by Wilbur Witt
During my time at Sears Holdings as a Customer Solutions manager I took thousands of calls from customers trying to resolve various issues arising from purchases they had made at Sears, or the coordination of repairs of item so purchased, but one call in particular stands out to me. It was in the middle of summer, heat waves were baking the northeast, and especially New York City. Air conditioners, strained beyond their capacity were failing all,over the city, and we were having to work very hard to route technicians to each call with the waiting list as long as two weeks in some cases.
I received a call one afternoon from an elderly lady living in New York. Her one window air conditioner had stopped working. I was on what they called the "third tier" which was a special group, only in Austin, that got escalated calls where at least three Sears employees had failed to satisfy the customer's needs. This woman's needs were simple. She was over eighty years old, lived on the third floor of am old brownstone, on a crowded street, and the men who had been dispatched didn't want the hassle so they were consistently marking her as a "not at home," and she continued to bake in a three room walk up that was never designed for this kind of heat.
As I looked at the list of work orders that had not been completed she began to tell me everything about her situation. I already knew it was bad, old lady in an apartment with ninety plus heat, but she told me that a year ago her husband of over fifty years, Frank, had passed away.
"I don't know how to do this. Frank always handled things. He bought the insurance from Sears and everything. Should I go and meet them in the street? Frank always took care of everything, and if her was here with his big screw driver he'd already have fixed this." Then, she began to sob uncontrollably. I asked her to allow me to put her on a brief hold.
"You will be back, right. All the others put me on hold and never come back.". I assured her I would most certainly return. Being on the third level wielded a certain amount of power. There were only a couple hundred or so of us, but we sat very near the source of power at Sears, and we had an entire tool box we could use to solve problems, or exercise pressure. I was a task master at the political end. I would use real rules, arm twisting, and outright bluffs if need be.
I called the unit in New York City and got the manager. I began cordially by letting him know that this lady had been passed over at least three times. I reminded him that she had a protection plan on her air conditioner. He started to give me all the excuses about the overflow of calls, the heat, her location, the difficulty of access, and I cut him off. This Yankee thought it was hot in the Bronx, try Austin, Texas.
"Oh, silly me, I guess I didn't make myself clear. Ok. If there isn't cold air blowing on Miss Edna by six o'clock tonight I'm going to deactivate the crew that has the work order I just struck, after I deactivate YOU!"
Long silence. Of course, he wanted my name, location, and division. I gave it to him. Another long silence. ""Ok. I'll get it done."
"Have the tech bring another unit with him. It's a small '110' air conditioner. My fifteen year old grand daughter could carry. That way I won't have to expect her to wait three more weeks for parts."
He told me he would arrange that too. "And, one more thing, make sure the guy takes a big screw driver, make sure Edna sees it."
"Why."
"Don't question me, just do it!"
"I'm going to file a report on this."
"I'm sure you will."
I went back and told Edna to alert the person in her lobby about the arrival of the repairman. After that I went to break. Sears had an elite team of senior techs who oversaw all repairs nationwide, and yes, they are in Austin, too. The call center is built around them, literally! They sat in the middle of the building, and all the rest of us were positioned around them. The public was never allowed to speak to them, and that was a good thing because most of them were a bunch or grizzly old bikers who had worked construction all their lives. I had coffee with one of them and told him what had just transpired. He told me to send him the case and he would watch over it after I ended my shift. If that unit manager in New York thought I was an asshole he just hadn't met Gary yet!
The next day was my midweek day off, but when I returned on Friday I immediately checked Edna's work order. I was very pleased to see that it had been completed. I left Sears right after that, but I think about Edna now and then. By now I suppose she's passed on, but I know as she goes through the gates of heaven Frank won't be too hard to find. He'll be waiting for her, with his big screwdriver.
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