By Lilli Haicken
The fridge began to die. At 25 years old it definitely was on our radar as 'will need replacing'. But it stopped keeping things evenly cold all the time, so, off we went. Our immediate thought was 'go to Sears'.
Sears has been one of the top companies as far as appliances and sales of appliances for decades. We figured we would have a good experience buying from them. We were wrong.
Not only were the sales staff not up on all the features of the models being shown, they insisted that a model we like and had good reviews on could have its doors removed to facilitate delivery through somewhat slim doorways. Delivery, needless to say, did not happen because the delivery company's person could not remove the fridge's doors due to an integral water line hookup in the doors. The delivery person told us that this was not the first time a delivery had gone bad because of bad information on the part of sales staff to customers.
But our odyssey was just beginning. We went back to Sears to try and rectify the situation. And their sales and management staff could not get us a replacement. We ended up asking for our money back - which then had to be delivered to us in cash because the store could not cut a check and give it to us.
I am saddened to say that Sears, a bastion of good enterprise and good brand recognition, has sadly gone the way of the dodo. They are more interested in getting a sale than making sure the customer has all the information needed on an item, and they farm out deliveries (like most stores these days) to companies that do not employ trained techs to help facilitate deliveries of appliances and the suchlike.
Its all about the profit, its all about the money and not the customer. When a company puts profit over customer satisfaction, the company is going to suffer and its touted brand is going to suffer as well.
How many companies are suffering these days because of profit over customer satisfaction and good branding? Start naming, because the list is going to be long.
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