On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 21:27:13 GMT, Henry wrote:
|Brent P supposed that Craftsman would have its engineers monitoring the |quality. He assumed a couple things that my experience has shown me |aren't true. 1. That Craftsman has engineers (or even staff people who |actively use Craftsman tools). 2. That Craftsman regularly monitors |quality. |Why do I think this? In November I was in the local OSH (Orchard |Supply, a Sears Company) looking at end wrench sets for presents. The |open ends on the Craftsman wrenches had very sharp flash inside at the |bottom of the U, enough to cut you. I've never seen such a thing, even |on cheap imports. I also noticed that the corners on the handles were |quite square - altho they didn't have flash. So I didn't buy them. |Instead, I brought the QC problem to the attention of Sears HQ in |Illinois. When I called Illinois, I never found an engineer there. In |the Craftsman department, there was just marketing people who never |answer their phones. My experience voicing my concern with the |executive complaint takers in Sear's presidents office was an |eye-opener. I figured I would have an easier time explaining the |significance of sharp flash on a wrench to a tool user. So I asked if |anyone there used Craftsman tools. No one did, so I ended up talking to |someone who just had to write down what I told her, word for word. And |the junk product is still in the stores, 2-1/2 months later. I think |the aforementioned lapse in quality will cost more than a billion |dollars in value of the Craftsman name.
Sears owns (at least until recently) the NTB chain. I had a problem with a broken wheel cap after having some tires installed, manager would not take responsibility. I never was able to find ANY way to contact higher management - no website, no addresses posted anywhere in the stores. I also looked for Sears sites, thinking I'd find some corporate contact there, to no avail. I even asked another manager, and he deflected that inquiry by resolving the issue himself, to my satisfaction. But I did determine that Sears & NTB were not interested in customer input. So I spend little of my money at Sears, and absolutely zero at NTB. Rex in Fort Worth