@AC Thursday 23rd October 2008 09:26

"So what were they trained in ? How to sell warranties ? Or the differences between 720p, 1080i an 1080p and the difference between upscaling a DVD versus Blu Ray"

The training was sales training, pure and simple although DSGi would like people to think of it as a customer interaction tool. In fact the trainers were as tech savvy as a piece of cheese, one of the examples of what most sales staff would call "upselling" was to sell a HDMI cable as it would give a better picture than a scart for watching telly (this was stated as an absolute fact).

I work within the "Tech Guys" and I can guarantee all the staff there know the difference between a PCI, PCI-e and AGP graphics card etc, unfortunately a good number of the sales staff don't and the management are even more clueless. We've had sales staff and management selling services such as upgraded GPUs on machines that they wouldn't even physically fit in (trying to fit a double slot GPU into a SFF machine with half height expansions bays for example).

Hopefully the "Academy" training which is supposed to be product orientation will help, frankly no one can know anything (I know jack shit about Digital photo frames for example, but then I have no interest so I've never researched then). However I suspect it'll just be an excuse for company reps (HP, Lexmark etc) to whore their wares and not an opportunity for people to learn anything particularly helpful (though I'm looking forward to being an awkward bastard).

Personally IMHO DSGi needs to stop pressuring people to take Norton, Mobile Broadband, extended warranties and train their staff in product knowledge, product specialists would help as well. If they want to continue to push "addons" such as Norton etc (they would as they are more profitable than the product) they should be offered but not forced, as it is if sales staff don't sell these in enough percentage they get a serious bollocking.

However as people have already said, it's questionable whether DSGi can really survive in it's current form.

Mines the straightjacket with "Please give me a new job" on the back.