Sometimes I just have to wonder whether anyone is awake at the wheel in corporate America. No better example of this happened to me tonight.
On Saturday, after some going back and forth, we finally decided to purchase a new dishwasher. After comparing prices and delivery charges and such, I decided to make my purchase at the local Sears store. I knew exactly what I wanted, so it was a quick and painless purchase. The salesperson was helpful and nice to me throughout.
I thought something was a little odd when the first delivery date he could offer me was nearly 2 weeks away. You usually don’t get that for popular models of dishwashers, which this one was. But I was thinking, no hurry, the old one still sort of works.
Tonight I was sitting at home, watching TV with the missus, and on comes this commercial from Sears, promoting their Ultimate Appliance Promise. It’s plastered over their website as well. Wow, nice promise, I thought to myself. Including next-day delivery guaranteed on over 1,600 different appliances! Wow, next-delivery? I ordered a popular model of an ordinary dishwasher, surely that’s one of those 1,600 appliances.
So I called the local Sears store. After waiting on hold for 10 minutes (customer service is truly dead in retail), someone from that section of the store answers. I ask my question about whether my dishwasher was covered by this “promise” or not. The salesperson doesn’t know, doesn’t know anything about the “promise,” and puts on the evening supervisor for that section. She was also very nice, asked me a few questions, then asked me to hold a moment.
While I was holding, she placed the phone away from her face, but I could clearly hear the conversation that occurred:
Sales woman, “Do you know if this product is covered by next-day delivery?”
Sales man, “I don’t know of anything we sell where we could guarantee next-day delivery!”
Sales woman, “I know, I know…” (Some more muted conversation occurred which I couldn’t quite make out.)
She comes back on, admits she doesn’t know, and takes down my further information to call me back tomorrow when she checks with her manager. I met this supervisor while picking out the dishwasher and she seemed to me to be very knowledgeable, polite, and down-to-earth. In other words, I wasn’t talking to a bunch of lowly-paid employees from a large discount retailer that ends in “Mart.”
It was clear to me listening to the other end of that conversation that these salespeople, well-meaning, hard-working individuals, were frustrated by Sears corporate and this marketing campaign which was making promises on their behalf that they knew would and could never be met.
So I have to ask, what good is a “promise” if it’s really just a lie, dressed-up to look like a promise in name only?
The psychology of such “promises” is simple — make people feel confident that Sears, the store, really cares about you. That they go that “extra mile” to offer you the largest selection and lowest price (two things they haven’t changed one iota, but just bringing to your attention). That they will talk to you during the first year’s warranty is in effect (not sure what this gets you, since the manufacturer is who you eventually need to chat with), and this one — next-day delivery on over 1,600 appliances. Keep in mind, too, that 1,600 appliances is more appliances than most Sears store actually display.
So Sears, here’s an idea — don’t make a promise that your salespeople don’t know much of anything about, and that will engender more ill-will than good when people start asking about it.
I will edit this entry when I get more information tomorrow.
(9 votes, average: 4.56 out of 5)
Loading ...This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 7:44 pm and is filed under General, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
13 Responses to “Sears Appliance Promise = Sears Appliance Lie” (Pingbacks/trackbacks not shown below)
Shirley Calabrese at 9:40 pm on
September 4th, 2007
I purchased a vacuum from Sears…one that is listed as a best buy in Consumer Reports. One of the clamps immediately broke off of the power head. Even though it was still under warrenty, I could not get help at the store. No one could tell me how I could get it replaced.I finally had to order a whole new power head from the service center and when it was finally delivered it was for a different model. I had to send it back at my own expense and reorder. What a hassle.
In my mind customer service is dead, no matter what the advertisements claim!!
alexandra_k at 2:11 am on
September 5th, 2007
Do you guys have laws on false advertising? Is there an advertising authority that you can contact to report that Sears is breeching the advertising standards? Would you have to sue them personally? Could you threaten to sue them and get some kind of discount on your purchase???
alexandra_k at 2:14 am on
September 5th, 2007
With respect to Shirley’s post…
Don’t you guys have some kind of consumer guarantees act? I think the store should have given you a replacement vaccum (if you returned it to the store within 24 hours of purchase) and dealt with the manufacturer themself. But then… I’m not up to date with that so I could be wrong…
laura at 9:53 pm on
January 7th, 2008
I work for a Sears Appliances here in my town. Most of our salespeople are extremely frustrated at this “promise” since our new system seems to have changed very little. Our section has raised the number of delivery trucks and we do indeed delivery to more zip codes on more days of the week. However, “next day” happens sparingly and only if the customer purchased before 3pm and not on a weekend. Almost any of the appliances shown in the ads will not be available “next day” by the time the customer comes in for purchase since we have many, many stores selling out of the same regional warehouse.
It’s unfortunate because all of our salespeople are put on the front line to get yelled at and complained to. We did not invent this “promise”. I wish customers would realize that the salespeople do not make these policies and we have little authority to say otherwise yet we are constantly berated for the actions of a distant, coroporate entity.
Doug Edge at 2:05 pm on
January 12th, 2008
I am considering purchasing new appliances from sears. Prefer the GE APPLIANCES. I DO HOPE I will be able to better service.
katznaperr at 12:39 am on
January 20th, 2008
I am in the same boat as John. Today I spent a good chunk of time on the phone trying to get to the bottom of this “promise” since the dryer I bought took 5 days to be delivered and the washer is almost 2 weeks. There website says if the promise is not met you get a $50 Sears gift card, which I should get for each purchase. But no one seems to know who gives out these gift cards. I called the store, called customer service, called corporate headquarters and the delivery department but nobody will take ownership of this “promise”. I was transfered a million times and disconnected many times. I wish I had a recorder on my phone so I could publish it all to YouTube because it was downright abusive. I sent an e-mail to corporate headquarters (see below) and if I do not get a response I plan to try calling everyone again but this time with a recorder.
Here is the e-mail I sent:
“Hello, I am having trouble with your “Sears Ultimate Appliance Promise” since I can not find anyone at the Woodfield IL store or at the call center for Sears customer relations that knows how it works. I purchase a washer and dryer on 1/14/08 and they could not give us delivery on the dryer until 1/19/08 and the washer until 1/30/08.
I was not happy about the delay because our dryer was broke but agreed because we did not have time to do any more shopping. Later that week I visited your website to enter my rebate information and found out about “The Sears Ultimate Appliance Promise” and saw I qualified for two $50 gift cards because my purchases could not be delivered for quite some time.
The next day I called the store and spoke with my sales associate and someone in customer service but nether said they could help me and told me to contact corporate Sears. I spend the next hour and a half getting bounced around, disconnected many times and still nobody could take ownership of this policy. Here is my call log for the day to show how many calls I made (my phone company allows me to see this on the net):
Jan 19, 2008 01:07 PM 18007327747 00:15:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:54 PM 18007327747 00:13:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:49 PM 18007327747 00:04:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:48 PM 18007327747 00:02:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:10 PM 18005494505 00:35:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:04 PM 18473302356 00:04:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:02 PM 18473302356 00:02:00
Jan 19, 2008 11:52 AM 18473302322 00:05:00
Can someone who knows about this program please contact me so I can follow through? I am not mad, I got my dryer today and it looks and works great and I like Sears and want to continue to shop there. However it bothers me that this policy is so widely advertised and there is no way for a customer to use it.
Thank you”
katznaperr at 7:52 pm on
January 21st, 2008
UPDATE: I got a call from the store manager today and he assured me I would get my gift cards. So now it is a wait and see.
feelingyrpain at 10:28 pm on
March 5th, 2008
I work at a corporate ran retail store and can understand where Laura is coming from. I have worked for this company for 5 years and there are always coming in the store and refer to something on our website. Most of the time it’s something important enough that those of us who are working “for the Man” should be notified before the information is posted on the site. You would think corporate would have enough sense to educate its employees first so we could sell the product or be able to talk about the issue with some sense of confidence. But usually we, those at the counter sound like idiots because we don’t know what is going on for the company that pays us every week. Sorry for going on but it is frustrating. What do these people think when they post this stuff on the company site. The customer will let our employees know about it!?? I’m done.
Sal Khoury at 9:03 pm on
March 22nd, 2008
Sears legendary service is far gone,it’s just like they don’t care anymore about the customer ,they only care about Sales, that’s why you hear this, again and again the sales personal are wonderful, when they are ONLY selling you merchandise.
I have been a customer of Sears for over fourty years, most of our home appliances and house hold needs are purchased at Sears.
on X-mas I got me a pair of my favorite blue jeans as a present from my daughter ,who said she purchased it at Sears, unfortunately she was off on the size due to my indulgence on the Holidays, told her no problem I’ll exchange them to the right size after the Holidays.
A few weeks ago I took them to Sears in Modesto Calif, to exchange them to the right size, First the Sales Lady said sure,let me get permission from my manager,who flatly refused to exchange the pants to the another size, without a receipt or a proof of purchase.Total rejection. I was humiliated in front of other customers watching the transaction in progress,they made me feel like I obtained these jeans illegaly.I was so dissapointed,I asked to speak to the Manager, the Sales Lady just turned her back and left. Couple of months earlier I spent over $4000.00 on appliances from Sear , and now I regret it.
My family and I decided to boycott Sears from now on.
Carl McCloud at 7:36 pm on
April 6th, 2008
Purchased a new smooth top range from Sears Saturday afternoon (yesterday) and it was delivered this morning (yes, on SUNDAY!). Great service and a promise kept by Sears of Fayetteville, NC. Thanks Annie. You’re the best!
shouldhaveknownbetter at 9:51 am on
May 5th, 2008
I had a very similiar experience. I bought a dishwasher on a Sunday 5/4/08 before 3pm. Delivery on my receipt says 5/05/08. After 4 phone calls this morning I got the information that it will be installed on Wed. 5/7/08. Not exactly “next day”. No one I spoke to knew about the guarantee, so no one was interested in honoring it.
An interesting note, I could not find this guarantee on Sears’ website. We saw it on a sign in the store with an 800 number. This person at the 800-871-1622 number told me to call the store or installation, wished me luck and disconnected so quickly I couldn’t ask another question. It looks like I should have shopped somewhere else. Next time I probably will!
Mark M at 9:51 am on
May 17th, 2008
If you think your new delivery time is bad try getting a repair on a “state of the art, high effiency” Kenmore washer (less than 2 years old) that needs a ($300)part, We’ve been without a washer for 5 weeks now, and they still won’t give us an expected date on the backordered part. By the way Sears got our money for an extended warranty too. How can you sell an $800 washer, sell a warranty, and not have parts for it. Bottom line, we’ve made numerous calls, spoken to numerous people who can’t speak English, and no one in management will return our calls. I grew up with Sears but I’ve had it. I would not recommend them to anyone.
Annie at 2:25 pm on
July 5th, 2008
We’ve inquired about their lowest price guarantee advertisement and whether that means price matching. The salesman just indicated he would have to ask him manager but then came back saying the online store price cannot be met.
This is frustrating to learn that Sears does not stand behind their promises since I was ready to purchase the stove even though I would have to pay for the tax if purchased at the local Sears because of their reputation of customer service. The cost for tax would been sustainial because it was an $3,000 range if they would meet the online store price which does not charge tax.
Be a Part of the Conversation! Comment on this Entry Now:
I purchased a vacuum from Sears…one that is listed as a best buy in Consumer Reports. One of the clamps immediately broke off of the power head. Even though it was still under warrenty, I could not get help at the store. No one could tell me how I could get it replaced.I finally had to order a whole new power head from the service center and when it was finally delivered it was for a different model. I had to send it back at my own expense and reorder. What a hassle.
In my mind customer service is dead, no matter what the advertisements claim!!
Do you guys have laws on false advertising? Is there an advertising authority that you can contact to report that Sears is breeching the advertising standards? Would you have to sue them personally? Could you threaten to sue them and get some kind of discount on your purchase???
With respect to Shirley’s post…
Don’t you guys have some kind of consumer guarantees act? I think the store should have given you a replacement vaccum (if you returned it to the store within 24 hours of purchase) and dealt with the manufacturer themself. But then… I’m not up to date with that so I could be wrong…
I work for a Sears Appliances here in my town. Most of our salespeople are extremely frustrated at this “promise” since our new system seems to have changed very little. Our section has raised the number of delivery trucks and we do indeed delivery to more zip codes on more days of the week. However, “next day” happens sparingly and only if the customer purchased before 3pm and not on a weekend. Almost any of the appliances shown in the ads will not be available “next day” by the time the customer comes in for purchase since we have many, many stores selling out of the same regional warehouse.
It’s unfortunate because all of our salespeople are put on the front line to get yelled at and complained to. We did not invent this “promise”. I wish customers would realize that the salespeople do not make these policies and we have little authority to say otherwise yet we are constantly berated for the actions of a distant, coroporate entity.
I am considering purchasing new appliances from sears. Prefer the GE APPLIANCES. I DO HOPE I will be able to better service.
I am in the same boat as John. Today I spent a good chunk of time on the phone trying to get to the bottom of this “promise” since the dryer I bought took 5 days to be delivered and the washer is almost 2 weeks. There website says if the promise is not met you get a $50 Sears gift card, which I should get for each purchase. But no one seems to know who gives out these gift cards. I called the store, called customer service, called corporate headquarters and the delivery department but nobody will take ownership of this “promise”. I was transfered a million times and disconnected many times. I wish I had a recorder on my phone so I could publish it all to YouTube because it was downright abusive. I sent an e-mail to corporate headquarters (see below) and if I do not get a response I plan to try calling everyone again but this time with a recorder.
Here is the e-mail I sent:
“Hello, I am having trouble with your “Sears Ultimate Appliance Promise” since I can not find anyone at the Woodfield IL store or at the call center for Sears customer relations that knows how it works. I purchase a washer and dryer on 1/14/08 and they could not give us delivery on the dryer until 1/19/08 and the washer until 1/30/08.
I was not happy about the delay because our dryer was broke but agreed because we did not have time to do any more shopping. Later that week I visited your website to enter my rebate information and found out about “The Sears Ultimate Appliance Promise” and saw I qualified for two $50 gift cards because my purchases could not be delivered for quite some time.
The next day I called the store and spoke with my sales associate and someone in customer service but nether said they could help me and told me to contact corporate Sears. I spend the next hour and a half getting bounced around, disconnected many times and still nobody could take ownership of this policy. Here is my call log for the day to show how many calls I made (my phone company allows me to see this on the net):
Jan 19, 2008 01:07 PM 18007327747 00:15:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:54 PM 18007327747 00:13:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:49 PM 18007327747 00:04:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:48 PM 18007327747 00:02:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:10 PM 18005494505 00:35:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:04 PM 18473302356 00:04:00
Jan 19, 2008 12:02 PM 18473302356 00:02:00
Jan 19, 2008 11:52 AM 18473302322 00:05:00
Can someone who knows about this program please contact me so I can follow through? I am not mad, I got my dryer today and it looks and works great and I like Sears and want to continue to shop there. However it bothers me that this policy is so widely advertised and there is no way for a customer to use it.
Thank you”
UPDATE: I got a call from the store manager today and he assured me I would get my gift cards. So now it is a wait and see.
I work at a corporate ran retail store and can understand where Laura is coming from. I have worked for this company for 5 years and there are always coming in the store and refer to something on our website. Most of the time it’s something important enough that those of us who are working “for the Man” should be notified before the information is posted on the site. You would think corporate would have enough sense to educate its employees first so we could sell the product or be able to talk about the issue with some sense of confidence. But usually we, those at the counter sound like idiots because we don’t know what is going on for the company that pays us every week. Sorry for going on but it is frustrating. What do these people think when they post this stuff on the company site. The customer will let our employees know about it!?? I’m done.
Sears legendary service is far gone,it’s just like they don’t care anymore about the customer ,they only care about Sales, that’s why you hear this, again and again the sales personal are wonderful, when they are ONLY selling you merchandise.
I have been a customer of Sears for over fourty years, most of our home appliances and house hold needs are purchased at Sears.
on X-mas I got me a pair of my favorite blue jeans as a present from my daughter ,who said she purchased it at Sears, unfortunately she was off on the size due to my indulgence on the Holidays, told her no problem I’ll exchange them to the right size after the Holidays.
A few weeks ago I took them to Sears in Modesto Calif, to exchange them to the right size, First the Sales Lady said sure,let me get permission from my manager,who flatly refused to exchange the pants to the another size, without a receipt or a proof of purchase.Total rejection. I was humiliated in front of other customers watching the transaction in progress,they made me feel like I obtained these jeans illegaly.I was so dissapointed,I asked to speak to the Manager, the Sales Lady just turned her back and left. Couple of months earlier I spent over $4000.00 on appliances from Sear , and now I regret it.
My family and I decided to boycott Sears from now on.
Purchased a new smooth top range from Sears Saturday afternoon (yesterday) and it was delivered this morning (yes, on SUNDAY!). Great service and a promise kept by Sears of Fayetteville, NC. Thanks Annie. You’re the best!
I had a very similiar experience. I bought a dishwasher on a Sunday 5/4/08 before 3pm. Delivery on my receipt says 5/05/08. After 4 phone calls this morning I got the information that it will be installed on Wed. 5/7/08. Not exactly “next day”. No one I spoke to knew about the guarantee, so no one was interested in honoring it.
An interesting note, I could not find this guarantee on Sears’ website. We saw it on a sign in the store with an 800 number. This person at the 800-871-1622 number told me to call the store or installation, wished me luck and disconnected so quickly I couldn’t ask another question. It looks like I should have shopped somewhere else. Next time I probably will!
If you think your new delivery time is bad try getting a repair on a “state of the art, high effiency” Kenmore washer (less than 2 years old) that needs a ($300)part, We’ve been without a washer for 5 weeks now, and they still won’t give us an expected date on the backordered part. By the way Sears got our money for an extended warranty too. How can you sell an $800 washer, sell a warranty, and not have parts for it. Bottom line, we’ve made numerous calls, spoken to numerous people who can’t speak English, and no one in management will return our calls. I grew up with Sears but I’ve had it. I would not recommend them to anyone.
We’ve inquired about their lowest price guarantee advertisement and whether that means price matching. The salesman just indicated he would have to ask him manager but then came back saying the online store price cannot be met.
This is frustrating to learn that Sears does not stand behind their promises since I was ready to purchase the stove even though I would have to pay for the tax if purchased at the local Sears because of their reputation of customer service. The cost for tax would been sustainial because it was an $3,000 range if they would meet the online store price which does not charge tax.
