>Ed, you are making assumptions.
>
>The bottom line is simple: You don't know why he did what he did. You are assuming you know everything, but you don't.

PFMJI Joesph, but so are you, and this isn't the bottom line.

>You are assuming that the salesperson actually gets a commission for selling the system without some sort or service contract. They might not. There may be no profit in the sale of the system if no service contract is sold.

Having done this for a living once, I can speak from experience, he is getting commision on both, but probably a higher commision on the Service Contract.

What you are (both?) missing here is the motiviation. Its not necessarily financial. Retail sales is the pits, you have two conflicting goals (Customer Service, maximize commision), and these service contracts are usually the focal point of that conflict.

What's being missed here is the company itself. Service Contracts are not necessarily pushed by the guy working the floor. They are pushed by his manager, and by store policy. So when that guy is pushing that damn contract its not because he wants to piss Ed off, or even because he doesn't care--its because he will lose his job if he doesn't sell a certain number of the stupid things.

Companys love service contracts, because they get something for nothing (statstically)--they rarely are useful, and its easy money, except for the poor slob that has to push them.

So either he's an enterprising (and naive) sales guy who thinks he's going to get rich working the floor at CompUSA, or he's putting a good face on a bad job and doing what he is told.

I know, I got laid off for not selling enough POM (Peace Of Mind policies) for Sun TV. Guess what I did during that lay-off period, I learned C++ and web design, and ended up here 3 1/2 years later, so I see people like Ed who convinced me not to push someone to buy 25 dollar extended warranties on a 100 dollar VCR as my saviors :)

So my advice is keep dissing the Service Contracts they suck, and give the guy hell for pushing them (I never give anyone a hard time in Customer Service for anything, but I DO cut these guys off pretty quick with the Service Contract)

More than likely he is getting sick of the job anyway, and you will be doing him a favor if he quits, and while you shouldn't assume that the guy is trying to be an *sshole, you shouldn't think he has good motives either--usually they are just trying to get through the day.

HTH,
Bill