Consumer sites, including this one, tend to point out a lot more negative than the positive issues about companies and their practices. This, however, is a story of extraordinary customer service that deserves to be publicly acknowledged.
MrConsumer (aka Edgar, the editor of Mouse Print*) recently needed to replace his 23-year old gas range, fondly nicknamed the “Price is Right stove” because of its one-piece design consisting of a range, oven, and microwave popularized decades ago by that game show. After perusing the ads, he narrowed down the choices to a Sears Kenmore slide-in gas range advertised for about $1000 the last week in December in the Sears circular.
After calling four stores, MrConsumer finally found a local Sears that stocked the particular stove so he could look at it. It was very important that the range be stainless steel and have a professional look. As it turned out, the store did not have the advertised stove on display, but rather a similar but higher model. To confirm that the advertised stove was identical in appearance to the one in the store, the salesman took MrConsumer to a computer terminal to look at it online. The picture showed that it had stainless steel knobs, a computer control panel with a 0-9 digital keypad, and matte finish grates just like the similar model in the store. Assured of these specifications, the order was placed for this range:
At this point you might be able to guess what happened next when the stove was delivered on January 25. The grates were shiny black, making them look cheesy and not very professional. The electronic controls only had an up/down arrow to change the temperature in five degree increments. So, if you wanted to go from 300 to 400 degrees, you would have to press the up arrow 20 times. MrConsumer was very not happy, but since the electrician and plumber were already scheduled, the stove was installed the next day.
Complaining to Sears’ 800 number resulted in a very quick callback from the store manager. While willing to compensate MrConsumer for having received a lesser digital control panel, she was not so willing to try to obtain the matte finish grates shown both in the store and online. In part, she pointed to the fine print on the website:
*MOUSE PRINT:
In MrConsumer’s defense, this description was not shown to him in the store, and is not even visible on the same page where the stove is described online. (One has to click a link “more specifications” to find this. You will also notice it says the knobs are black, when in fact they are stainless.) Further, this description is contrary to the more prominent magnified picture at the top of the page that clearly showed matte grates, and the accompanying description that said “ professional-look heavy duty cast-iron grates are completely dishwasher-safe.”
Not willing to take “no” for an answer from the local store, MrConsumer sent a factual and polite email to two highly placed executives responsible for major appliances at Sears headquarters. [See the first comment below for the trick to finding such executives.]  He asked for a price adjustment because of the lesser digital display, and requested that Sears provide the matte finish grates as was represented. Â
One of the executives actually responded the day after mailing, on a Sunday no less, saying that this was not the type of experience (being shown one thing, and receiving another) that their customers should have to go through. Within a few days, a person from “executive resolutions” called, acknowledging the wrong stove was pictured on the website. Remarkably, they offered to replace the stove with the one pictured (a more expensive model by about $250) at no cost, and to even cover the costs of having their plumber do the installation.
Wow. Is that not remarkable customer service, above and beyond expectations? It almost feels like the clock was turned back several decades when stores really did care about satisfying their customers. Hats off to Sears for showing that a big company can acknowledge a mistake and bend over backwards to remedy the situation.
(Despite the seeming fairy tale ending to this story, there will be a part two, as MrConsumer’s kitchen is now home to two Sears ranges.  Ironically, in part, it is because more fine print tripped up the company’s best of  intentions.)
Nabisco took out a full page in a recent Sunday coupon insert promoting a free package of Chips Ahoy cookies. What they were asking people to do was to visit their Facebook page, and there they could download a coupon for a free package of cookies.