Maytag plans repair division to include other major brands

Maytag hopes its brand name will lead to success in appliance repair.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- When any of Susan Podgorski's appliances break, she calls just one repair service -- she has a contract with Sears to fix all her appliances, including the Maytag refrigerator she bought three years ago.
But Maytag Corp. is betting that customers like Podgorski who have confidence in the company's appliances will learn to trust its repair workers to fix other brands, too. Maytag announced in August plans to create a new repair division that, like Sears, will provide service technicians to work on home appliances of any major brand.
The company that has capitalized off its "lonely Maytag repairman" ads for decades wants to increase business for its actual repair workers.
"What they want to do is capitalize on what is an extremely well-known name, that is the Maytag repairman, and use that tremendous goodwill and brand name recognition to likewise service and repair other people's stuff," said Anthony Sabino, associate business professor at the Peter J. Tobin Business School at St. John's University in New York.
It may take time for some customers to accept the idea. Podgorski said she has confidence in the Sears repair service but is unsure whether a Maytag repairman could fix a General Electric appliance.
"Sears, I think of as an overall place with all different types," she said. "For Maytag, it's one brand name fixing another brand. That would be my question -- would they know the other products."
Market studies
Maytag decided to expand its repair business after market studies showed a lack of trained technicians to care for what are increasingly complex appliances.
"We had seen indications that the historical-service base was eroding," said Steve Benton, a Maytag vice president and general manager of Maytag Services. "Technicians were aging and leaving the industry, and there wasn't sufficient activity in the industry to bring new talent in. We found that the consumer was in a situation where they were being underserved."
The market studies also indicated that consumers had confidence in the Maytag brand.
Maytag is looking to the repair division to bring in new revenue. The company has seen sales soften in some parts of its business amid a highly competitive home appliance market.
"Everyone is trying very hard to wring out costs and to basically make some kind of profit, let alone prosper," Sabino said. "Maytag is seeking to expand its line of business and its bottom line profit-wise by going into what could be the very lucrative area of service."
Expanding territory
The company is launching the division in the Washington, D.C., area because it had a sizable number of repair workers there with experience handling other brands. The idea worked, and it was expanded to Baltimore, some Virginia markets and into Boston, Benton said.
A few months ago, Maytag workers in Atlanta and some Florida cities began servicing other brands.
"In the past year there have been some early indicators of success," Benton said. "It's too early to project a date when we would, or would not, roll it out nationally."
Sears began its repair service in the 1980s. Its product repair services group, which made 14.5 million service calls last year, brought in $2.2 billion of the company's $41 billion revenue, said spokesman Bill Masterson. That included sales of parts and installation of heating and air conditioning products.
The need for more technicians is increasing as consumers move to more sophisticated appliances loaded with features and find less time for repair calls in their busy schedules.