Follow-Up: Office Depot Lies to Customers to Boost Profit…

Yesterday, we linked to a story that discussed issues that could arise when purchasing a notebook at Office Depot. The story stated that if you didn’t opt into additional services, such as an extended warranty, then chances are that the employee would simply tell you that the notebook is out of stock. Although it’s not likely typical of all Office Depot employees, some have come out to admit that these practices do happen.

An Office Depot representative have sent us their official response to this matter:

“First, as part of our commitment to providing office supply solutions to our customers, we offer numerous products and services, including service warranties and other complementary products and services for many technology products. These offerings are similar to other sellers of consumer electronics. Office Depot’s objective is to offer such products and services to our customers, without regard to whether a customer purchases or does not purchase service warranties or other complimentary products and services. Although we offer a variety of sales promotions, like most retailers, we sell customers only what they wish to purchase. We do not have, nor have we ever had, policies or strategies contrary to this objective, and we do not condone sales practices to the contrary.

Accordingly, we do not have any policies or sales objectives to limit the sales of laptop computers to only those customers who agree to purchase service warranties. Office Depot has been recognized with numerous awards for our commitment to customer service, so please know that we take this issue very seriously and will take the necessary steps to ensure that we continue to enhance the customer experience and promote quality in our customer-related processes. We are currently in the process of reviewing this situation, and if any associates have deviated from our sales objectives and policies, then they may be subject to disciplinary action, including termination.“

The last line does well to sum-up how the company feels about this situation, which is good. I’m uncertain if Office Depot employees work on a commission (I’m awaiting a response on that), but if so, then that would be a good reason for a pushy worker. If not, then I’m uncertain why regular employees would feel so inclined to push services, when it doesn’t really benefit them in the grand scheme. Either way, Office Depot is certainly not the only company to ever have been guilty of something like this, but it’s at least nice to know that they are taking matters seriously.