Dear Sears Customer Service:

The BBQ Pit
1

As a disclaimer: Please forgive the language I use below. All of the impolite words are directly from your employees.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been considering the purchase of a home gym. After reading and asking around, I decided on a specific model that you carry. This morning, I visited your store at Westfield Shoppingtown Countryside – Sears #1415. This particular store is twice as far from my home as your other local Sears, but according to your website, the gym I wanted was in stock. I arrived at your store and went to your fitness section. I waited there for about 10 minutes to see whether any of your associates was nearby. None showed up, so I went to a nearby register to ask for help. Charlie, an associate in a black shirt, and Liz (I believe) in a white shirt were at the register. Liz suggested that Charlie page someone to handle the transaction, but Charlie said that he could handle it. Excepting the wait time for assistance, my experience so far had been pleasant.

I went to merchandise pickup to get the gym I had just purchased. I waited there for over 10 minutes before Wally, another associate in a black shirt, burst forth from the backroom doors and demanded to know from whom I had purchased the gym. I pointed in the direction of the register (which is in sight of pickup). Wally took off after Charlie, saying that he couldn’t believe the crap he put up with around here. Although they were 50 feet away from me, I could hear the two of them arguing about something. Wally came back and informed me that the store was out of the gym in question. When I asked him why Charlie had told me the store had 15 on hand, and why the website concurred, Wally informed me that the inventory system was often wrong and usually worthless. Wally then told me that he would call other stores to see if they had any in stock. I mentioned that I had made a special trip 30 minutes out of my way in order to get the gym today, and he didn’t even apologize for my inconvenience.

When we got to a phone, Wally called two other local stores. Neither of these stores had them in stock, which I expected – the website had already informed me of that. While muttering to himself that he couldn’t “believe the shit” that goes on at that store, he told me that Charlie claimed to have paged him, but Wally didn’t hear him. Wally then promised free home delivery for me, due to my inconvenience. He attempted to re-ring the transaction for another 10 minutes, and he then had to leave me alone again while he went to the office to straighten things out. When he finally managed to complete the transaction, he informed me that home delivery from the warehouse was unavailable. He then told me that the gym would arrive in the store on 5/13, and that he could have in on a local delivery truck on 5/14. I told him that if he could guarantee that it would be available on the 13th, and that someone from the store would call me when it arrives, that I would pick it up myself on the 13th. If I don’t pick it up on the 13th, I cannot be available to receive it until the 17th. All through the transaction, Wally kept muttering how much he hates working there, how much he can’t stand the shit that goes on there, and how he can’t wait to get out.

I have but a few questions for you.

[ul][li]Why do you have an inventory system in place if it is so unreliable? If (as I suspect) it is user error at the store level, then why is there not more training in its use?[/li][li]Why does one of your associates feel it appropriate to involve me in turf wars over the sales in his departments?[/li][li]Why, if Wally is so eager to leave, does he still work for Sears? His casual attitude toward customer service leads me to believe that I am by far not the first person whom he has treated in this manner.[/li][li]Finally, why should I continue doing business with you? I wasted an hour and a half of my only day off this week, when I could easily have ordered it for pickup without having left my house.[/ul][/li]
I work for a widely-respected regional retail company in a supervisory role. If one of my associates were to say “crap” in front of a customer, he would be suspended. If he were then to say “shit” in front of a customer, he would probably lose his job. I find the service level that Wally delivered to me to be entirely unacceptable. I was made to feel as though I were an inconvenience, and that my $481.48 purchase was simply an impediment to Wally’s leisure time.

I and my family have been faithful Sears customers for all of my life. We have bought all of our major appliances from Sears, and we in fact just spent over $500 on a refrigerator from Sears two months ago. Added to the purchase of this gym, Sears has made over $1,000 from my family these past two months. I have never been disappointed in your service until now, and it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be disappointed again because I do not intend to spend another penny in any of your stores. You’ve lost a customer of 25 years, and the family of that customer as well.

Sincerely,
My IRL Name
To Dopers:
Seriously, what the fuck? I’m serious that at my company, I would be fired if I were to continuously drop profanities in front of my customers. I would be severely chastised for telling any of my customers that our inventory system was worthless. I wouldn’t even think of blaming a coworker for problems in front of a customer. I drove home after leaving this place fuming. Absolutely fuming. I’m still pissed. This letter is going via snail-mail to Sears’ CEO’s secretary, because I am not putting up with this shit from anyone. I know retail is tough, but I don’t fucking care. You don’t fucking involve your customers with your fights within the store, and you sure as hell don’t cuss at them.

2

I used to work ina Sears call center, trained to handle calls from store associates. They were almost uniformly the worst customers to deal with. This was in the mid-90s and it sounds like nothing’s changed.

3

raises hand Ooh ooh oooh, can I pleeease answer this one?

The inventory system at Sears consists of managers going around once a month or so, and counting and scanning each product by hand. Near as I can tell (and I worked at Sears for 7 months), it doesn’t get updated until the next inventory is taken. All the cashier/salesperson can see of the inventory is a number on the “extended info” screen, and that number is guaranteed to be off by at least one, for the floor model. A good salesperson will go to the backroom and check the stock on something before selling it, but I guess that Charlie felt that, since there were 15 shown, he didn’t have to.

As for Wally - well, I can tell you why he’s working at Sears. Ever heard the term “better than nothing”? Sears doesn’t pay too badly, and they’ll put up with a lot of crap from their employees just so they don’t have to do the firing paperwork. (Hey, I managed to hold a job there for 7 months, and I realize now that I was a horrible employee.) During the time I was there, I only knew one person who’d been fired for a reason other than tardiness, and that was a salesperson who manually processed a credit card that wouldn’t go through the system because it was blocked as stolen.

I’m very sorry you had such a bad experience - oh, wait, I don’t work there anymore, I don’t have to be sorry. :stuck_out_tongue: It sucks that the people at that Sears are such dumbfucks, but at least you’re getting your gym!

Oh, one more thing, about the wardrobe - black and white are the manditory uniform for all Sears employees, so you might want to cut out the part where you mention what color shirts the people were wearing.

4

I used to work there, too. When I did, there was an inventory system that has absolutely nothing to do with what we had in stock. As low-woman on the totem pole, it was my responsibility to inventory all our lawn mowers, tractors, and other big ticket lawn and garden merchandise every Friday.

Unless things have changed since I worked there, I can assure you that the computer-based inventory problems were not the employee’s fault. Especially if the original associate who sold you the merchandise was from another department.

What *was * the associate’s fault was the bad language, bad manners, and overall terrible attitude. Good for you for writing a letter to corporate. That’s the only way to get anything done. Local stores seem to have managers who are just there in order to gain enough experience to find another job.

5

I had an eerily similar experience when I bought an exercise bike from Sears, minus the profanity. They didn’t actually figure out they were out of the bike until I’d been waiting in the pickup area for about a half hour. I ended up having to go to another store 20 minutes away to get it.

I also used to work at a Sears call center…for about a month. We took calls from people who needed something repaired. Our call center basically existed in order to prevent customers talking to people in their area who knew what their schedule was. We had to schedule whatever appointment showed up on our screen, which was usually two to three weeks away, which was awfully fun when an old lady called up with a broken A/C unit in the middle of a summer heat wave. Oh, and then to top it off, we had to try and sell them some laundry detergent, which the repair guy could deliver when he showed up.

6

I knew that they were uniforms – I was just unaware of the significance of the colors. My company has differentiated uniforms for each department and job within the department, so I didn’t know whether or not it was significant (like white for cashiers, black for floor personnel, etc.)

7

I have no doubt whatsoever that the employee is blameless in the inventory matter. But, it resulted in disappointing the customer, which can be handled in two ways. The first way is to blame the system and act like this:

The other way is the right way – apologize profusely, find a manager, and act as the customer advocate to get what the customer was promised ASAP. Even if it means someone will have to go pick up the item from another store and deliver it. I work at a grocery store for God’s sake, and we often will go to another store (even a competitor) to get something for a customer same day. Nobody there spends nearly as much per transaction as a regular customer would at Sears.

My thoughts were that the manager must know what Wally’s like, because I sincerely doubt I’m #1 on Wally’s shitlist. Writing a letter to the manager wouldn’t be enough. Just to verify, if anyone knows, the president is:

Alan J. Lacy, President and CEO, Sears, Roebuck, and Co.
3333 Beverly Rd
Hoffman Estates IL 60179

Right?

8

I currently work at Sears as a cashier. I don’t think we’re all bad. I know it’s not the best job in the world, but I do the best I can.

Bambi, I’m sorry that that happened to you. The associate’s behavior was inexcusable. In my store, that would be grounds for a firing.

As for uniforms, associates must wear a white or black shirt with a collar and buttons, (a polo shirt will do) and black or tan pants.

9

Before I begin, a little disclaimer: I am in no way attempting to excuse the rude behavior shown to you by Wally, or the utter lack of common sense displayed by the sales associates.

However.

I must say I have wondered for quite some time why managers and associates are not allowed to mention any problems the store might be having. If it’s not actually written in the rules (and it usually is), it’s told to the employees on the first day of training. Basically, you’re supposed to pretend that everything is perfect, and there is no reason whatsoever that the problem you’re experiencing is occuring. In fact, it isn’t! What problem? Everything’s fine! But we apologize anyway for the inconvenience caused by this problem that doesn’t really exist! At least, this is what salespeople seem to be expected to say when faced with something like a faulty inventory system. In my chosen industry, restaurants, this creates even more ridiculous situations. Say, for example, that the cooks burn the appetizer for a table. They will then have to make a new one, raising the total cook time to just over twice the usual. The table, naturally, will want to know why the hell it’s taking 20 minutes to get cheezy fries. But we’re not supposed to admit that anybody fucked up. Remember, problems do not exist. The food is late…um…because. You know, it just is. You know? I can only assume that the management would rather have the customer think that the erroneous fluke is the way the store usually does business (in other words, routinely telling customers that out-of-stock items are in stock, or routinely taking 20 minutes to make cheese fries).

As such (to bring this sub-rant to a conclusion), I can’t really fault Wally for blaming the POS system for being a POS, though he clearly could’ve done so in less colorful terminology. Problems occur sometimes, and when they affect the customer, the customer has a right to know what’s up. They’ll either understand that hey, shit happens, or else they’re the type of asshole who won’t be satisfied no matter what you do.

10

Speaking as a former retail drone, I’ll answer this: The customer is supposed to think we’re gods, coming down from Mount Olympus to hand them their precious, precious goods. We don’t want them to know ANYTHING, because then they might think something is amiss and lose faith in the gods. Blame Management By Religion.

For example (I just posted this in another thread), the store where I used to work was routinely short-staffed on cashiers (because they’d hire 8 part timers who could work once a month from 1-3pm on a Sunday rather than one full-time person). The cashiers would page for the floor staff to help when they got overrun. Management decided this was Unacceptable, as customers would know we were short-staffed (because they wouldn’t see the one cashier at a bank of registers), so now the cashiers have to use codes to page for help to the register.

11

We’ve pretty much ruled out ever buying anything from Sears if we can help it, due to a couple of experiences similar to the one above. I never got so much of an impression that it was just a big, awful burden to have to make a sale as when we were trying to buy things from Sears. They clearly don’t want our money, what with the amount of sighing, huffing, procrastinating, screwing around and so on that went on when we had the audacity to try to purchase something from them.

12

Just joining in on the Sears Sucks bandwagon. Over the past two years, I’ve purchased three major items from them.

  1. A washer & dryer - delivery-wise, everything was hunky dory but when it came to installation, my washer was shipped without hoses. I called customer service to complain and was told I could get the hoses shipped to me in a week or buy them myself and get reimbursed for my expense.

  2. An elliptical workout machine - was shipped without a crucial screw which I didn’t notice when putting together the damn thing and almost killed myself the first time I worked out.

Yeah, avoid Sears. Try local stores.

13

Bull. The customer has the right—and indeed, in most cases the desire—to know nothing more than the following: whether the item is available, the cost of the item, and a reasonably accurate estimate of the time and date when the item will be placed into the customer’s plump, pink little hands.

As a customer, I don’t want to hear a litany of all the things that are wrong with your store. Telling me what’s going wrong will not get me on your side and make me feel sorry for you. It’s your job (and your manager’s job) to worry about that stuff, not mine. I don’t want to waste the time to hear you whine about it or the brain cells to understand it or the emotional energy to care.

Just apologize sincerely for the inconvenience, give me the briefest possible explanation of the hold-up, and tell me my options. If none of the options are acceptable, I will thank you for your help and take my business elsewhere. If you impose upon me by bitching about your store’s shortcomings and how they’re all somebody else’s fault, I will quickly become irritated, and my wallet and I will just head out the door all the sooner.

14

Actually, the call center scheduling system was pretty well constructed. If an appointment got cancelled even same day it almost immediately went back in as an available appointment. Scheduling the appointment was almost never the problem. Making sure the tech got there, now that was sometimes a problem.

And the detergent was really pretty decent soap. I used it the whole time I worked there (mostly because they gave it away to associates as contest prizes and the like).

That call center job was my favorite job I ever had (mostly because I was also a trainer). I might still be there had they not downsized us. Which center did you work in?

15

Okay, let’s parse this. Your initial point: if there’s a problem, you don’t want to hear about it, and you certainly don’t want to know what it is: “As a customer, I don’t want to hear a litany of all the things that are wrong with your store.” In other words, you’d rather hear that the product is out of stock, or the food is late, or whatever, with no explanation whatsoever of why. It just is, and you’ll get it when (and if) you get it. Hell, we might not even have it, even though our inventory system told you we did. Oh, you demand an explanation for this? No you don’t. After all, “It’s your job (and your manager’s job) to worry about that stuff, not mine.”

Furthermore, you don’t want to “waste the time to hear you whine about it or the brain cells to understand it or the emotional energy to care.” Fine by me…if you don’t care and don’t want to, then I’ll get you your damned item whenever I please. You just sit there and wait, not caring, and don’t trouble your mind with why it’s taking half an hour to fulfill a five-minute request.

But wait. Let’s have a look at what you actually want me to do. “Just apologize sincerely for the inconvenience, give me the briefest possible explanation of the hold-up, and tell me my options.” Oh, so you do want an explanation now? I thought that sort of thing didn’t concern you. If our internal problems are not your affair, don’t ask me to explain them, and certainly don’t expect me to apologize for them, since you wish to deny their existence in the first place. “If you impose upon me by bitching about your store’s shortcomings and how they’re all somebody else’s fault, I will quickly become irritated, and my wallet and I will just head out the door all the sooner.” Ok, fine. If you don’t want to understand that the inconvenience you’re experiencing is not standard procedure, and you’re unwilling to accept the existence of problems, I’d rather not have you as a customer anyway. Your expectations are clearly unrealistic and we are not going to be able to please you.

The only way your argument holds water is if you assume (which you certainly seem to) that the only way I can explain a problem to you is by “bitching about your store’s shortcomings and how they’re all somebody else’s fault”. I’m glad you have judged me, and every other serviceperson on Earth, incapable of explaining a problem in a rational and apologetic manner. Then again, maybe you determined this with the same telepathic powers that told you of my Secret Agenda, which is to “get me on your side and make me feel sorry for you.” You’re right, my entire objective whenever a problem arises is to engender the maximum amount of pity for my situation amongst the customers. By explaining those problems to you which directly affect you, I am not, as I would have you believe, merely operating under the assumption that you are semi-intelligent and capable of rationalization and understanding of a situation…I really just want you to feel bad for me. Curses, foiled again :rolleyes:

Hell, even the guy in the OP wasn’t as bad as you seem to assume I am. He was just bitching in general and using inappropriate language in front of the customers. At least he didn’t have a hidden agenda behind his complaints. Maybe the OP should’ve pitted me instead. Oh well, missed opportunities.

16

Roland, if I may butt in here, I don’t quite understand why you find the above objectionable. There’s a world of difference between explaining to a customer that there’s a problem, rather than going on and on about how your co workers are incompetent morons who couldn’t find their own ass with both hands, and you hate this job and all the shit for brain morons you have to work with, etc etc. (that was a general you and an example, not saying you do that)

Customers don’t want to hear this. It’s unprofessional and gives the impression of a poorly run company, which isn’t doing anyone any favors if said company wants to make money. This is not to say that you can’t tell a customer if something is wrong. Most of them will want to know why something can’t be done, and reasonable people will accept “I’m sorry, [insert reason here], [insert solution here]” over “everyone here sucks and should be fired and this store sucks and everything sucks”. The internal problems aren’t their affair. They don’t work there. People have their own jobs, their own lives and problems to worry about. They don’t need to hear it from a company that they patronize.

I really think you’re misinterpreting what Podkayne said there, but I’m not Podkayne so I could be mistaken.
I would have a problem with a policy of pretending everything is fine, to be sure. That’s just dumb. Most people aren’t that stupid, they know that shit happens and things don’t go smoothly 100% of the time. I know that if I, personally, were waiting for, say, those aforementioned cheesy fries, I’d much rather hear from the server that they were burned and had to be recooked rather than sit there for 20 minutes wondering where my food is.

There are professional and unprofessional ways of dealing with customer problems. The employee in the OP chose the latter.

~~SSttR, retail drone/supervisor for 6.5 years and counting… :slight_smile:

17

Roland Orzabal, I try to avoid line-by-line responses. And yours seems to focus on misreadings rather than what I actually said. I.e. “I don’t want a litany” = “I don’t want any explanation at all,” etc.

So let me just clarify why I’m trying to say.

I don’t want anyone to pretend that there isn’t a problem, because, duh, obviously there is one. But I don’t want a detailed explanation, and, IMHO, the business doesn’t owe the customer one. Acknowledge the mistake, apologize for the delay, then tell me what you are able to do to accomodate my needs and roughly how long it’s going to take. And maybe that’s all you meant when you said the customer deserves to know “what’s up.”

I find it very tiring to be subjected to a detailed play-by-play of a problem that a) I didn’t cause, b) involves protocols and procedures and computer systems I am not familiar with, and c) I can’t do anything about. No matter how calmly and rationally and politely, this is done, to me it’s boring and frustrating. And usually it’s not done calmly and rationally and politely. I’d much rather be told, "We’re having a little difficulty. It might take a few minutes to resolve. Why don’t you wait over here, in our comfortable waiting room, with bowls of free chocolate and complimentary massages . . . "

Okay, that list bit was exaggerated, but man, that’s a store that’d get my business for perpetuity! :wink:

And yes, when I am treated to a long-winded explanation, I often feel like the person is trying to deflect blame from him or herself, and build some sort of comradrie in common adversity with them.

I never meant to imply that this is what all explanations are about, and I was using “you” in a general sense, not attempting to attack you personally. I’m mostly venting about a small number of very frustrating experiences I’ve had in the past, and let you know that all-information all-the-time approach (which you may or may not have advocated, I’m not sure) can backfire.

I realize that I may be idiosyncratic in this regard. Maybe most customers feel left out of the loop if they don’t get all the drama and all the details. But I, personally, am much more impressed by the many hard-working, capable service people out there who can resolve problems with the minimum of hassle to moi, the customer. And in all likelyhood, you’re a member of this fine cadre yourself.

18

Allow me to clarify. I don’t find Podkayne’s final request objectionable at all. I was just attempting to point out that it clashed severely with what he/she said before, which was that he/she doesn’t care what the problem is and doesn’t want to know. The tone with which the last part of my response was written was intended to show the ridiculousness of the assumption that explaining a problem to a customer is the same thing as bitching about it and trying to blame it on “someone else”.

I agree that the customer shouldn’t be subjected to a lengthy whine about who screwed up and how much they suck. But what Podkayne does not seem to understand is that there is a difference between that and simply informing the customer as to the nature of the problem. As I said in my initial post, I agree that the manager in the OP was behaving unprofessionally. I just take issue with people who would have us deny that problems exist, or else mention that there was in fact a problem without any further explanation whatsoever. In the real world, that does not satisfy people. Trust me, I’ve tried it; it used to be my default method until I got sick of people hounding me about what exactly the holdup was. As you said in regards to the cheesy fries, if you were in that situation, you’d prefer to know.

I do not disagree with Podkayne that bitchy rants against coworkers or “the system” have no place being made in front of customers. I do, however, object to the (strongly) implied notion that this is the only method servicepeople have of informing customers about problems.

19

…ah. I see my response has been retroactively responded to, and I find that I have perhaps gone overboard.

Not quite sure why I took that as a personal affront at first. It’s probably because I’m used to customers attacking me on a day to day basis for things that are not my fault, combined with the fact that the topic hits pretty close to home (as you can tell :slight_smile: ). Of course, that does not excuse what amounted to a defense-reaction flaming, for which I apologize.

Everything I said still holds true in my opinion, I just shouldn’t have directed it at YOU, since you apparently aren’t one of the people I’m talking about. I guess I just jumped the gun and assumed you were. It seems we’re closer to agreement than I thought. Glad we’re all on the same page here. Sorry if I was a bit blunt, but hey, if I’m going to overreact, the Pit is the place, right? :smiley:

20

In the Pit, overreacting is half the fun! :slight_smile: (I think I overracted to your first post, too.)