Can we tag a story “above and beyond” if the customer service cycle is so screwed up that it eventually works out in the customer’s favor? When jpodbuild tried to get his Craftsman sander repaired or replaced, he couldn’t get anyone on the phone who could actually help him—eventually he would end up back at the first number he’d called. He decided to show up in person and let the store manager handle the phone calls. New sander!

Jpodbuild first called his local Sears, and was referred to another number. At the second number he was told to go to the website http://www.managemyhome.com. There, he searched for an answer to his problem but found nothing, so he called the number on the site. They referred him back to the second number he’d called. Someone at that number had him call a third number, where a person verified his account information and had him call the second number again.

That’s when he took the sander with him to his local Sears and asked the employee there to do something about it. He doesn’t say how much time passed, but eventually the employee came back, grabbed a new sander off the shelf, and traded for it.

When I asked why I was receiving a new sander instead of some tech help, [the employee] told me that the manager of my local Sears had just made the same convoluted sequence of phone calls. Sears seems to have an internal problem. Eventually she shouted out a colorful metaphor into the phone at the last person she was talking with and then told Baby-face to just give me a new sander and tell me to go home. So… I went home and sanded into the night.

Thanks, Sears?

“Craftsman but not Techmen” [jpodbuild] (Thanks to Dan and Loy!)

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