This morning, Dorothy Ortt (my mother) attempted to make an appointment over the phone, (1-800-473-7247) for service on her gas range. When the computer program requested the name of the appliace, she replied, " A gas range." The program did not take that reply. The question and answer were repeated again before she 9he, (being extremelly frustrated), shouted, "A stove!" At that point, the program took the answer. She then had to listen to about 15 minutes of advertisements for Twitter and chatting. Neither of which she does as she is elderly and does not own a computer. (By the way, isn't it some kind of predjudice to give people with web access better service than those using the phone? I make this inquiry, not only for my mother and other elderly or poor people, but for those people who are overly sensitive to elctromagnetic fields an connot use a computer.) When she finally did get a real-live-person operator, Mom explained the difficulty. The operator asked if she had cleaned the ports. (The problem was the stove wouldn't light). My mother hadn't. The operator told her to clean them and then call back to set up an appointment if the problem still existed. Not wanting to have to go through the entire system again and get an even later appointment, mom insisted on setting up the appointment then, telling the operator that she would call back and cancel if the cleaning worked. After some exchange of words and mom asking to speak to a supervisor and being told that there was no supervisor and the supervisor (who wasn't there) would call her back, my mother got more frustrated. (How do you run a customer service business without having at least one supervisor on-call in your call center at all times?) A point which mom made as she had been a supervisor. My mother got her appointment for May 30th, which was not helpful as she is expecting company on the 29th. (Whatever happened to 24 hour service?) She has a contract and 24 hour service is advertised on your service website. Mom did clean the ports, that was the problem and she called back. Why doesn't your automated system have a cancel option? The first time she called the system disconnected her. She called back and was connected to a real-live-person who assisted her in cancelling her appointment. It will be a long time before either of us returns to sears. The initial reason for her taking the contract was that it was for service within 24 hours. Nancy Ortt
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