Bill has been a loyal Sears customer for most of his life. They happen to sell the Nexus 7 tablet, which he wanted to get for his wife for Christmas (hope she doesn’t read Consumerist) for a competitive price, and he could get Shop Your Way rewards points. Score! He ordered up the tablet online, then headed over to the store to pick it up. Then things started to go terribly wrong.

He e-mailed Sears:

It’s awfully hard to give Sears my money lately. A few days before Thanksgiving, I saw online that Sears was selling a Nexus 7 tablet (32gb) for $237 and change. I want to get one for my wife for Christmas, so I drove to the store to find out that, although they had one in stock, the price was online only. So I would have to order it online, have it shipped to the store that I was just at to get the tablet that the store already had in stock. I went home and almost ordered it online, but noticed that the policy for returning electronics (in case my wife received two for Christmas) is 30 days, which would arrive before she even got it for Christmas.

I drove back to the store yesterday (Dec. 1) to get the tablet, but the associate mentioned that today (Sunday, Dec. 2) Sears was having its “friends and family” sale and electronics were 5% off. Granted, this percentage off was the lowest of all the categories, but 5% is 5% ($12.50). So I went back home to return to the store tonight for the sale. Then I found out tonight that the tablets are not included in the 5% off, despite what the sales associate told [me] yesterday. And what’s worse, I couldn’t even use my Shop Your Way Rewards card to receive points for my purchase. How ridiculous is that?! I can’t use my LOYALTY card to purchase a product that is sold at several other retailers for the exact same price (Toys R Us, GameStop, Walmart, OfficeMax, RadioShack, Amazon, Google, etc.)

I grew up going to Sears for everything as a kid with my parents, and I was happy to see one is close to my home I purchased recently. But, I will NOT be returning to Sears. What’s more, oftentimes I will do my grocery shopping at Kmart instead of Meijer, but I think I will be sticking to Meijer these days.

Maybe Sears Brands wouldn’t be in such dire straits if it didn’t make it so difficult for customers like ME
to give YOU my money. It’s a shame — an end of an era for me.

At least someone at Sears write back. Unfortunately, that person didn’t seem to have time to actually read his e-mail, or wasn’t empowered to help.

Dear Bill [redacted],

Thank you for your recent correspondence. We are always interested in hearing from our Sears customers. We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with your attempt to purchase the Nexus 7 tablet from your local Sears store.

We appreciate your feedback. By sharing your ideas, you have enabled us to address the issues and provide feedback to the appropriate person. Truly, your remarks provide valuable feedback that will enable Sears Holdings to improve the customer experience.

We would also like to apologize for the inconvenience you have encountered with our Shop Your Way Rewards program. For assistance with adding your missing points to your Shop Your Way Rewards account, please contact our SYWR customer service directly at 1.800.991.8708 Monday to Sunday 8 am – 11 pm Central Time, or you can visit the site below:

http://www.shopyourway.com/help-page/55

We thank you for choosing Sears and appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We look forward to seeing you in our Sears store in the near future.

Well, at least this is marginally on topic and grammatically correct. Still, Bill was frustrated, and wrote back:

You misunderstand. After not getting the 5% off for friends and family
or SYW rewards, I left Sears without purchasing the tablet. Why would I
purchase after all the inconvenience? I ended up getting it at GameStop
— same price and I received loyalty points.

Business lost. I do appreciate the reply, even if it doesn’t rectify
anything.

Then Sears wrote back. Or had one of their robots copy and paste a message back: really, we’re not sure.

Dear Bill [Redacted],

Thank you for your recent correspondence. We are always interested in
hearing from our customers.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to assist you.

Thank you for taking the time to contact Sears. We appreciate your
business and value you as a Sears Holdings customer. We certainly hope
you will continue to make Sears Holdings your choice for quality and
value.

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