Sears/Kenmore Follow-Up

Background here and here.

I've not heard hide nor hair from Sears since I spoke with Dee again yesterday, which is fair enough, since the only thing I want to hear from them is that they're working intently with the manufacturer on a recall, so I'm not the only person with this issue who's offered a free repair, and that's not something in which they seem to be very interested.

I have also, however, not heard from Kenmore, after they publicly accused me of not having tried to contact them, even though whoooooooops I did. Kenmore has also suggested that my failure was in tweeting at them directly, instead of sending a DM (direct message), despite the fact that their Twitter account is prominently displayed on the front page of their website without such a direction and the troubling little issue that it's impossible to send a DM to someone who is not following you.

And then there's this: If you send a DM, no one else sees it, and if this whole episode has proven anything, it's that Sears/Kenmore only respond after someone makes a lot of noise.

Every single polite and private entreaty I made before posting about this was ignored.

When I spoke to Brenda C. in customer service, I told her point-blank at the end of the conversation that I would be writing about it and exactly who my audience was. I also asked her if there was someone else, e.g. a PR person, to whom she'd like to direct me, and she said no.

So even having warned them that I would make a public stink, they still didn't care.

UNTIL I DID.

Which suggests to me that the only reason Kenmore wants to get direct, i.e. private, messages is because they're easier to ignore.

If Kenmore would like me to have a different, and more favorable, impression, then perhaps their one and only direct contact with me should have been something other than claiming to have "no previous knowledge" of this situation, despite the fact that my very first tweet was directed at them, and then "apologizing" if they "missed something." Not an apology for wrongly snarking on their Facebook page about how I never contacted them, but, you know, for if they missed the fact that I did indeed contact them.

How to Create a Public Relations Nightmare 101, by Sears/Kenmore. Chapter 7: Fauxpologies.

Here's the thing: The first place we went when we were looking to replace our dishwasher that also broke last weekend? Sears. The second place we went? Sears Outlet Store. Yep, the first two places we went to price dishwashers were Sears stores. You know why? Because we were happy with our stove, even though it had just broken.

I'm not an unreasonable person. I understand things can break. I figured Sears/Kenmore would deal with us fairly.

Well. We just bought our new dishwasher at Lowe's.