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How Office Depot Pushes Service Plans On Customers
Harry writes "I was amused, appalled, and angry — yes, all three — when I spotted signs above every register at my local Office Depot with handy scripts for clerks to use in 'recommending' that customers buy extra-cost, extremely profitable protection plans. And now Laptop Magazine has posted an eye-opening investigative report that charges local Office Depot stores with instructing staffers to lie and tell people who want to buy laptops without service plans that they're out of stock." Update: 03/13 00:53 GMT by T : An employee with Office Depot, somewhere in the southeastern US, wrote to respond to this story as a employee of the company, but in his off time and not in any official capacity:
"I will only say that what is described in your article and the Laptop
Mag article is not something that occurs across the entire company as
sanctioned or ordered by the Corporate Higher Ups and is certainly
nothing I have experienced as a 10-year employee of the company, we
want sales. Yes, we want add-ons, but we will take the sales regardless."
Why would you buy a computer at office depot?
Heh, that sounds about right.
I worked for OfficeMax a few years ago. Everybody who worked there received commissions for selling those overpriced plans to customers.
I'm wondering if the examples discussed in TFA are a companywide policy a la Best Buy with their seperate pricing for internet and intranet, or the brainchild of some greedy store manager. When I worked as a film-developer for a major drugstore chain, the store manager approached me about finding a way to cheat customers using standard processing for customers who turned in their film with premium envelopes(which means that customers who wanted offsite "premium" processing would instead have their stuff done in-house, saving us tons of cash and leaving us hoping that the customer wouldn't notice the lack of the extra features they wanted ^_^).
My biggest mistake in that job was mentioning the word "ethics" to my manager. I was never promoted ^_^
Wow, if you get appalled over scripts for cashiers, wait until you find out about telemarketers, what THEY have. I fear the day you learn about politician's speech writers. Oh, and did you know? Those bills that get passed through congress, often the congresspeople DON'T EVEN READ THEM.
OK I'll stop now to keep your rage meter from going overboard.
(This message brought to you from the 'please channel your anger towards things that actually matter dept').
Man, I must be feeling bitter today.
Qxe4
Not at all. The true reason the salesperson recommends the extended warranty is because they get commission. The reason given in the script is an unrelated fact, so by following the script the salesperson is lying.
No. By following the script the sales person is giving you a true reason why you might want to buy it. It doesn't happen to be the reason he wants to sell it to you, but what has that got to do with anything?
The true reason the store exists at all is to extract money from customers. So if I walk in an ask to buy a single pen, and an employee suggests buying the 3 pack for twice the price 'because you get 2 for the price of 1' he isn't lying to me. Its the truth, and perhaps even a good reason to buy the 3 pack.
The fact that he makes more money from the sale this way is the reason he suggested it, but that doesn't make the rest of the conversation a lie.
I've avoided buying anything at Office Despot since I walked into one years ago and they had a sign boasting that they test their employees for drugs. Even aside from the fact that I find that invasion of employees' privacy troublesome on principle, why would I - as a customer - care whether the guy ringing up my sale smokes a little weed once in a while, or even if the girl restocking the shelves does a line of coke every night? What kind of business brags about how worker-unfriendly an employer they are?
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