Yet Another Reason Why Sears Has Lost My Business

[sweensdv]

The other day the Idler Pulley on my Craftsman lawn tractor broke for the 3rd time since I've had the tractor. The first two times it broke I took it to a local Power Center less than a mile from my house. This time, thinking that may the Power Center hadn't done the best of jobs in repairing my tractor, I called Sears figuring I'd give them a shot at fixing their product.

The local Sears Service Center here closed a few years ago so now you have to call an 800 number and setup an appointment for a service tech to come to your home and make repairs. That sounded like it might not be a bad idea so I called the number. This is where the trouble starts. One of those talking machines that responds to your commands answers the phone. About 3 responses in the machine decides that I'm not worth talking too and hangs up on me. This happens 3 times!

I then decided to call the closest Sears store to see if they couldn't help me out. The nice lady said that they could setup an appointment for me to have a tech come out and give me an estimate on how much it would cost to replace the pulley BUT....... it would cost me $99 for the estimate plus whatever the cost of the repair would be. $99 to tell me how much they would charge to fix my tractor AND the soonest they could get someone to my house would be 8 days.

Well needles to say I informed her not to bother to send out the tech. My tractor and I made that less than 1 mile trip over to the Power Center where they fixed my tractor in 2 days for a grand total of $59.03. Oh, and no charge for the estimate either.

[cgallery]

They are in the "estimate" business, not the repair business. And I think that is standard procedure for any national service provider.

In fact, it is my belief that their quotes are so high as to discourage customers from signing-off. Once a customer agrees to have the work done, I think the service provider starts losing money.

The driving factor is the skill set of the repair guys. For $10/hour, they can get someone qualified to drive to your house and deliver an estimate. But someone that can actually do the work is more like $25/hour. Why have $25/hour guys when you can make a fortune with $10/hour guys? Plus, if you never do the work, you don't have to worry whether the problem is fixed, or if it breaks again.

Just think about it like this: They can send a $10/hour employee on five calls a day, pocket $500, and pay the unskilled driver $100. Not a bad racket.

[jking]

A friend of mine bought a new Kenmore grill a couple of years ago. When the electronic ignitor quit working a short time after he bought it, he called the store to try to buy a new part. No, they told him it was too new of a model, they don't stock the part. Told him he needed to call the 800 service number. He called & was told they can't send him the part, they need to send someone out to check what was wrong. He tried to convince them he actually knew what he was talking about & knew what was wrong, but, since it was under warranty he relented & let them come out. He specifically asked if the service guy would have the part & they said yes he would. The first trip, the guy didn't come out at the time they expected him & he let b/c he didn't see the grill behind the house. The second trip, he checks the grill, yep-bad ignitor. He had to order the part, though, he didn't have one in his truck b/c it's too new of a model. He did, however, have the part sent directly to the house. My friend installed it himself when it arrived & didn't bother calling the service number again.

Pretty typical for Sears service.

[crokett]

The only time I've ever called Sears for a repair was on my washer that I didn't have time to fix before I left for traveling on business. My wife called the Sears guy, he came when he was supposed to and fixed the washer while he was there. So for a happy wife it was well worth the money. Just over 100 bucks IIRC.

[cabinetman]

A "cost for estimate" can be justified because they may have to do work to find out what's wrong. I always ask up front about "fees".
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[Uncle Cracker]

Unfortunately, and in their defense (grudgingly), a big, high-overhead business like Sears can't make ends meet giving estimates, especially free ones. Not even a small business can, these days, given the propensity for people to use them to find out what the problem is, and then taking their item back un-repaired and, equipped with the new-found information, buying the parts online at practically the same cost as the repair shop has to pay, and fixing it themselves. I have a relative with a mower shop, and he tells me this practice was being used by nearly half of the people who brought mowers in. Most savvy businesses will compromise, and charge an estimate or diagnostic fee, and credit it back towards the repair bill.

[Whaler]

A few months ago we ordered a Schwin exercise bike through Sears. It came UPS free freight in about 10 days. After assembling it I found that the computer display screen did not function. I was able to get a service man out to the house and he confirmed the problem but could not come up with a part number for the display. The next morning I called Schwin and was able to get a part number and relayed it to the service rep. I got a call back that they were not allowed to buy that part and had ordered a new bike and would assemble, deliver and pick up the defective bike. When the new bike came in the service tech was (believe it or not) smart enough to just bring the display unit and do the swap.

[toolguy1000]

when i purhcased my first home over 30 years ago, the first place i went for most tools and supplies was sears. i recently tried to purchase a drywall knife 2 pack on sale at my local sears store. i won't revisit the saga surrounding the failed attempt, i was there and i can't believe the things that the sears systems did to prevent the store employees' selling me the knives. that's why today, sears is the last place i ever go for home improvement anything.

[sweensdv]

Unfortunately, and in their defense (grudgingly), a big, high-overhead business like Sears can't make ends meet giving estimates, especially free ones. Not even a small business can, these days, given the propensity for people to use them to find out what the problem is, and then taking their item back un-repaired and, equipped with the new-found information, buying the parts online at practically the same cost as the repair shop has to pay, and fixing it themselves. I have a relative with a mower shop, and he tells me this practice was being used by nearly half of the people who brought mowers in. Most savvy businesses will compromise, and charge an estimate or diagnostic fee, and credit it back towards the repair bill.

The problem was I wasn't asking for an estimate, I just wanted the tractor to be fixed, period. When Sears still had the local power center repair facility, you took in your whatever it was that was broken and had it fixed. Now it appears, they and apparently some other companies, don't want to fix the products they sell unless they can first charge you a fee for you to say "OK fix it". My answer to that is that I just won't buy any of their products any longer. It's a shame too because I really liked their hand tools.

[BobSch]

Sounds like K-Mart is rubbing off on Sears.

[Uncle Cracker]

The problem was I wasn't asking for an estimate, I just wanted the tractor to be fixed, period. When Sears still had the local power center repair facility, you took in your whatever it was that was broken and had it fixed. Now it appears, they and apparently some other companies, don't want to fix the products they sell unless they can first charge you a fee for you to say "OK fix it". My answer to that is that I just won't buy any of their products any longer. It's a shame too because I really liked their hand tools.

If your Sears repair center was like mine, there were always a couple hundred used tools for sale there, often at high prices. This is because it was all too common for people to bring stuff in to fix (without needing an estimate) and then never returning to pick the stuff up, because the repaired cost didn't justify it. Sears couldn't "un-fix" the item, couldn't return parts to inventory, and couldn't recoup the time they had invested. The guy there told me once that they felt more like a flea market than a repair center.

I don't disagree with your reasoning, but ask only that you consider that there are different points of view on this issue, and that sometimes the requisite estimates (and the corresponding fees) are necessitated by the ethics and/or actions of the consumer, not the greed of the provider. As a former electronics service provider, I have had occasion to see the "other side" of the issue. We simply could not do any work without some assurances from the customer, and felt we could not ask it of them without a pretty good idea of the cost, thus the diagnostic protocol, and the nominal fee assessed if we did not do the work.

[dkerfoot]

This is pretty standard for any on-site service call.

It costs money to send a tech to your home. Gas, lost opportunity for other service calls and administrative overhead. All Sears is doing is setting a minimum $100 charge for any on-site service call.

As a former self-employed computer tech, I completely understand their approach.

[Pappy]

Sears, on a positive PR note, has a great policy in dealing with employees obligated to military service. Unfortunately, PR only goes so far.

Service, other than warranty work, sucks. At one time you could order parts and have them shipped to a local store for pick up. Now you pay shipping to your house or drive to the nearest service center.

Craftsman tools still rank among the best made with the best warranty available. Power tools, often produced by the lowest bidder, are another story. Some Sears branded tools are obvious who the mfg is, like the rebadged Bosch 1617. Others you need the break down the code and sometimes even that is not an absolute. My first riding mower was a Craftsman made by Roper. In that year, the same model # was built by three companies, each with some minor spec changes.

[docrowan]

This is pretty standard for any on-site service call.

It costs money to send a tech to your home. Gas, lost opportunity for other service calls and administrative overhead. All Sears is doing is setting a minimum $100 charge for any on-site service call.

As a former self-employed computer tech, I completely understand their approach.

I think the sweendv's point is that they did not offer to credit the estimate fee to the cost of repair. So they would pick up their $100 in addition to any repair work they did. If they'd said, "it's a 100 dollar minimum whether we fix it or not", that would change the whole situation. Perhaps that's even what they intended, but if so, they didn't explain it that way according to sweendv.

[jking]

Sounds like K-Mart is rubbing off on Sears.

Sears service started going downhill long before K-Mart bought them.