About Me 0057: Achieving The Best Results In Home Improvement

Several years ago I bought a new refrigerator. I ended up with a Sears Kenmore with the freezer on the bottom. While I like the layout of the refrigerator, I have been less than happy with Sears and their way of doing business. Here is my list of top 10 reasons not to buy an appliance from Sears.

#10) They charge a $50 delivery fee. I think it is over the top to charge a delivery fee on a high-ticket item such as this. Amazon waives their shipping fee on any purchase over $25, why should Sears charge $50 when I live right around the corner from them?

#9) Limited service/delivery days. Once you make your purchase, you want to have it immediately. But Sears only delivers or makes service calls on certain days of the week, depending upon where you live. Forgive me, but if I live right around the corner from your store, I shouldn't have to wait more than a couple of hours to have my product delivered. And if you live in a rural area, you can easily wait a week or more.

#8) Nine-hour service window. For either delivery or a service call, all Sears will give you is an nine-hour service window - as in the product will be delivered between 8AM and 5 PM. Who gives a nine-hour window anymore? Even the cable company no longer does this. I've got better things to do with my time than sit around with my thumb inserted rectally waiting for the time period in which Sears will grace me with its presence.

#7) Unprofessional delivery drivers. When they finally decided to deliver my refrigerator, they sent a damaged model. Now, I know these things happen. I don't expect perfection. But, I think it's criminal (notice a trend here?) that the Sears delivery people tried to talk me into keeping my damaged refrigerator, claiming that since the dent was in the back of the unit, no one would see it! Meanwhile, the dent was right where the processor was, meaning chances were good I would run into problems later on.

#6) Poorly trained representatives. When I finally did get a refrigerator that wasn't damaged, I was unable to get the ice machine hooked up because the setup man did not know how to connect my model. This is really unforgivable.

#5) Overpriced appliances. I needed a refrigerator as soon as possible, so I chose Sears because of its name brand and the proximity to my house. If I had the luxury of price-comparison shopping, there's no way I would have picked this brand. And the proximity turned out to be no bargain, either.

#4) Scores poorly in consumer satisfaction. According to consumer ratings on Yahoo, Sears scored just 2.5 stars out of 5 from 137 people across the country. This included numerous consumers who rated it just one star. My guess is they would have rated it lower if that was an option.

#3)$59 Service Fee. Your Sears appliance is going to break down and require service. Chances are, quite often. Sears recognized an opportunity to make money off of this fact and decided to charge a $59 service fee. This is on top of parts and labor and does not guarantee that they will even be able to fix the problem. If you are into price-gouging, Sears is the company to do it to you.

#2 Limited parts in truck.. OK, you've agreed to the outrageous service fee, you've been waiting all day for the service truck to arrive, the technician has diagnosed the problem… but your appliance still isn't fixed. Why? Because the part is not in the truck. And if there's no part, you have to go back on the list and wait for the next time service comes to your area and hope that they remember to put the part in the truck this time

#1) Countless Web sites devoted to poor service. It can't be a good sign when your product and service are so bad that ordinary people go out of their way to start up Web sites with the sole purpose of trashing your product. Put in the phrase "Sears Sucks" into Google and you come up with 430,000 hits. That's a lot of dissatisfied customers.

About Me 0057

Friday, July 20, 2012

Achieving The Best Results In Home Improvement

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