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Worst retail experience of my life.
This is the letter I will send to head office
Good morning,
I am writing this letter today to share my absolute disgust and frustration with Sears Canada and the customer service my girlfriend and I were provided with this past week.
We had purchased a washer and dryer from Sears back in January of this year from your East Ottawa home store location. We had our delivery day set for May 21, 2013 (today) but we decided to change this date to Friday, May 17, 2013 for personal reasons. We contacted Sears Monday, May 13th, 2013 and were told that this was fine and we can expect our appliances on the 17th. We understand this was done on short notice and delivery could be delayed based on our request which we were fine with.
On Friday we were left waiting for 10 hours, the 8 AM - 6 PM wait time we were given and we didn't so much as receive a call saying that our delivery would be late, delayed, or not delivered at all. This was frustrating but not enough to force us to go to the store to complain. We called Sears and simply asked what was going on and wanted information on the delivery of the goods we purchased and paid in full for. We were told the manager was busy at the moment and would get back to us shortly, needless to say no one got back to us.
On Saturday morning we decided to go in to Sears and ask what was happening with our appliances because clearly paying customers are not important enough to call back and provide information and details on their purchases to. We talked to a woman named Michelle, this is where things became beyond frustrating and we became truly disgusted with Sears , your customer service, and general attitude towards customers.
We asked to talk to the manager who turned out to be Michelle, she treated us like we were some sort of problem or virus that were simply an inconvenience in her day. We described to her very calmly and politely what the problem was and asked for her assistance. Michelle was beyond rude at this point and came off extremely condescending and ignorant. We were told by her that "there are worse things in life than not getting our washer and dryer" and while this is very true it's just about the dumbest thing someone could say to a paying customer who simply wanted an answer and a solution to a problem that was caused by her company, but she was right, no one died. We were then told "90% of the time things go well but unfortunately we fall into the 10% where it doesn't". I simply said to her "that isn't our problem" because it wasn't. Her job is to help that 10%, not force them out the door. Also, 10% of a million people is 100,000 people and if there are that many unsatisfied customers that's probably an issue Sears should look into.
Michelle then looked into the sequence of events leading up to this meeting and we were told that the appliances were still on the truck. We figured this was fair as we did change the date and we simply said "a phone call to tell us that Sears wouldn't be showing up would have been appreciated". Michelle agreed. She then went on to tell us that not only would our appliances not be delivered on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, it wouldn't even be delivered on Tuesday which was our original delivery date. How does this happen? How in the world can we purchased these appliances 5 months in advance and Sears can't meet a delivery date? This put our backs up when we were already frustrated enough.
Michelle then asked "what would you like me to do for you? Would you like me to refund your money?". This was her solution, to give us our money back to go away. She told us we could shop elsewhere so that's exactly what we did. We went down the road to another retailer who sold us similar appliances at the same price within half an hour. This was an $1,800 dollar purchase that was simply lost to Sears because their customers were simply an inconvenience. We were not offered any kind of compensation or compassion for our problem in general. The appliances we purchased from the other retailer were delivered 24 hours later just in case anyone is curious.
Today I received a call from our salesman from Sears, Michael, which was much appreciated. When we originally bought our appliances he was fantastic and beyond helpful, he made buying our appliances at Sears an easy decision and my mother was also prepared to buy a new washer and dryer at Sears because of this man, she did however purchase them from the same retailer we had purchased our washer and dryer from that Saturday morning. This is $3,600 that Sears simply gave away because we as customers are simply a small problem in your managers day. Michael through no fault of his own lost his commission on this sale and a potential additional sale of the same appliances. This upsets us greatly because Michael was great at his job and did absolutely nothing wrong. Michelle essentially took the commission right out of his pocket because apparently our insignificant problem wasn't enough for her to actually perform a task for a customer and do her job correctly.
It goes without saying that we will never be shopping at Sears again, home store or otherwise. This was the worst retail experience of our lives and we will be telling everyone we know about this experience. Not only did you lose us as customers you have also lost a past customer in my Mother who currently has a Kenmore appliances in her home and who was there with us the whole time when talking to Michelle, she was even more upset than us because these appliances were a gift from her and my Father for our brand new, first home which we couldn't fully enjoy or take pleasure in because of Sears . I know what kind of effect word of mouth and social media have on a company and believe me I will be using these avenues to show my displeasure.
We do not want an apology or a phone call from anyone from this location (especially Michelle) other than Michael who has already apologized and probably feels badly enough as it is, so there is no need for him to do anymore for my girlfriend or myself. Michael has done enough and is the only positive thing I can see with Sears, he might best be served working for another company who doesn't throw his money down the drain, he won't have trouble finding work elsewhere. If Sears has any kind of conscience they should give him his commission he earned and which was unfairly taken from him.
Thank you for your time,
NEELY (used my real name)
This is the letter I will send to head office
Good morning,
I am writing this letter today to share my absolute disgust and frustration with Sears Canada and the customer service my girlfriend and I were provided with this past week.
We had purchased a washer and dryer from Sears back in January of this year from your East Ottawa home store location. We had our delivery day set for May 21, 2013 (today) but we decided to change this date to Friday, May 17, 2013 for personal reasons. We contacted Sears Monday, May 13th, 2013 and were told that this was fine and we can expect our appliances on the 17th. We understand this was done on short notice and delivery could be delayed based on our request which we were fine with.
On Friday we were left waiting for 10 hours, the 8 AM - 6 PM wait time we were given and we didn't so much as receive a call saying that our delivery would be late, delayed, or not delivered at all. This was frustrating but not enough to force us to go to the store to complain. We called Sears and simply asked what was going on and wanted information on the delivery of the goods we purchased and paid in full for. We were told the manager was busy at the moment and would get back to us shortly, needless to say no one got back to us.
On Saturday morning we decided to go in to Sears and ask what was happening with our appliances because clearly paying customers are not important enough to call back and provide information and details on their purchases to. We talked to a woman named Michelle, this is where things became beyond frustrating and we became truly disgusted with Sears , your customer service, and general attitude towards customers.
We asked to talk to the manager who turned out to be Michelle, she treated us like we were some sort of problem or virus that were simply an inconvenience in her day. We described to her very calmly and politely what the problem was and asked for her assistance. Michelle was beyond rude at this point and came off extremely condescending and ignorant. We were told by her that "there are worse things in life than not getting our washer and dryer" and while this is very true it's just about the dumbest thing someone could say to a paying customer who simply wanted an answer and a solution to a problem that was caused by her company, but she was right, no one died. We were then told "90% of the time things go well but unfortunately we fall into the 10% where it doesn't". I simply said to her "that isn't our problem" because it wasn't. Her job is to help that 10%, not force them out the door. Also, 10% of a million people is 100,000 people and if there are that many unsatisfied customers that's probably an issue Sears should look into.
Michelle then looked into the sequence of events leading up to this meeting and we were told that the appliances were still on the truck. We figured this was fair as we did change the date and we simply said "a phone call to tell us that Sears wouldn't be showing up would have been appreciated". Michelle agreed. She then went on to tell us that not only would our appliances not be delivered on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, it wouldn't even be delivered on Tuesday which was our original delivery date. How does this happen? How in the world can we purchased these appliances 5 months in advance and Sears can't meet a delivery date? This put our backs up when we were already frustrated enough.
Michelle then asked "what would you like me to do for you? Would you like me to refund your money?". This was her solution, to give us our money back to go away. She told us we could shop elsewhere so that's exactly what we did. We went down the road to another retailer who sold us similar appliances at the same price within half an hour. This was an $1,800 dollar purchase that was simply lost to Sears because their customers were simply an inconvenience. We were not offered any kind of compensation or compassion for our problem in general. The appliances we purchased from the other retailer were delivered 24 hours later just in case anyone is curious.
Today I received a call from our salesman from Sears, Michael, which was much appreciated. When we originally bought our appliances he was fantastic and beyond helpful, he made buying our appliances at Sears an easy decision and my mother was also prepared to buy a new washer and dryer at Sears because of this man, she did however purchase them from the same retailer we had purchased our washer and dryer from that Saturday morning. This is $3,600 that Sears simply gave away because we as customers are simply a small problem in your managers day. Michael through no fault of his own lost his commission on this sale and a potential additional sale of the same appliances. This upsets us greatly because Michael was great at his job and did absolutely nothing wrong. Michelle essentially took the commission right out of his pocket because apparently our insignificant problem wasn't enough for her to actually perform a task for a customer and do her job correctly.
It goes without saying that we will never be shopping at Sears again, home store or otherwise. This was the worst retail experience of our lives and we will be telling everyone we know about this experience. Not only did you lose us as customers you have also lost a past customer in my Mother who currently has a Kenmore appliances in her home and who was there with us the whole time when talking to Michelle, she was even more upset than us because these appliances were a gift from her and my Father for our brand new, first home which we couldn't fully enjoy or take pleasure in because of Sears . I know what kind of effect word of mouth and social media have on a company and believe me I will be using these avenues to show my displeasure.
We do not want an apology or a phone call from anyone from this location (especially Michelle) other than Michael who has already apologized and probably feels badly enough as it is, so there is no need for him to do anymore for my girlfriend or myself. Michael has done enough and is the only positive thing I can see with Sears, he might best be served working for another company who doesn't throw his money down the drain, he won't have trouble finding work elsewhere. If Sears has any kind of conscience they should give him his commission he earned and which was unfairly taken from him.
Thank you for your time,
NEELY (used my real name)
