I have had a miserable experience with Sears customer service in trying to get service on my Kenmore clothes dryer that my wife and I bought a couple of years ago. My wife insisted that we purchase the service contract ( I never believed in them) so guess what, she won the discussion. Since the purchase she has extended it and gets yearly visits to insure that preventative maintenance is done.
Well on Labor Day after a weekend entertaining our family and their friends leaving us with 5 sets of bedding to wash plus about 20 extra towels from the swimming pool. My wife was washing some of the 8 loads that day and put them in the dryer when we found out that it was not heating up. My wife then called 1-800-4myhome to schedule a repair(probably either the heating element or a fuse). The service scheduled set up Friday September 9th between 1 p.m. and 5pm. We were able to arrange that someone would be at home that day. I called the 1-800-4myhome in the morning and confirmed our appointment, yes we were definatetly on the schedule for the afternoon period. At home after 3:30 I received an automated call informing me that the technician was running a little behind and to expect them around five or may later.
About 30 minutes latter I received a call from the automated system again except this time it was calling to say I needed to call the 800 number again and schedule an appointment for service.
I immediately called and they wanted to schedule an appointment for the following Saturday between. 1 and 5, I told the customer" service" rep that I alreay had an appointment for the 9th. and she argued that there wasn't an appointment for that day in her computer. I asked why on previous calls to schedule, cofirm and update to hear about the techs running behind that I had an appointment all saying Friday between 1 and 5.
I then asked to speak to supervisor because I was now really upset I had arranged to have someone at home during the mid-day and now they seemed undisturbed by how my inconvenience was now being compounded by there lack of coordination between repair , scheduling and customer service reps. I asked the rep.for her supervisor and she told me that a supervisor could call back in 24 hours and since it was Friday ,the next business day would be Monday. I insisted and she put me on hold and after 20 minutes I called again this time with next Saturday was the best she could do.
I then called the number for the headquarters of Sears Holdings in Illinois and got the "executive offices and the blue ribbon customer service rep "in the exective office , Stephanie Meredith who said that she would do her best but it looked like all she was going to be able to do was next Saturday (8 more days without a dryer) no more than the first rep. I was more than pissed and she said to call her the next morning and she would update me on her progress. At 11 am I called Stephanie Meredith and she told me that she had sent an email over to the department that did scheduling and they were supposed to respond in an hour but since it was Saturday they sometimes took around 3 hours. I called back in 3 hours nothing yet still trying. At 5 p.m. she did call to appologize that the department that was supposed to respond in an hour hadn't responded to her, another example of lousy customer service follow -up on Sears part. Stephanie Meredith also told me her hours are Tuesday through Saturday 8 to 4:30 central time so she wasn't giving this case over to someone else on her day off, I would have to wait until Tuesday for further action, another example of lousy customer oriented service on the part of Sears.
Waited Tuesday for a call back from Stephanie Meredith and finally called the executives customer service number and another person told me that she was working on my service and it looked like it was for Wednesday between 1 and 5. They were happy that they could push me up in the appointment schedule, however they hadn't called me to see if that were possible first, and it wasn't a time frame that we could arrange to be at home especially after the previous Friday where we sat and waited with zero sucess. I called Stephanie Meredith on Wednesday morning and told her that nobody was at home and we weren't given a call in advance to inquire if it was convenient for us to sit and wait for Sears to come and repair our heating element, and she said that she would try for Saturday the 17th. but it didn't look good there wasn't a tech in the area on Saturday, (funny 2 days ago there was a tech in the area). I called again Wednesday and as before got a message machine telling me that they would get back to me by the end of business the next day.
Well as of 2:44 p.m. on Friday the 16th. 2 days latter and 4 calls with both my home and cell phone numbers in the system I had still not heard from Sears or Stephanie Meredith regarding my prepaid contract service so I called the executive general number and got another super service person who looked up the records adn told me that she had called me today(it was late this afternoon)and wasn't able to get my service either on Saturday but next Wednesday the 21st.
I'm not sure if I can really even refer to this as service because it sure doesn't seem like I have been valued or been regarded as a prepaid customer but just a nagging person who asks questions and asks for a little help with a lousy customer service situation.
So let recap the dryer stopped operating properly on the 5th. scheduled for repair on the 9th., and Maybe this will be resolved for Sears on the 21st of September. We are stuck with a lousy service contract, with a lousy customer "service" department that carries no influence in getting things done, while we have to go to the laundry mat and dry our clothes popping quarters in machines and spending literally hours occupied doing the drying while Sears has our money and hasn't fixed our drier yet.
Please tell everyone that you know about this lousy service and ask them to tell their friends and neighbors. This kind of treatment by a company that needs to get their act together in a tight economic period doesn't make good business to me, no wonder Sears is having tough times, they are not responsive to their customers needs. Just collect the money then forget us when we need help.
Please boycott Sears especially the appliance service contracts, there are other retailers and better service contracts that won't take your money then drop you at the side of the road when you need service.
Sears executive customer service is a waste of time however here's their number 800-266-4043 extention 99 for Stephanie or 800-995-2139 for the general executive service department.
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