Toys to Grow on - Good, Sears - Bad

In this day and age, it's not too often you get great customer service, especially without putting up a fight, but Toys To Grown On far out weighed my expectations. Morgan's Clap and Laugh microphone that she got for Christmas suddenly stopped working. The stand still works with the clapping and laughing buttons, but the microphone is silent. Despite my jokes about needing it to come to an untimely death, we did not sabbotage the thing. And despite the fact that she sometimes drives me crazy with this toy, she does really love it. And so, being the good mom that I am (cough, cough) I contacted Toys to Grown On and inquired about the cost of replacing just the microphone piece. I immediately got a response from Customer Service apologizing for the problems I encountered and offering to replace the microphone for FREE. Yep. Free. Just like that. I was blown away. I will definetely be shopping at Lakeshore Learning (our local store that carries the TTGO line) more often.

On the other hand there is Sears. I will never use Sear again for any type of service call. Our dishwasher broke and we scheduled an appointment with one of their repairmen. Our window was on a week day from 1 pm - 5 pm. At 5 pm I received a call from the repairman stating he was running late and would be there in an hour. We waited another hour, at which time the phone ran again. It was the repairman stating it was too dark for him to be able to find our house and he wondered if I would reschedule. I told him I would not. That I had already waited five hours for service and I would not be able to take another day off work. He started explaining that his GPS wasn't working and that he eouldn't see the numbers on the house. I told him that I could give him directions but he wasn't interested. Then I told him that in the old days, people found other people's houses without a GPS and that people find addresses ALL THE TIME in the dark. Then Mark talked to him on the phone while standing outside. Mark saw the guy drive by and told him that he JUST SAW HIM. The guy still refused to stop. At this point, I really didn't want him to stop, because goodness knows what kind of service we would have received at this point. When we called Sears to complain, they told us that we had to reschedule for another four hour window, they could not guarantee us the first appointment in the morning. When we told them we already waited five hours and didn't want to wait again, they just didn't care.

Mark found a local handyman who came the next day. The handyman called us before he left for our place and told us he would be there in 15 minutes. No waiting. And he temporary fixed the dishwasher for much less, and he worked with Mark on what part Mark needed to order and how to install it himself when it came in. Needless to say, we are keeping this guys card.

As for Sears, a week later I received an automatic message confirming our dishwasher appointment for the next day between 1 and 5 pm. An appointment that we never rescheduled. an appointment I promptly cancelled (only because they had our credit card number and could charge us for showing up, otherwise I would not have given them the courtesy).