Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
MUSIC TRADE
REVIEW
DECEMBER 5,
1925
Crux of the Radio Service Problem
Is Primarily in Selling
Heavy Service Expenses in the Radio Department of the Retail Music Merchant Can Almost Invariably Be
Traced Directly to an Incorrect Method of Selling on the Part of the Retail Sales Force—Two
Examples of Solving the Service Question by the Retail Music Merchant
T
H E crux of the radio service problem in
the retail music store lies not in the type
of set that is handled, but primarily in
the way in which the retail sales force is trained
to handle the prospective buyer while the sale
is being made upon the floor.
This may sound like a truism, but neverthe-
less it is something which a good many retail
music merchants who handle radio have not as
yet learned, or at least have not as yet taughl
their salesmen. Or, if they have endeavored to
teach them, the salespeople themselves, in their
anxiety to close sales, disregard their instruc-
tions and create in the buyer's mind a condi-
tion which no radio set can possibly meet under
any and all circumstances.
Learning From Service Reports
One oi the leading retail music organizations
in New York, which has a large radio depart-
ment handling several of the best-known lines
in the country, recently found its service costs
steadily increasing. Month after month, the
percentage of expense in the general overhead'
represented by this work showed a slight but
appreciable advance. At the end of three
months, the manager called for the reports of
the service men, each of whom is instructed to
make a general report of the conditions he finds
upon each call, and went into seclusion to study
them carefully. Here is what he found, in his
own words:
"Over 35 per cent of the calls we were mak-
ing to carry out the terms of our sales contracts
were quite unnecessary. They were due, as
nearly as I could make out from what the serv-
ice men reported, to overexpectation on the
part of the buyer. In other words, the old dis-
tance selling point was evidently being used by
the salesmen in order to close sales. In these
reports, which I laid to one side, the customer
almost invariably claimed that he could not get
the service from the set he had purchased that
had been promised him and that he thought he
ought to get, considering the price he had paid
for it. Many of them told the service men that
friends of theirs could get much more distance
from sets that had cost from one-quarter to
one-half of what the set we handle is priced at,
and that they thought something must be wrong
if they could not get the same thing.
"Of course, the latter I had to attribute to
the 'distance liar,' the fellow who has a cheap
set and goes around telling the impossible dis-
tance that he always gets when nobody else is
around. But that was only a minor part of the
trouble—the real trouble was being created by
our own sales force, as nearly as I could make
out."
The remedy this manager used was to call
the salesmen together and once more impress
upon them that distance was not guaranteed un-
der any circumstances, and to tell them, without
equivocation, that the first salesman who was
caught making a point of distance reception in
his selling talk would have to resign immedi-
ately. Two months have passed since this pol-
icy was emphasized, for it was not really new
with the house, and the service expense has
6hown an appreciable decrease.
Free Service
A second problem in the service question,
which is extremely important, is the length of
time during which free service will be given
after a receiving set is sold. There are a good
many dealers who believe free service a neces-
sity and who give it for varying lengths of time.
As a matter of fact, there are several successful
dealers who have abolished free service entirely,
with the exception of proper installation, and
who find that this has no particular effect upon
their business. The music merchant in this
problem has a fund of experience at his com-
mand in his piano and player service depart-
ment, where free service has also been done
away with in many cases successfully and with-
out any depreciation in the gross sales.
As a matter of fact, if a dealer feels that he
must give free service on the radio sets that he
sells, thirty days is the safe maximum. If a set
has defects they will show up in that time. If
the installation has not been properly handled
that time is sufficient to correct the work. If
free service is given for a longer period it cuts
too heavily into the net profit in the sale, the
gross margin not being sufficient to meet it.
Service over longer periods also gives the cus-
tomer the idea that he can call indefinitely upon
the dealer, and when the dealer refuses cre-
ates ill will, in fact, more ill will than could pos-
sibly be created by the shorter period. Human
psychology has queer quirks, which must be
taken into consideration in any such problem
as the one we are dealing with.
Thirty Days' Free Service
"The thirty days' free service," said a music
dealer recently who has handled radio practically
since its advent to popularity, "we find solves
the problem both from the customers' and our
own standpoints. When we first started to han-
dle radio we gave free service for months, but
found that this was quite impossible. During
those days it was no infrequent thing for a serv-
ice man to make from ten to twelve calls on a
single set, which left us in a hole on the sale.
The greater percentage of these calls was en-
tirely the customer's own fault.
"When we cut our service period to ninety
days we had practically no complaint, and when
we cut it to thirty days the same thing hap-
pened. So far as my experience goes, tne
whole service question, that is, how long free
service will be given, depends entirely upon the
agreement made at the time of the sale. If you
are going to promise a man six months' service
he is going to get his money's worth from you
in nine cases out of ten. If receiving condi-
tions are bad he wants a service man to fix the
weather, not the set; if he is an amateur radio
engineer and tries to improve his set accord-
ing to his own ideas he expects you to fix the
damage which his enthusiasm has caused.
He doesn't do those things when he knows
that a service man's time is going to cost him
$1.50 per hour, figured from the time the man
leaves the store until he gets to the next job.
He makes allowances for conditions then, and
doesn't expect California on the loud speaker at
6 o'clock in the evening. And his liking for
tinkering soon disappears after the first time it
has cost him $3 or $4."
Short Service and Collections
"What effect has the shorter period of free
service upon collections on sets that are sold
on the instalment basis?" this merchant was
asked.
"Under the guarantee by which we sell none
at all, so far as we can find out. Out past due
on radio is no higher now than it was when we
were giving six or three months' free service.
In fact, our trouble along this line is less, if any-
thing. There are two reasons for this. The
radio-buying public, at least here in New York,
has learned a great deal during the past two
years. The distance craze, which was the cause
of most of our troubles, has died away. People
know that radio doesn't work the same under
all weather conditions. The second is that peo-
ple to whom we sell are led to expect exactly
what they get by the salesman, with the result
that they know what they are up against when
they buy. A radio set improperly sold by the
salesman in the first place is always a factor of
future expense to the dealer, and the whole
question of service lies in the selling. We have
only one policy in that direction, and that has
turned our radio service department from a big
item of overhead expense to a department that
to-day is paying for itself and really carrying
the burden of the thirty days' free service with-
out additional expense to us. For every job we
handle after the free-service period is over
shows us a profit."
All in the Selling
Here are two instances that show that the
crux of the service problem, as stated at the
beginning of this article, is entirely in the sell-
ing and that the way to eliminate over-heavy
service expense in the radio department is to
sell the receivers right in the first place.
To Concentrate on Three
Atwater Kent Speakers
Atwater Kent Mfg. Co. Announces the Discon-
tinuance of Two of the Five Present Models
of Radio Speakers
PHILADELPHIA, PA., November 28.—The Atwater
Kent Mfg. Co. has announced to its dealers
that owing to the growing popularity of the
Type H, Type L and Type K models of the
Atwater Kent radio speaker, the production de-
partment is being changed over to manufacture
only those types, which means that the Model
M and Model R speakers will be discontinued
as soon as possible. The move is made in the
belief that fewer models will mean better pro-
duction at the factory and simplify the dealer's
stock problem.
Stewart-Warner Booklet
The Stewart-Warner Speedometer Corp.,
manufacturer of Stewart-Warner Matched-Unit
Radio, is furnishing its retail dealers with an
attractive little booklet, in several colors, tell-
in R the story of the Stewart-Warner radio line,
for distribution to prospects. The booklet is
convenient in size for mailing purposes and will
undoubtedly be found very effective by dealers
in pushing sales.
Only 17.6 per cent of American homes arc to-
day enjoying the benefits of radio, according to
a survey recently completed by the General
Federation of Women's Clubs. In striking con-
trast with the radio figures, and indicating the
vast undeveloped field for the sale of radio, it
is interesting to note that pianos and phono-
graphs were found in more than 50 per cent of
the homes.