What happens now that customers [finally] have a voice?

Cartoon by Hugh

You may have read my previous post about how Sears ruined my birthday.

Plus two other days before that.

You might have also seen me deliver a little advice to the Sears executive team.

Before I share the outcome of this series of misadventures with you I want to tell you why I chose to be so vocal about it.

In my recent commentary on CircleNomics I talked about the fact that consumers are no longer tolerant of crappy customer service, shoddy products, or interruption marketing.

Thanks to social media we now have a voice — and we’re using it.

You know that feeling when you’ve been slighted or wronged by a company and you just want to shout from the rooftops and tell anyone who will listen all about it?

Well now we can.

I blogged about my Sears experience for three reasons:

1. Writing is cathartic for me and I really really needed to vent.
2. I wanted to get the attention of the Sears executive team and let them know just how incredibly broken their customer service is and precisely how that impacts their [former] customers.
3. I wanted to demonstrate what happens now when companies deliver a poor customer experience.

I found it interesting disappointing that, while Sears has a “Sears Cares” team, it took them more than a week to find my blog posts. I can’t help but wonder…do they not even have so much as a simple Google alert set up for Sears??

Anyway.

Two days after my birthday I received emails from two different Sears employees; one on the Sears Cares team and one who works in Delivery. They requested my contact information which I sent to them right away. A few minutes later I received a comment on my blog posts about Sears from another member of the Sears Cares team. He also asked that I email him with my contact information and I did right away.

That was on a Monday.

No call.

All week long.

I was FLOORED.

To be honest I felt that this was even worse (if that’s possible) than the never-ending customer service and delivery nightmare they’d put me through the week before. I kept thinking that it would be less embarrassing for them – and less maddening for me – if they just would not have reached out to me at all.

Finally on Thursday I received a follow up comment on my blog stating that they’d not heard back from me and really wanted to follow up on this. I immediately commented back and said that I’d sent them three emails to the email address they’d given me on Monday.

His reply? We can’t find them; can you please resend.

So, even more annoyed, I took the time to go through my sent mail, find the three emails I’d sent, verify that the email address was exactly correct (it was), and forward them. I went to my blog and commented telling him I’d just sent them.

Again.

He commented back and said that they still couldn’t find them and would I please DM them my phone number.

I did. I asked that someone contact me the following afternoon and at 12:01 pm that day I received a call from a very nice young woman named Amanda who said that she is on the Sears Cares team and works directly with the executive team on priority escalations.

She said she’d read my blog posts and seen the video and apologized profusely for what they’d put me through and specifically for ruining my birthday.

She said that she wanted to do something for either me or my mom (who purchased the mattress set) and asked which I would prefer. I told her that if they wanted to do something they should do something for my mom. She said she would call my mom directly and apologize as well as issue a credit to her account.

She then said that she really wanted to do something for me since it was my birthday they ruined she wanted to get approval to do something for me as well and that she’d call me right back. Within 15 minutes she called and said that they were sending me a $100.00 Sears gift card. (I have not received it yet but she did say that it may take a week or two.)

I found out later that she did in fact call my mom so I was glad to hear that.

So.

You are probably wondering…was this enough?

I don’t know.

I didn’t write about this to “get something” though I will admit that it was nice to finally hear someone apologize. When I spoke to Amanda that day I walked her through some of the finer points of the catastrophe with the intention of helping Sears fix their problems and get it right.

Or at least get better.

And I told her that what would make me happiest would be to learn that they made changes in their customer service and delivery systems as a result of my blog posts and our conversation. She said that she would be taking my feedback and recommendations to their executive team and that they take these things very seriously.

I hope so.

While I don’t feel any urge to ever make a purchase from Sears again if I were to learn that they’d made some major changes I might consider it.

This makes me wonder.

What can a company do to turn a severely disgruntled customer into a raving fan?

Comcast did it with me. And in hindsight you know how? They built a relationship with me. Well, one person did anyway and @comcastcares and his team have proven over several years now that they’re committed and true to their word. They are very easily accessible pretty much 24/7, responsive, and always go above and beyond to solve the problem and remove the source of pain.

What are your thoughts?

What can a company do to turn you into a raving fan after they’ve severely messed up?