Two weeks ago we were told that training for the new Die Hard Edge Maintenance programs was mandatory and had to be completed before year end. These webinars also had to be done either before or after our shift. No classes were even available during normal business hours. I came in at 7am on Wednesday even though I was scheduled to work at 10am and tried for almost 2 hours to log on. Numerous attempts just resulted with replies that instructors have not yet arrived. On Friday we received an email stating that webinars have been cancelled until 2017. Why? My guess is that with liquidation on the horizon management figured there was no sense in going through the expense of training everyone. The maintenance programs are a joke anyway. If the training comes back up I will do it but I will not sell the plans. They are overpriced and have too many stipulations. For an example, Die Hard tires are the only option but they are not available in every size. How do you tell a customer that they paid an enormous amount for a plan but not everything is available to them? Oh....and now we are supposed to sell Sirius XM Satellite Radio subscriptions to every customer coming in for an oil change.
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To the OP: I actually did do the training webinars well a month ago. I was the only one on all five of them. The AMTRUST folks were very good. All it was, was a series long phone conversations where it was a sales pitch. Die Hard Edge only works if people have great credit and a Sears Mastercard is involved. There is no point in trying to sell this to anyone and the AMTRUST said as much. Our customer base is not like that. Most shops don't have the personnel to do this because you need a ASE Master to perform these inspections and they don't grow in trees. I have one ASE master and he is always busy. He is not going to WASTE a bunch of time to look for service agreement bulletin points when we turn away work every day. No one does most of what we suggest anyway.
Whoever dreamed up this DieHard Edge 360 has never worked in a shop before. I will not sell one of those plans. Get Joe from Segno to do the work for you then. Were are type one store. We have one master and a couple of rookies. That's it. It's an emergency room for cars that people didn't take care of. Everyday, all day, someone has an emergency and they don't have an appointment and they want it fixed right now. Sorry, but we can't help you for several hours if today at all. Then they want to speak to the manager. Most of the time that is me because I am MOD. You can talk to the ACM when he is here. Holiday hours and cold weather have made things worse.
Sears can take their Die Hard Edge Program and shove it. I am out of Group 78 DH Gold batteries and many others. I restocked with two Patriot tires last week. My shelves are bare.
But I read about the roll rate today. We just need to do better they say. Ignore the clowns who send e-mails all day.
@KUfvBTU-hko Seeing as the company will likely be out of business by this time next year, they may not see the need to continue with continued staff training!
Why?
All you have to do to save Sears is sell every oil change customer 4 tires, a brake job, a satellite radio subscription, an alignment, a diehard battery, and maintenance programs for all of the above. Do this consistently with 90% of the customers for a year and you will a receive a 2% raise, payable in SYWR points...
It's really sad that the misguided focus on "maintenance programs" continues right to the end. The company went off track decades ago when they started making maintenance agreements more important than total sales. Do they even provide basic training on the products themselves? I guess it doesn't matter much now, because the foolish strategies will soon result in bankruptcy.