If you were to buy something at Circuit City (or any retail store...)

[Indolent]

1/3 to 1/4 of the price is a ripoff no matter how you look at it I'd say. How do any of the employees sell those warranties?

 

[Ness]

Didn't read much of the thread, but what I can tell you is that if you want to sell these warranties, you have to pry a little bit into the customer.

If they have kids, you can make the point that kids like to play with things, and that anything they do to it could be taken care of with this warranty... things like that. There isn't a general statement that can get someone to buy into the load of crap, you gotta find a way that fits the person. Aside from that, pushing the ease of making a claim versus working with a manufactuere'rsersrsr RMA service could be a push in the right direction.

Also, as much as I hate to say this... push push push push! keep talking about the warranty. Remember the rule of 3 no's. Until they say no 3 times, they don't mean it. When you go to ring someone up, make sure you casually slip in "and you wanted the warranty, right?" you might get some idiot not paying attention who will just babble a yes then hand you the credit card and sign away without even noticing. Worst case scenerio, they complain to your manager about your sales tactics, in which case the second you leave he congratulates you on doing your job the right way.

Most people give up to early when trying to sell something... the thing is, if you can't think of a good reason for a person to need this, neither can they. Be creative. Chances are if you are asking someone about the warranty, they are going to purchase the product anyway, so it's not like you have to worry about scaring them out of the store. Sure, they might not come back, but why should you care?

 

[DurocShark]

I haven't bought one since 1997, and then I got my warranty refunded because they wouldn't cover what I needed it to. That said...

When I bought my car stereo from Good Guys a coupla weeks ago, I did the "free" installation (ok, it was only $20 for the fscking kit). The salesman tried to sell me the extended warranty. It went something like this:

"...and if you have any problems with the stereo in the first 90 days, just take it out of your car and bring it in and we'll hand you another one. But if you pick up our protection plan, you can just bring the car in..."

Heh. I thought that was pretty good.

 

[LordJezo]

I once bought a 2 year warranty from Circuit City for my new head unit in my car. About 2 years later some of the buttons broke. I brought it in, showed them the warranty, the sent it out to get repaired, and I got it back. 3 years later it still works great.

So I guess that's one success story of ESPs.

 

[Spencer278]

For me to buy an extend warrenty again from CC some one would have to come to my house and honour the last extend warrent by replace my dead modem.

 

[Kelemvor]

If you take the price of the warranty off the price of the item, I'll buy it every time. That way it doesn't end up costing me any additional money. And most places have much higher profit percentages on the warranties anyway.

 

[rival]

how much do you make if you sell a warranty plan?

 

[GRIFFIN1]

Just do what the CC employee did to get me to buy an extended warranty. Lie!!!

The lie that got me to buy the warranty was that it would cover anything that went wrong with my new digital cell phone. This was back in 97 when digital cell phones were new, and it cost $250 to get one. I was assured that the phone would be covered for anything that went wrong with it for any reason. A year later, I droped the phone, and broke that antanea. The manager at CC told me that this type of damage wasn't covered. After finally reading the warranty agreement, I realized he was right, and I realized that I had been lied to. I have never bought another extended warranty, and I doubt I ever will buy another one.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: rival
how much do you make if you sell a warranty plan?

$0, and i make sure to tell this to every customer to know im not pushing it on them just to make a $$. I get paid whether i sell it or not.

Like many have said before, the only way to sell it is to believe in what your selling. I personally buy it on certain products and not on others, for many products its definately worth it. Know the "ins and outs" of the program so theres no confusion, and as mentioned before, find out the cool things that customers would be interested in and explain how it works, dont shove it down their throat.

FYI, over this past week i sold more than $1500 in warranty and around $10-$12k in volume. Granted i live in a city where the average age is ~ 65/70 but they still can be pretty damn frugal.

And you also have to accept the fact that some people will NEVER buy a warranty no matter how cheap it is and how much it protects them.