitschykitten.com/2011/10/29/sears-my-customer-experience/
Now that they have finally repaired it, 2 1/2 months after it initially broke down, I’m getting spam calls from their robo customer survey.
I found your site by Googling the phone number. Ugh. Ra-donk-u-lous.
Thanks for posting this. We just had service to our Sears bought fridge last week and today I have received two calls from the number you listed above. I generally do not answer numbers I do not recognize so I just sent it to voice mail which none was left of course. We did not have any problems with the purchase of the fridge, but months after we purchased the fridge we purchased a patio set to which we had nothing but problems. Needless to say if we did not have a service agreement with Sears already in place we would not have called them, but since it is already paid for we used them. I hope that we do not receive any more phone calls, but if we do I will be sure to answer one and maybe this will stop. If not I will take the proper channels as well because I do not want them to constantly call, I have better things to do with my time then talk to Sears.
I phoned Sears to cancel repair contracts. The supervisor told me that he could not send me a check but had to issue the funds to the credit card that I had used to purchased the products, fridge, washer, dryer all Elite high end. But, I do not have the credit card anymore. I canceled Bank of America credit card that I used to purchase the Sears products because of the foreclosure activity against Americans.
Can I do anything to get my money back on these Sears contracts?
My response is to never buy from Sears again.
No wonder Sears is experiencing problems and about to go broke in a lot of stores.
I purchased a loveseat from another retailer that uses Sears installers. It was delivered with two of it’s shipping legs ripped off, a hole in the back and side, wood splinters all over it, and chips to the wood portions of the finish. The delivery persons nearly dropped it coming in the door, and almost took away the legs with the packaging, grabbing them out of the plastic wrap at the last minute; “Oh, there’s something in here, I think it might be the legs. here.” I contacted the retailer who contacted Sears Delivery. After some back and forth calls, I was told that the delivery drivers were their best ones, and had been doing this for 25 years. (I wouldn’t boast) I was told that they signed for the loveseat in this condition. “Why would they accept and deliver damaged merchandise?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like a ‘top’ delivery person to me.” I’m told my replacement will be coming next week, but I’m sure Sears is trying to get out of paying for it, and hoping the other retailer will have to suck up the cost instead. Today, I got the robo call to my cell number. I’m sure they don’t want my honest opinion!
Prior to this, I had a store merchandise pick up. In the pick up area, they have a countdown sign that says if you are waiting longer than 5 minutes after you have checked in, you get a $5 gift card. At 4 minutes and 12 seconds, a man came out of the warehouse, and very casually unplugged the machine, and then plugged it back in, resetting the clock. This seemed pretty routine, as someone called out behind him, asking if that was what he was going to do, and if not, he needed to. I wonder how many people have been cheated out of their $5!
I emailed the store manager, and got my $5 credited back to my account. The sad part of that isn’t the $5, it’s that the stores compete against each other within the district, and this store was held within the top three for timely service. Because they were cheating. I’m sure some other store out there really does have honest to goodness awesome customer service that is going unrecognized, because they ARE being honest.
I was getting two calls a day from Sears. Then it occurred to me to call the number back. When I did, a recorded message told me that to add my number to their Do Not Call List, go to http://www.mysurveycontrol.com.
Why they couldn’t find a way to have that an option over the phone, I do not know…
I purchased a new electric stove at Sears on March 11 and they delivered it on March 16; the problem was the plug was supposed to be a 4-prong but they had a 3 prong. At the time of purchase I hadn’t looked to see which one I needed. (My bad). And I was told they were too busy today to come back and install it. I had gone into work extra early to avoid loss of time, rushed home to meet them at 8 am, after getting a call 15 minutes prior to delivery (after getting a voice mail the night before saying they would be here between 8:30-10:30 am). After work, I went back to Sears and traded the 3 prong for the 4 prong and was told by the salesman as I left; “there’s an electric shock hazard”. Thank you very much!! So, my new stove sits all w/e unusable. I tried to hook it up myself and burned a small area on the wall behind the stove when the sparks flew! Now I get to pay an electrician to come out and hook it up for me. Added expense and time away from work! The reason I’m responding is that I got a call from this number today too and the recording described it as a survey for customer service for different companies all over the world. I was not able to leave a message and they didn’t ask me to take a survey. Thanks for the heads up as I don’t plan to respond to any more calls from this number.
Boy do I wish that I saw this email before I called for service. I WILL NEVER USE SEARS SERVICE AGAIN BECAUSE I AM BEING HARASSED BY THEIR MARKETING SERVICE 5 TIMES A DAY!!!! I register for the do not call list 2+ weeks ago and they are relentless and will not remove my # and will not stop calling. I tried to call their Marketing line back multiple times without getting a representative. I have NEVER had such a bad customer experience with any company post purchase in my life. This is illegal and very non customer focused. Its sad that a marketing company is the one causing Sears to lose customers! I think I might try to post one comment like this on as many sites as I have received phone calls. I think that is only fair!
Good morning K,
My name is Michael and I am a member of the Sears Social Media Support team. I would like to apologize for the multitude of telephone calls that you have received. We certainly do not want to upset you by calling repeatedly. I would also like to apologize for the difficulties you have encountered in trying to speak to one of our marketing representatives. If you would grant us the opportunity, my team is more than happy to assist you in resolving this matter.
At your convenience, please contact our office via email at smsupport@searshc.com so you don’t have to be upset by this any longer. In the email, please provide a contact number and the phone number the service was performed under (if different than the contact phone number) and we will call you directly. In addition, please include your Screen name (K) in the email for reference to your issue. Again, we’re sorry for any trouble we have caused and we hope to talk to you soon.
Thank you,
Michael D.
Social Media Moderator
Sears Social Media Support