Looking to buy a laptop sometime soon? Well, unless you're interested in bundling your purchase with a protection plan, you may want to avoid shopping at Office Depot.
According to a recent article published by Laptop Magazine, Office Depot associates routinely lie about their available stock when dealing with customers that are uninterested in extras like Protect Protection Plans (or PPPs for short) and Tech Depot Services (TDS). Due to the competitive nature of computer sales, Office Depot like many other brick and mortar stores rely on service and accessory based sales to make any sort of significant profit. As such, both management and salesmen seek to move the extras with every purchase.
The article includes several reader confirmations of the art of moving PPPs and TDSs. A Chris H. is quoted in the article stating "Not only do [we] sales people depend on the extra cash we earn from add-ons, if we do not sell them and make a quota, we get the shaft from our bosses and their bosses and their bosses," implying that the salesmen themselves rely on the movement of the service plans in order to make extra income.
Another reader identified as Rich comments "Basically they drill it in your head that if you don’t sell PPPs, you’re gonna get fired. It’s gotten so bad to the point where the managers are starting to find loopholes in the system. They would rather sell one laptop with a PPP than ten laptops with nothing. They don’t care."
According to the article, even upper management faces diciplinary action if quotas are not met, perhaps revealing that the primary source of the problem begins at the top and simply rolls downhill. One thing is for sure though, with business practices invovling deception, Office Depot is sure to lose respect and business as the public becomes aware of such behavior.
