Horrible Customer Service At Sears
I have attached the following letter I written to the company that describes Sear’s horrible customer service
I have been a long time customer of your company but recently I bought furniture from your Scarborough store for the first time. I have had a horrible experience with your company since. Your logo reads “Quality, Value, Service, Trust” but your company fails in all four of these areas.
I bought a sofa and a set of tables from your William Kitchen Road Scarborough store on August 24, 2008. It was set to be delivered more than one month later on October 8, 2008 from 12 noon to 6pm. I took that day off to wait for this delivery. I received a call the morning of Wednesday, October 8, 2008 from your delivery department telling me that the items I purchased “did not get on to the delivery truck in time” and hence my delivery had to be rescheduled and the next available delivery date was the following week. I was very unhappy about this given I cancelled my patients that day in order to be home to open the door for the delivery people. I settled for having the delivery rescheduled for Thursday October 16, 2008 from 5pm to 9:30pm. I confirm this delivery the day before and the morning of. I cancelled my plans for the evening in order to be home again. I then got a call on October 16 at 6:30pm from the delivery man stating he was at 55 Rosedale Avenue West. I told him I was at 55 Via Rosedale. I told him I did not understand how he could be at the wrong address since my Sears receipt specifically has the address 55 Via Rosedale printed on it. Nevertheless, this delivery man refused to turn around (he states he was heading south and not north) even though he was only a 15 minute drive away. As you can understand, I became very angry as this was the second mistake your company made and the second day you caused me to waste. I phoned your delivery inquiry line. They were very unhelpful except to tell me that the saleperson Pedram at the Scarborough store entered my address incorrectly on the delivery system. They then transferred me to your corporate customer service line. There I spoke with an agent named Sarah who told me the best she could do was to arrange a special delivery with another truck for the following Saturday with a narrower delivery time window. She states she will call me back in a couple of hours to confirm this delivery time. When I did not hear from her by 9pm, I called your corporate customer service line again and spoke with Meridith and explained my whole story again and she states she could not help me and whatever Sarah promised to do was between me and her. And Sarah never ended up calling me that night.
I called your customer service line again the next morning at 8am and spoke with an agent named Tina. I had to explain my whole story again since she did seem to know what was going on with my delivery. She stated that my address on the delivery system was 55 Rosedale Avenue West. I told her that this was the wrong address and I did not understand why it has not been corrected yet. She told me that she will call me back after she looks into the situation. I got a call back from yet a different agent at around noon telling me that a Saturday delivery was not possible now and the next available delivery date was October 20 from 1 to 6pm. I told her I could not cancel more patients in order to wait again for this delivery for the third time. She told me that the next evening delivery date was October 22 from 1 to 9:30pm! I asked her why was the delivery window larger than previously offered? She told me that this was the only option offered in my area. That was ridiculous! Basically, your company made no attempts whatsoever to make up for its mistakes. Your company instead expected me to settle for an inconvenient larger delivery time window and expecting me to waste more of my time. I got very frustrated and asked this representative to cancel my order and to get a refund. She told me that she will notify the store. I could not believe that I already paid my bill in full and still have not received the items I bought almost two months ago.
Given the experience I had with your company staff not keeping their word and the evidence of poor communication within your company, I drove all the way back to Scarborough from Brampton to speak to the salesperson Pedram on October 18th. I explained the situation to him. The store had no idea that I requested a refund. Pedram had the audacity to ask me what the problem was since the furniture was scheduled to be delivered on Monday. Not only did he not apologize for entering my address incorrectly on the delivery system, when I told him that I wanted a refund, he brush me off and walked away stating that he could not help me any longer. Luckily, I got help from another office staff and got my refund on my American Express card. I could not believe how rude Pedram was and how he did not show any regret on his sloppy, inaccurate computer entry that cost me wasting my time. It is also ironic that when I got home, I got a phone message from your delivery department stating the furniture was set to be delivered Monday. Again, this is evident of your company’s poor communication within itself.
The bottom line is that I can’t believe that a big company like yours would have such poor customer service. Part of the problem is outsourcing your delivery service; having sales people who are rude and do not treat customers with respect and who do not take any responsibility for their mistakes; and having customer service agents who do not take any responsibility nor follow up on what they say they will do. I spent $20 on prepaid calling cards on my cell phone alone just talking to your customer service department. I am totally frustrated and am seriously contemplating on whether or not to ever shop at any of your stores again and whether or not to share my experience with the larger community. Basically, your company can never make up for the frustration and time I have wasted as a physician. But the least your company can do is offer an official apology from your company and from Pedram. I am asking that Pedram get reprimanded for his disgusting customer service. I appreciate you reading through this letter. I may be only one customer but having poor customer service like this will eventually affect your bottom line if not already. I hope lessons can be learned from this case so that your company improves and another customer will not have to go through the same horrible experience as I did.
Sincerely,
Lien Luu
Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I am not surprised in the least by your experience, but sorry it happened to you.
December 15th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I’m posting a complaint letter to Sears also, since I’m sure I will never get a response from the company.
I’m writing in regards to refrigerator purchases I recently made at a Sears outlet store. When the original refrigerator I bought was delivered, it began running and never stopped, nor did it ever get cool. I tried several times over the next two days before I got a hold of an actual person to speak with, only to be told that I would have to call back the following day because they were closing soon. A repairman couldn’t be sent until the next day and by then, all of my food had to be thrown away. A new compressor was placed on emergency order and the repairman was supposed to return in another two days. The night before the repair was scheduled-anywhere between 8am and 5pm-I got a call cancelling the appointment, because although the part was on emergency order, it was still stuck in the factory. They promised they would call back the next day to reschedule for a time as soon as possible. Two days and no phone call later, I went back to the store to see what they could do for me.
At the store, I was told they could sell me another one if I wanted, but I couldn’t get my money back for the old one until it was back in the store. They also couldn’t pick the old one up at the same time they delivered the new one, because that had to be scheduled separately. I was getting desperate at this point, so I made the mistake of buying another one and cancelling the part for the first one. I was told they don’t deliver on weekends, so unless I want to take it with me, it would be 2 or 3 more days.
I received confirmation from 3 different people and the automated system that the delivery would be made after 6:30 pm so that I would not have to take off work. I got a call at 11:30am asking if I was going to be home in the next hour, because it needed to dropped off by 5:00pm. He had someone call me to reschedule for the following day, but I couldn’t be given a time until the automated system called. It never called. I went back to the store and the store manager called a regional manager to deal with the situation. Neither of us has ever received a call back from him.
A few days later, the manager and I spent three hours on the phone with eight different people just to set up the pick-up and refund of my old fridge. They couldn’t set up the delivery of the new refrigerator yet however, because they couldn’t locate it. Apparently, it got lost in the shuffle between the store, which is about 4 miles from my house, and the warehouse, about 20 miles away, where it first had to be taken in order to be brought to my house.
The next day, the refrigerator was tracked down and delivery was set up for Sunday, although I was previously told no deliveries are made on weekends. I got the confirmation call and an hour after my window passed, I called to see where my delivery was. I was told that the team was just running a little late and would be there any minute. They never showed up.
I called first thing the next morning, expecting an apology and an offer to bring it over that day. They offered to reschedule in another 2 days and couldn’t even give me an explanation as to why it wasn’t brought the night before. After more phone calls, I finally got someone from the local distribution center to arrange delivery of the new one and pick-up of the old one all at the same time for the next day. That was 2 weeks ago and I still haven’t received a refund for the original refrigerator that was returned.
I am extremely unhappy about this situation. Between throwing out about $50 worth of food and $40 worth of medication that needed to be kept cold, missed work, 2-$65 delivery fees, eating out for almost 3 weeks, and interest on my credit card, I have spent almost twice what the original refrigerator cost me. While I didn’t purchase the protection plan, I would expect some reimbursement considering the product I bought was brand new and defective from the beginning. Although the store staff was very helpful, I certainly expected better service from the company itself. I have since heard numerous and similar complaints about Sears and I thought you needed to be aware of these situations. I can tell you that I will most certainly never shop with Sears again and will make sure none of my friends and family will either.