Sears Social Media is Worthless

Sears Social Media is completely worthless but, as I discovered, it probably doesn’t matter since Sears is so dysfunctional and mismanaged they’re about out of business anyway.

In February of 2011 I wrote this post after being hammered on by Sears after buying some appliances from them. Sears Social Media, a group in Austin, TX, had a “case manager” followup and I suspect did so only because I was CC’ing the current head of marketing for Sears Holdings, Dave Friedman (who is now gone).

My wife and I made the mistake of buying a garage door opener from Sears a few weeks ago. Having forgotten to make certain I did NOT receive marketing/customer service phone call followups (like last time) I received a call Sunday afternoon from a robocalling service in Chicago, wanting me to partake in an automated survey, and I was under a desk assembling it for my sister-in-law. Exasperated I hung up and, after I finished assembling the desk, sent a tweet to @SearsCares (the social media group) and @Sears (some other Twitter feed). A “case manager” named Brian indicated he needed my contact info so I DM’ed him my email address.

Never received an email followup from anyone.

Next day (Monday afternoon) while in a business meeting my mobile phone rings. It’s another robocall coming in for the survey I never took. “Seriously?”, I thought. So after the meeting I started tweeting to their social media group in the hope I could get someone to intervene and stop the damn calls. Now “Diane”, someone who said twice, “Sorry for the delay in speaking to a case manager.We appreciate your patience. Thanks, Dianne cc:@Sears“

I’ve heard nothing and it’s now been 20 hours since their last message stating that they’d help out.

So I went to Sears Holdings in an attempt to find out who runs Sears Social Media and discovered a few things:

• Their Q3, 2012 results are so horrible that it’s no wonder the financial management of the company — obviously sucking the company dry — is clueless and probably milking the company as it dies
• Their marketing and social media efforts are led by a revolving door of senior managers. After Dave Friedman left Sears brings in a high profile ecommerce strategist, Monica Woo, who stays just five months. It’s no wonder the ship is sailing all over the place since it’s without leadership and the rudder is broken.

Did I give up? Mostly. Especially since I had an “Aha!” and remembered that the phone number I’d given Sears after the LAST fiasco was my Google Voice number (which is set to ring my mobile) so I logged in and blocked the robocall number.

But isn’t that fixing the wrong problem Sears? Hopefully the next time I shop at Sears (um…that’ll be never) I’ll remember to give you a number I can block.

UPDATE: After nearly THREE DAYS of Sears social media “interactions” I received this email (I had sent two others to “smsupport@searshc.com” and also filled out a form on Sears website) and called ‘Gabriel A.” as requested. Turns out there is not much he can do — he certainly can’t affect Sears robocalling or other marketing — but he offered to “close the case” since I’d already blocked the phone number (and, of course, he gets scored or paid on how many “cases” he resolves):

Sears Social Media Customer Service <smsupport@searshc.com>
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 3:27 PM

Dear Mr. Steve Borsch,

My name is Gabriel A; I work for Sears Executive office we are an escalated complaint and resolution team. Please contact me at your earliest convenience so that we may discuss your issue in depth. Please contact me at your earliest convenience on my direct phone number that has been provided below along with my business hours. I look forward to speaking with you soon. We have also created a case number in which we reference when you call which is ____________.

Gabriel A.

Social Media Support – Case Manager
Sears Holdings Corporation
Phone: 888-266-4043 extension 92
Email: smsupport@searshc.com
Schedule: Monday – Friday 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM (CST)