Radio Broadcast (May 1929-Apr 1930)

was the "General Repair" garage down by the freight depot, and was in fact often less capable. That feeling exists now about the average radio dealer's service department, and the sooner it is counteracted by the dealers the better for radio merchandising. The recent revival of the long-condemned practice of pricecutting has had a serious effect upon the radio retail trade. Whether or not the chain-store system is going to prove economically sound in the radio business, Craddick does not attempt to prophesy; but the cut-price policies of some of the metropolitan stores are, to his mind, short-sighted. The manufacturers who permit their lines to be advertised and sold at cut prices, he points out, may be helping themselves out of a temporary over-produced condition, but they are nipping whatever faint buddings of dealer loyalty and confidence they maj have raised. "No dealer who is attempting to build up a stable business in a community can be expected to utter cheers when he finds that list prices on a certain line are made only for some competitor to undersell,' he said. "But the question of price-cutting has been argued ever since radio retailing came out of the novelty trades." Dealer apathy toward the service problem is decreasing at far too slow a pace, Craddick has found. There are, he adds, one or two reasons why that is so, but they are only superficial reasons. "Very often the dealer gets a call for service from a customer, and sends the serviceman around only to find that there's nothing wrong with the set. The customer isn't satisfied with that report; he still says the set isn't working properly, and back goes the dealer serviceman for a second time. I've known cases where the dealer serviceman has made four calls, each with the report that the set was operating all right. The customer, still dissatisfied, hounds the dealer until the latter asks the distributor's serviceman, or a factory serviceman, to look the set over. The report is still 'O. K.', but the customer believes the factory man where he didn't believe the dealer's man. "And the one thing that a dealer's service department should do it doesn't do, in ninety cases out of a hundred. That is, to make an unrequested inspection visit a week or so after a set has been installed in a customer's home. Such a call will often uncover little things that have been bothering the customer; lots of times the customer hasn't learned how to tune the set properly, and doesn't realize that he's not getting the reception he is entitled to have. And, even when that second visit, the ' call-back' trip, as we term it in our organization, doesn't find anything that the serviceman should correct, it makes a splendid impression on the customer and gives him the feeling that the dealer is genuinely interested in having him satisfied. "Too few dealer servicemen avail themselves of the opportunity of spending two or three days in the factory learning how the sets are made, and why. That's the shortest and surest way for them to become experts in the particular fines that their employer handles, and the distributor and manufacturer are more than willing to give them the free tuition, so to speak, if only they'll signify a desire to receive it." The "Junior Salesman" plan, which has now had almost six months' trial and has proven itself a thorough success, has incidentally demonstrated the value of the "callback visit" beyond any doubt. Briefly, the "Junior Salesman" plan is this: the jobber's salesman, who covers a large area and acts as salesman, contact-man, and adviser to (Continued on page 242) One week after a new set is installed the junior salesman makes an unrequested inspection visit. 194 • • AUGUST 1929 •