Sears: Where Customer Service is for Cardholders (long, boring post)

You won't see me at Sears Canada again. I can't believe their rudeness.

I bought an electronics item from Sears online for my wife for Christmas. Two weeks after Christmas, with the product unopened, my wife decided she didn't really want that model. So a few days later I called Sears customer service to inquire how to return it -- only to find that I had missed the return deadline.

I was told I had only 15 days to return electronics. When I pointed out that that date would have come before Christmas, the voice on the end of the phone looked into it and admitted that yes, since it's an Xmas present I had till 15 days after Christmas. But that would have been Jan. 9, she said, which meant I had still missed it by five days. So, no return.

I didn't have time to pursue that conversation, so I took it up again the other day. Called customer service and told them I need to discuss a return-deadline extension. The operator who answered said she would pass me on to Customer Service, like it was a big deal. They answered the phone, I started explaining, then I realized I was talking to dead air. I had been cut off.

Called back. This time the agent who answered the phone wanted to get all my details before passing me to Customer Service. So I gave him my ID and phone number, the details of the transaction, and confirmed that I had already been told the deadline has passed. I told him that I found the deadline oppressive, and that as a longtime Sears customer I was politely asking for an extension. He took down all the details and said he would pass them on to Customer Service while I stayed on Hold.

The agent got back to me a minute or two later to inform me that Customer Service had said I had missed the deadline.

I replied, quite patiently I think, that I already knew that, and that I wanted to discuss an extension with someone empowered to do so. I also mentioned that since Sears accepts returns of items bought with its own credit card for up to 90 days, I knew that my deadline was an arbitrary choice, not a company-wide policy - and that I didn't like being treated like a second-class citizen.

He promised to connect me with the next available Customer Service supervisor. Again I waited on hold. Then I got the beep-beep-beep saying I had been cut off. Again.

So I called back, explained my problem to another telemarketer, and she promised to connect me to Customer Service. After taking my name and phone number. Soon after, a supervisor came on. I mentioned that I had been hung up on twice and hoped it wouldn't happen again. She said, coldly, "How can I help you?"

Not a good sign, I thought.

I went through the story again. As a longtime customer, I was asking Sears for a favor. She said I should have known the policy. I said the tight deadlines were not obvious on the website when I bought from them. She said I missed the deadline. When I persisted, she asked me for my name and phone number. She looked up my record and then said, as if this was something new, there was nothing she could do.

I said, one more time, I wanted to have a conversation as to why I thought I merited an exemption. She very brusquely made clear she had no interest in such a the discussion and said there would be no return.

So I asked for the name of her supervisor. She said there was no one else to talk to. She would give me her name, which was Tanya. But Tanya, it seems, is a dead end.

I said that I was surprised that a customer service supervisor would have so little empathy for a customer calling with a problem. Especially someone who had equipped two laundry rooms with Kenmore appliances, and had already been cut off twice. She told me she wasn't responsible for other people cutting me off. And, one more time, I had missed the deadline and there would be no return.

Ouch. Watch your back when shopping at Sears (see my note  on their mutilayered return policy, below).

Thank you, Tanya, for your interest and concern. I won't darken Sears' doors or website again. And I hope you get some customer-service training soon.

Once, you could count on department stores for the best price. Then, as the deep discounters emerged, it was service. Now I don't know what Sears is. But it doesn't really matter any more.

Appendix:

Returns Policy from Sears.ca (you have to click through two screens to get to this policy, so it's not exactly front and centre):

Our goal is that you are completely satisfied with your purchase. If for any reason you are not satisfied, simply return your purchase with your receipt for an exchange or refund within 90 days when purchased on your Sears Card, Sears MasterCard, Sears Voyage MasterCard or Sears Gift Card.

Items purchased with any other method may be exchanged or refunded within 30 days.

You have to read down for another 400 words (a full screen or more) to find that electronics has a different deadline.

Computers, Electronics, Electronic Games, Electronic Consoles and Health/home care products Exchange or refund within 15 days
Within 15 days of purchase, items may be returned providing that they are in new and unused condition, with all original packaging, accessories, instructions, etc. A restocking fee of 20% will be charged on returned product.

Sears. Where customer service is reserved for cardholders.

New Management Welcome.

"The Orchestrated Indignities of Air Travel"

From a 2010 blogpost on TechCrunch, here's Michael Arrington dissing on his unfortunate experiences flying with Delta Airlines from Seattle to JFK and back. No one does outrage better than Arrington.

Here are some of the highlights:

*  "Flying from one place to another, unless you are doing it from a small airport on a private jet, is just going from bad to intolerable."

* "What's really making flying just terrible are all the people that work for the airlines. My expectations are pretty low after flying mostly with United Airlines for the last decade. And even so, Delta managed to, somehow, make United actually look good."

* Boarding the flight to JFK, gate attendants told Arrington his carry-on bag was too big to take on board. "My bag has been carried on to countless flights without, as far as I know, endangering the plane or any other passengers," he writes.

* Gate staff demurred when they found out he was travelling first class. (Arrington's 6'4" and needs the leg room.) Still, he notes, "if that bag was a danger, it certainly wasn’t less of a danger just because I was in first class."

* "What really got me was just how gleeful the two gate employees were about the whole thing. I could tell that they lived for moments like this."

* Flying back home, Arrington decided to check his roller bag, "because they’d put the fear of God into me on that flight out." The airline lost the bag.
* First the plane waited 2 hours on the runway. Arrington admits that was the airport's fault, but denounces Delta's laxness: "The obligatory hateful flight attendants ... seemed pretty happy that they hadn’t stocked enough food on the flight."
* On landing, most of the first-class passengers found their bags had never been put on the plane.
* Arrington points out that Delta probably knew about this before the plane landed. "You’d think that they’d maybe let us know about it. Instead, they let us all wait 30 minutes for the bags to start coming out, and another 20 minutes until they were all gone."

* Now Delta's customer service ethic - or lack of same - rose to the fore. "They would not deliver my bag to my home. I could choose to come back to the airport over the weekend. Or they’d be happy to fedex it to me for delivery on Tuesday. Can I have a receipt? No, our printer is broken."

* "The guy next to me needed his tuxedo, he said. No luck. Another guy, traveling from India, said he had medication in his bag that he needed immediately. That put a smile on the baggage counter woman’s face as she told him to go find a doctor over the weekend and get new prescriptions."

What's the bottom line here? Accidents happen. Things go wrong. We can take it. What really matters is the attitude of the people we are forced to deal with in such situations.

"I can live with no leg room, no food, dirty bathrooms and long delays. I can even live with lost bags," writes Arrington.

"If only a flight attendant, or baggage person, or whoever, would just commiserate with me for one moment. Maybe smile and say they’ll try their best to help. But until all that bad energy is gone, and the airlines have employees that don’t stare daggers at their customers, I’m out."

Thus endeth the lesson. Systems may screw up, but the right people can save the day.

And companies that don't get this will be on the losing end of history.

Communication is Trust

While tracking down a promising family Christmas gift, I discovered an e-commerce site that ranks up there with the TV series LOST as a model of clear, accessible communication. Trying to read product descriptions at www.xsv360.com is like driving through a rainstorm without using your windshield wipers.

Nothing is clear. Everything is murky. And you know you don't want to be there any longer.

This site fails on many counts.  It sells a wide range of products, but don't try to learn anything about the company; when you click on "About Us," the page is blank. "Contact Us" brings up an email template that doesn't identify anything about the company, its owners or its location.

For your reading pleasure, here's a graphic depicting their "sales copy" for one product - a handheld video camera.

When you first read a product description like "4GB HD mini-dv mini Video camera Smallest wireless voice recorders," you may think maybe it does make sense - you're the one with the problem. But then you read sentences like "With a PC camera function, easy to enjoy the network life can be when the computer camera," and you realize that this is a company that doesn't care how it communicates with its customers.

Shoddy work like this drives customers away. If no one in your firm can write comprehensible English, I sure don't want to have to deal with you in case of product questions or refunds. I'll click somewhere else, thanks.

But wait! Before you go, don't forget to check out the site's Deal of the Day.

Attention, Police Surveillance Unit!

Get it right next time!
From Twitter:

RiM makes it up to frustrated customers

Research in Motion is making amends with its customers following last week's worldwide service outage. It may be too little too late, but it's good to see the company roar back with an innovative compensation plan following users' moaning and groaning last week.

Here's the story, from my Canadian Entrepreneur blog:

Great to see that Research In Motion is offering its frustrated clients free premium apps worth more than $100 each as an apology for last week's service outages.

A customer-service problem like that demanded a grand, serious gesture on the company's part (see my National Post blogpost here), and RiM has delivered.

The complete selection of premium apps will become available from BlackBerry App World for four weeks beginning Oct. 19. Enterprise customers will also receive a month of free technical support.

Good to see strong statements like these from RiM's embattled management:
“We’ve worked hard to earn [customers’] trust over the past 12 years and we’re committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect,” says RiM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.
“We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

Industry analyst Francisco Jeronimo at IDC said the decision could be good for RIM, if it helps more customers to discover BlackBerry app services. Even so, he says, “More important than the offer itself, is that RIM is showing goodwill and being humble. They recognized the problem, apologized and now they are compensating their users.”

In my Oct. 14 NatPost blog, "overcompensate" was the phrase I used to describe how companies can rebuild trust following customer-service breakdowns. You have to prove you've learned your lessons, and that you value your customers' time and loyalty.
 
Here is my list of 7 Steps to take when faced with a company or customer-service breakdown.
 
• Acknowledge the problem quickly.

• Identify the magnitude of the breakdown as soon as possible.

• Tell customers what outcome you are working toward. (e.g., How soon will power be restored?)

• Don’t just say you’re working on the problem – show it. (Make sure they see you sweat.)

• Take steps to shut-out customers as comfortable as possible.

• Acknowledge customers’ confusion and frustration.

• Overcompensate. Once the emergency is over, find creative, memorable ways to apologize for the inconvenience and thank customers for their tolerance.
 
You can read that complete column here.

My Eyes!!!!

Got a daily-deal coupon today for a local optical company. So I checked them out on the Web.

What did I find? This company's website thinks it's cool to put small black type on a dark red background. My eyes started hurting right away.

Thanks, Universal Optical. I don't think I'll buy my eyeglasses from a company that shows so little understanding of how people see and read.

If you can't prove it, don't say it

Hard to believe this type of stuff still goes on...

Canada’s Competition Bureau this week announced a settlement with Beiersdorf Canada Inc., after accusing it of using false and misleading claims to sell its Slimming and Reshaping Gel Cream.

The company will pay a $300,000 penalty. It must also repay customers who purchased the $15.99 cream, and remove the products from store shelves.

According to the Montreal Gazette, Beiersdorf Canada says it “entered into the consent agreement with the Competition Bureau” to address the agency's concerns, but does not accept the bureau’s views. It says all of its performance claims are supported by independent research.

The announcement followed a $900,000 settlement in June involving Nivea's My Silhouette with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Lisa Campbell, deputy commissioner of the bureau's fair business practices branch, told the Gazette that: "Ads are sometimes designed to target people's vulnerabilities, and so we try to be active in those areas to send a strong message to businesses: Don't take advantage of consumers to try and falsely drive their choices towards your product."

On its packaging and its website, Nivea's My Silhouette stated that the use of the cream could lead to a "reduction of up to 3 centimetres on targeted body parts, such as thighs, hips, waist and stomach." Beiersdorf also said the product could make the skin more toned and elastic, according to the bureau.

Campbell said the company failed to conduct adequate, verifiable tests to back up its claims.

Under the terms of the consent agreement, Beiersdorf is required to publish a corrective notice on Nivea's Canadian website and in major Canadian newspapers, and to pay $80,000 to cover the bureau's costs.

The company also faces a class-action lawsuit in Canada.

You can read the full story here.

Clearly, Beiersdorf needs a new approach to business – as well as new management.