good just isn't good enough....

sears is on the way out, and not because they've insulted me and my family. no they're on the way out because they're archaic and unable to change. combating other more interesting retailers is a game they're losing.

being good is mediocre, i would ask brent hollister, ceo of sears canada, why isn't sears absolutely amazing? why not find ways to ensure that every sears customer raves like crazy about how amazing sears was in the way they treated the customer, especially after a mistake has been made and clearly admitted to as was the case here.

apparently, $100 bucks is amazing. apparently wasting copious amounts of my time is amazing, apparently ensuring that you never get to speak to top level management is amazing. WRONG! i've listened to several of the corporate brainwashed employees who have absolutely nothing special to offer customers. i feel for them, they work in a place of boring cubes, headsets and software that doesn't effectively speak between departments. they listen to people all day who have very little in the way of positive comments to offer, and they are virtually powerless to do anything of any worth other than refer to someone who has listened to more complaining then themselves. can you spell dead-end job? void of creativity, void of empowerment, void of any real serious life changing, world changing value. don't get me wrong without these people, there would be no one for those of us who get disrespected by lousy sears or big corp customer service to talk to. i suppose someone in a dead-end job is marginally better than the even worse automated system.

did you know....sears has at least 5 levels of customer service buffer. when you ask a customer service rep at sears who the top boss is, they refer you to their immediate supervisor and say they don't know the name of anyone higher, who then only knows their immediate manager, who reports to another mid-level manager but who does not know the big boss either. in fact, when i asked each employee who the ceo was they couldn't tell me. i actually looked it up in a annual report online while i was on the call and educated the sears employee. later i found out from another employee that the notes in my file revealed that they told me who the ceo was.

a manager for all of customer service is revealed, her name is carol but she was out of the office so "penny", who just is just below the top manager phones and when i talked to her, she refers me to the "president's line," that's what happens if you want to continue up the food chain at sears.

the president's line, i was told was a line i had to call where nice ladies would listen to what i had to say but couldn't and wouldn't do anything more than the letter and $100 bucks. basically even more wasted time and run around.

the more i analyze this type of customer service the more my firm will be better equipped to arm competitors of sears and other dinosaurs just like them, contributing to loss of marketshare.

only the top companies who understand and react to these types of issues should survive....get into being amazing because your competitors are and the marketplace changes so quickly that the garbage sears is suggesting as top level customer service won't last....because good just isn't good enough.