I know, I know– I haven't been posting that much, and I do feel bad about that, of course. But I kind of feel like since I'm on Twitter and Facebook, if I write on this blog about what I've already said over there, people get all aggravated because I'm repeating myself, PLUS I feel like I already said everything all day long, so when I sit down to write some actually formed thoughts over here, I'm already tired of myself. So there's that.
Ok, first– what happened with the treadmill? Well, when last we spoke about this, they were going to attempt re-delivery of the replacement treadmill on Friday. They did show up, they did take one look at the driveway, and they did once again leave without delivering it.
Side note- let it be known, I am all about safety, and I never, never wanted anyone to do anything that would put the delivery guys at risk. I understand weather delay, ok? What I do not understand and will not tolerate is complacency in Corporate America, to the point where every single time the delivery process failed, I had to start OVER with a new customer service person who wanted me to spell my name for them and gave me the opportunity to pick a new appointment window that was at least three weeks away, and had no context and absolutely no power to work with me, or even any sense of just how long this had been going on. This part of the Sears customer service system is broken, and they need to work on it.
In fact, it was one of these impersonal phonecalls on Friday afternoon that made me lose my mind and take to the social media, where I sent out a few Tweets about how Sears was aggravating me. OK, maybe I also posted this on Sears' Facebook page. And maybe because of the sheer amount of people I have listening to me on social media, this worked– I got two phonecalls and two emails in a matter of twenty minutes, and Sunday morning I got a whole new team of delivery guys who were clearly going to do whatever it took to get that treadmill in there (maybe just to shut me up), and ultimately they did, after we spent four hours on Saturday trying to clear the driveway. Special thanks to World's Greatest Husband Stephan Cox for his awesome shoveling skills.
Also, special thanks to Teresa, and Tim, and Ferdinand, and Andy, and the social media team at Sears, who finally banded together to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem. I really have to hand it to Tim the delivery guy, who ended up coming up with a solution involving pulleys, ab straps and a dolly, dude. That guy was so impressive, I doubt Sears will be able to keep him, because I think, as they say, he will go far in the world.
So– I got the treadmill, everything turned out ok, I have profusely thanked everyone involved, I tipped everyone, I am appropriately grateful, and I have written letters of thanks to everyone who contributed to solving the problem.
With all of that said, I do have to say it made me a little sad that Corporate America has devolved to the point where only people with social media influence seem to be able to get customer service to want to go the extra mile. As my cousin said on Friday "This is an example of only popular people winning," and I agree, this is not fair; it does in fact seem like the equivalent of only feeling guilty if you get caught. I hope the distinction is clear– I am very happy with the outcome, but I feel I should also take this opportunity to point out to Sears that it has awful customer service on the first level, and that perhaps if they paid their customer service people better or empowered them more, they wouldn't have to employ quite so many social media damage control types for when these situations inevitably spiral out of control. How many companies have to go out of business before corporations go back to caring, not only about their customers, but about their employees?
So–a good day for me, the new treadmill is awesome, the marathon training is back on. At the same time, a sad commentary on the state of the American corporation, in my opinion.
Ok, off my soapbox and back on the treadmill now. I am at least running the Rhode Island half marathon in May (maybe the whole marathon, no promises!).
