November 1st, 2007
Sears for fears: I overhear Sears customer conversations with pass-the-buck customer "service"
Refrigerators are not part of my regular beat, but in the name of one more example about just how bad customer service is in our day and age, I just had to share this with you.
Last night while on a commuter train back from the Von show in Boston to my hotel room in Providence, Rhode Island, I overheard 20 minutes worth of one end of a frustrating series of cellphone conversations.
Man across the aisle from me calls his local Sears store and says his Kenmore refrigerator’s “transmission” conked out last weekend, and is there someone who can cut him some slack on service and installation of a new unit? After all, that’s quite pricey- and the warranty seems to have expired two months ago.
The guy then tried to discuss the fine print of the warranty, to see if there was any wiggle room.
From the sound of it, the store manager said he didn’t have the authority to offer a waiver, or maybe even just a discount off the service fees and parts. But then, apparently on the store manager’s suggestion, my fellow train rider called Sears customer support.
The train rider/customer went through Tier 1 “support.” He had to constantly repeat himself about what the problem was and what he wanted to get done. Exasperated, he called for a supervisor. Someone else came on to the call, but from overhearing this customer, it turned out the supervisor wasn’t a supervisor at all.
Then- to comply with the “supervisor’s” suggestion, the increasingly red-faced customer/passenger called Sears “marketing.” From what I overheard, it sounded like he was being read the riot act for not purchasing an “extended warranty.” Customer said something to the effect of “I didn’t choose an extended warranty because I had faith this product would work.”
Sears “marketing” person first suggests this guy call customer “support.” He tells him I did so, but “they told me to call you.” Then this marketing person asks for customer’s phone number- presumably for a callback.
Callback did come, but with customer asked to repeat the whole story over again- for the sixth time, according to my informal count.
Customer did so, but then was told to expect another callback.
At that point, most mercifully, the passenger/frustrated Sears customer’s stop came. He disembarked.
Overarching takeaways:
Why do so few businesses (including telecommunications firms) empower their customer support teams to make decisions?
Why do customer support people lie about the availability and identity of “supervisors?”
Why do supervisors hate to come to the phone even though the caller is asking about an issue that obviously needs to be escalated?
Why does one department of a services company not know what the other is doing, or even which department’s responsibilities are which?
Why don’t customer service, tech support, sales and marketing departments cross-share information about specific customers and their trouble tickets?
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
