Sears and Voom

[Neutron]

The Sears in the mall near me has been badmouthing Voom. I went to show my wife Voom before we ordered and was told by the salesman that Voom was unreliable and that they could only get one channel whereas DISH gave them every channel and he tried to get me to choose DISH. He also said that they have never heard of the $0 up front promotion and that the only way I could get it was to pay $50 to Sears to get a card to call Voom and pay $350 to get the service.

My best friend in Columbia, SC was told by his Sears that the only way he could get it was to pay $800 to Voom.

I have e-mailed Wilt on this as I see Sears discouraging people from getting Voom.

 

[DarrellP]

I was in a Sears the other night with my 8 year old daughter, who just started playing soccer last season, and the HD displays were showing a WorldSport soccer game and my daughter says "Hey dad, a soccer game" is on. There was a salesman within earshot so I said louder than normal "Yeah, I can get that on my Voom at home". Guess what? The guy didn't even bother to talk to me.

If I worked in a store and heard someone say that, I'd be all over them asking a zillion questions.

 

[cpdretired]

I was in a Sears the other night with my 8 year old daughter, who just started playing soccer last season, and the HD displays were showing a WorldSport soccer game and my daughter says "Hey dad, a soccer game" is on. There was a salesman within earshot so I said louder than normal "Yeah, I can get that on my Voom at home". Guess what? The guy didn't even bother to talk to me.

If I worked in a store and heard someone say that, I'd be all over them asking a zillion questions.

I had the same experience at Sears. I tried telling the sales person about the free install. I may as well have been speaking a different launguage. Actually this was my first trip into a Sears store in many years. The sales people are useless. Oh ya and this was my last trip into Sears.

 

[niteshade009]

I had a similar experience. I went into Sears to watch some Voom while I was waiting for my install date to come. A salesperson walked up and asked if he could help me. I said that I was just checking out Voom. He proceeds to tell me that if I really want a good deal then I should check out Dish and showed me the $50 startup kit they sell. I asked why I would buy that when Voom had more channels in HD, cost no money upfront, and had no contracts. He just said, "Yeah......" and walked off. Weird. Their corporate office must be telling them to really push Dish.

 

[TechCop]

I agree.

I think Sears has done more damage to Voom than all the bad installers combined. They don't have a clue, nor do they care to develop one.

 

[NoWhereMan]

OK, guys, I'm going to give you a heads up on the Sears-VOOM problem. I'm a VOOMer AND a Sears employee and I think there needs to be some background given. The responsibility lies with VOOM and upper Sears echelons.

When VOOM was introduced it was LITERALLY dropped in the stores with little or no advanced warning or training for the sales people. Pamphlets were set up and a basic leaflet was given to the sales people for their "training." It was months until my particular store even SAW a VOOM rep. Then when we did, she was completely uninformed about her own product. It made me very angry and I felt it was wasting my time and the other employees that I had to train HER on her own product. I learned everything on my own through the Internet and this forum. This is why I went with VOOM myself when I moved into my new house. I love the technology, but frankly the dealer support sucks.

That's not to excuse the sales people for dismissing VOOM off the bat, but they have been given little or no training or incentive to sell it. Sears management and VOOM need to do some serious re-working of their relationship if they are to make anything of this deal. I have managed to sell several VOOM systems myself, not because of anything VOOM has done, but because I took the initiative on my own.

 

[calikarim]

Sears employee bashed Voom in santa monica 4th St

I went to Sears Store in Santa Monica to buy Voom i was so excited. I waited for 20 minutes to get service which is usual for Sears the level of service is garbage. I figure that Voom is worth the wait. I finally get a rep to help me and he tells me that they havent sold one voom system, this is 4 months ago. He also tells me not to buy voom that it has poor picture quality and system is garbage . He doen't have a clue of the array of channels offered by voom and totally discouraged me to buy voom. I went home called voom and ordered by phone. Whey would voom waste their time with a clueless operation like sears. Sears can't even sell cologne let alone a gem like voom. Voom get out of Sears, they are on their way to chapter 11, the way they treat theeir customers

 

[TechCop]

I don't know who is to blame...

I just feel it's a mess. Here's a link to a previous similar thread I started.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=10826

 

[madpoet]

On the other side NoWhere, you guys were getting some pretty serious cash incentives for selling it. I know because my really bad Sears rep mistakenly gave me the saleperson's brochure that listed the cash rewards for selling a Voom system. Having worked in retail electronic sales, I know I would have pushed like heck to learn all about the system just so I could be getting some of those bonuses

 

[vurbano]

Please take this with a grain of salt. With an open mind consider yourself as a sears salesman for a moment. PQ problems, microstuttering, DVI snow, functions like horizontal and verical positioning that dont work, bad installers, demo loop exclusive channels like equatorhd, etc. What do you think the odds are of selling a customer this and having the install go smoothly and the customer happy with the crappy moto software etc we have now? Wouldnt it be easier to sell them Dish or Directv?

 

[Neutron]

Name one DISH HD receiver that is currently for sale that doesn't have many if any bugs?

I didn't think you could....

Also, why would a customer want to spend $400 on a Directv HD receiver when they can get a Voom one for $0 up front?

 

[squicken]

Please take this with a grain of salt. With an open mind consider yourself as a sears salesman for a moment. PQ problems, microstuttering, DVI snow, functions like horizontal and verical positioning that dont work, bad installers, demo loop exclusive channels like equatorhd, etc. What do you think the odds are of selling a customer this and having the install go smoothly and the customer happy with the crappy moto software etc we have now? Wouldnt it be easier to sell them Dish or Directv?

It's disturbing how much I tend to agree with you. Excellent point. I know I no longer recommend Voom to anyone, and imo, I think a Sears employee would be doing the right thing in steering customers to E* or D*.

 

[madpoet]

I think you're nuts . I'm sorry you wouldn't recommend Voom to anyone, but after having this muchHD at my fingertips it's laughable to think of going back to a lesser lineup. Frankly, short of getting screwed on my plus pack that I likely won't use anyway, Voom has been nothing short of spectacular for me.

 

[squicken]

I think you're nuts . I'm sorry you wouldn't recommend Voom to anyone, but after having this muchHD at my fingertips it's laughable to think of going back to a lesser lineup. Frankly, short of getting screwed on my plus pack that I likely won't use anyway, Voom has been nothing short of spectacular for me.

I know I'm nuts, so there Actually, MP, you and your fellow "progressives" eventually wore me down and made me buy a DLP. I'm still with Voom, but I have to suplement it with cable. There is no single provider who can give me everything I want, so I shouldn't blanketly say Voom is no good for anyone. But everyone I know likes sports and RSNs, and are unlikely to pay both a cable and sat. bill.

 

[vurbano]

well, I wasnt saying I wouldnt recommend it, but the typical sears salesman doesnt know how technically savvy the buyer is. I would certainly tell an existing HD owner to give voom a try. The no cost install is a good deal. But at this point its a lot of work, joining a forum is a must. Most consumers dont want to "work" to get their HD, or have to join a support group like this to learn how to get everything working. Imagine this whole ordeal with no satguys forum?...

At this point the consumer has to check antennaweb himself to make sure the installer is even giving him the right antenna and not just lazy and doesnt want to deal with the antenna hassel. Thats a lot of effort that the typical consumer doesnt want to go through. And to succeed Voom will have to sell service to more than us "HD techies". Did I say that right? I guess inorder to suceed Voom needs to get to the point where my mother and father wouldnt feel its a hassle.

 

[traylorc]

What I cannot understand is why Voom would want to partner with Sears in the first place?? Wouldn't Best Buy or Circuit City have been a better choice than Sears?

I'm not saying that the level of customer service is signficantly better at BB or CC vs Sears, but the majority of people correlate BB with electronics and Sears with Craftsman tools.

 

[voomvoom]

Maybe because Best Buy and Circuit City are not everywhere... and Sears may not have everything, as they used to say, but they have Voom and they are everywhere... it would have made more sense to go with K Mart who almost put Sears out of business or maybe Wal Mart who is putting K Mart out of business... and don't you think maybe Voom hurt Sears when they went to renting their recievers... I'm sure Sears aren't selling as many and can't rent them... hence, Sears isn't doing so well, probably a bit teed themselves, can't blame them for pushing D* or E*...

 

[vurbano]

The reason from what I hear over and over again is that DIsh and Directv have contracts with Best buy and circuit city keeping other parties out. Traylorc is right, They would have been a much better choice than Sears. Sears is pretty much a ghost town during the week, BB and CC are bustling everyday.

 

[NoWhereMan]

I can assure you there are as many bad experiences with Best Buy or Circuit City salespeople in reguards to product knowledge. Retail is hell these days and you have to be mental to want to work in it. All of these stupid comments "LOL Searz people R dum LOL" are getting old and clouding the real issue at hand.

VOOM does not have a solid retail plan in place. It doesn't matter if they debuted in Sears or Best Buy: without proper dealer technical support, training, and knowlegeable product reps to depend on, they will not make headway against the established competition.

 

[randym431]

I wouldnt ever go to Sears to get any sat system, any more than I'd go to radioshack to buy a computer system.