IT’S been an eventful few months for Natasja Shah, a manager at a Staples store whom readers met in this space in September.

You may recall that she described the pressure that sales associates at Staples, the office supply chain, are under to sell warranties and accessories, particularly on computers. For motivation, close tabs are kept on the amount of extras and service plans sold for each and every computer. The goal is to sell an average of $200 worth of add-ons per machine, and a sales rep who can’t achieve that goal, Ms. Shah said, is at risk of termination.

This explained why customers reported some strange, seemingly anti-capitalist behavior at Staples stores: employees refusing to sell computers to customers who decline service plans. It’s a brushoff that Ms. Shah said was known among employees as “walking the customer,” because consumers are essentially shooed out the door empty-handed.

The day the column was published, Sept. 9, Ms. Shah sent a nine-page e-mail to the Staples national director of human resources, Sandra Kruel-Anderson, outlining this and a number of other practices she said she had seen, and found troubling, at the store where she works in Fountain Valley, Calif. This was her third attempt to get some attention in the executive suites.

According to Ms. Shah, she had described “walking the customer” to her regional human resource manager, and nothing came of it. In early August, she sent a complaint, identical to the one e-mailed on Sept. 9, to Demos Parneros, the Staples president of North American retail. She didn’t hear back. Her third effort got a reaction, which is not surprising. By then, she’d demonstrated a willingness to share her thoughts with others. Like the Haggler.

One afternoon in October, the Haggler visited Ms. Shah at her apartment in this suburb in Orange County, to find out what has happened since. She was at home because, soon after her Sept. 9 e-mail landed in human resources, she heard from a rep in that office, who suggested a paid leave while the company conducted an investigation. That investigation turned out to include a three-hour phone conversation during which Ms. Shah and the rep went over the complaint, line by line.

(Ms. Shah says that she has since filed for workers’ compensation for stress-related health issues and that her last Staples paycheck was in late October.)

“Right off the bat, she told me that Staples has been good to her and that she loves her job and she didn’t know why I was so upset,” recalled Ms. Shah, 39, who was born in Trinidad. “I said, ‘However you feel about your work has nothing to do with what we are discussing today.’ It was a little distressing.”

The alarming part, Ms. Shah said, was that the rep seemed to glide right over some of the more egregious ethical breaches depicted in the complaint — among them, that Staples employees are urged to sell warranties on items already covered by manufacturers.

A Staples spokeswoman, Carrie McElwee, said the company does not comment on personnel communications.

Ms. Shah had told the Haggler about the warranty issue, but it wasn’t mentioned in the September column — the whole “walking the customer” thing seemed meaty enough. But afterward, several current and former Staples employees got in touch — and when the Haggler asked if they sold redundant warranties, they said yes. The tactic, they continued, is actively encouraged by management and is often the only way to remain in good graces.

“Epson has a sticker that they put on the floor of the store, about how they’ve got the best warranty in the business,” said one former manager, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. “You’re supposed to stand on the sticker. And if they ask about the manufacturer’s warranty” — which is also described on the box — “you’re supposed to say that Epson is in the business of making money. Staples is in the business of taking care of you. And that you’ll have to ship the product back to Epson and Epson might reject the claim.”

In fact, according to this former manager, the Epson warranty is excellent, but he said it was common practice to tell customers that “it’s worth spending extra money for the peace of a mind of a real warranty.”

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Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/your-money/another-look-at-a-hard-sell-on-extras-at-staples-stores.html?partner=rss&emc=rss