As you remember from a [url=http://don.oninohana.com/blog/?postid=242]previous post[/url], our washing machine crapped out on us and we had scheduled an appointment for the Sears repair tech to come today “between 1pm and 5pm”. 4 o’clock rolled by with no call or appearance from the tech. After finishing work, I headed upstairs and played with the kids for a bit to give Robyn a break and then decided that I should call to check on the status of the service call. The guy I spoke with said that we were 6th on the list for the day and that the tech had arrived at stop #5, but there was no further information. So, we waited. As 5pm approached and Robyn was getting ready for work, I decided that if we did not hear from anyone by 5, I would call later assuming that we would get the first appointment tomorrow. It’s an annoyance, but no big deal.
As I was getting ready to feed the kids, we got a call from the “routing center”. This was at 5:10, by the way. The gentleman said that the tech was “in the area” and wanted to know if they could send him over now. I said that this was not acceptable because it was past the timeframe in which Sears said that someone would be at our home. In addition, my wife was getting ready for work and I needed to watch the kids, so I couldn’t deal with having the tech there at that time. In response, I was told that he could schedule us for the next available appointment. Thinking I was going to hear tomorrow’s date, my jaw hit the floor when he instead gave December 28th as the next available time. I immediately let loose on the guy. I told him that I had been waiting for more than two weeks for [i]THIS[/i] appointment, that I had take half a day off from work in order to be around (not true, but they don’t need to know that I work from home!), that we could not be another ten days without a washing machine and that this was unaccetable and he was going to get someone over here tomorrow.
[i][b]Sidenote[/b]: You know the most annoying thing about good customer service people? They maintain their calm, zen-like state in the face of any verbal assault from the customer. One would think that this would, in turn, mellow the customer. But it had the polar opposite effect on me; I got angrier and angrier as he seemed completely unphased by any question I asked or demand that I made.[/i]
We went back and forth for several minutes. I mainly wanted to know why we would not just get pushed to tomorrow instead of having to wait so long. Of course, this guy did not make the rules and didn’t have an answer. Robyn even got on the phone to no avail. After much ado, we agreed to have the tech come back tonight. Unfortunately, the router (Scott) told us that he already disconnected from the technician and he was no longer en route to our home (even though we had not yet agreed on a solution). We ended being transferred to customer service where I spoke with Mary.
Mary seemed nice and she was certainly expressing her sympathy for our situation, but in the end, she did nothing that could really help us to get someone here tonight or tomorrow. We parted ways after she told me she had sent a message to the routing center and we should receive a call within an hour. After 45 minutes, I called customer service back, got disconnected and called back again. This time, I got Manny who was not only not helpful, but a bit arrogant. He repeated the party line that there were no available appointments until December 28th. At this point, I had had it with Sears. I was actually thinking about renting a truck and dropping the washing machine off at Sears’ front door. But they had us against the wall. What else could I do at this point? I was emotionally drained. It’s a very frustrating situation to realize that you have no further recourse. I relented and told Manny that we’d take his December 28th appointment. Of course, before hanging up, I had to ask if there were any guarantees that someone would show up on that day and also ask about who we call to cancel our service contract and if there was any chance that Sears would reimburse us for our trips to the laundromat. Heheheheh…that’s pretty funny now that I think about it.
What a pain in the ass! Of course, I’m pretty positive the technician is going to come on the 28th, diagnose the problem and then have to order some parts that will take a few weeks to be delivered. In addition, we’ll have to make several trips to do laundry between now and then.