Tip of the Day: How to handle door-to-door vacuum-sales reps

In an era when you can buy just about anything with the click of a mouse, door-to-door sales of vacuums seem a quaint anachronism.

But don't be fooled by that image. Door-to-door vacuum sales are big business, with sales reps from Kirby Company moving about $400 million worth of merchandise last year alone. Kirby sells its vacuums to 600 independent distributors nationwide, whose nearly 10,000 sales representatives do in-home demonstrations.

Cleveland-based Kirby sells one model, updating it about every two years. The Kirby Sentria upright (shown; model information is available to subscribers) excelled at cleaning carpets and bare floors in our latest tests and rates very good overall. Kirby is also among the more reliable brands of upright vacuums in our surveys. The MSRP is $1,350, although the distributor has the final word on price.

Kirby's sales methods don't always have the same solid reputation as its vacuums. A Web search will yield many pages filled with stories from disgruntled people about Kirby and alleged scams.

Kirby must be aware of all the chatter—its customer-service policy states that over the last 10 years the manufacturer has adopted a culture of continuous improvement in customer service. The company also requires distributors to sign a contract agreeing to operate legally and ethically. "We can't control every step of the distributor's business, but we have the ultimate power in whether we do business with them," says Rob Shumay, a Kirby spokesman.

"Kirby is extremely interested in customer service. However, not all of its distributors are cut from the same cloth," says Sandra Prebil, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau in Cleveland. "One, two, or three distributors will be really bad. We know that Kirby has stopped shipment to a bad distributor and the company will make good on an order for a distributor who's disappeared. For Kirby, trying to control so many different people is difficult."

Wanting to evaluate the Kirby experience myself, I arranged for an in-home demo through the Kirby Web site. I also called a local rep I found in my yellow pages. In neither case did I identify myself as a Consumer Reports employee. I didn't go into this process intending to buy a new vacuum; I also had an in-home demo from Rainbow, another vacuum company.

Within an hour of the phone call, a Kirby sales rep was at my door. The vacuum she showed me was impressive. And pricey: She quoted me a price of $1,755. Of course, she noted, I could finance the vacuum—over 18 months at a 28 percent annual interest rate, for a total cost of $2,219.

The experience was not unpleasant and the sales rep did not pressure me to buy, though she did linger at my house for 2 hours after the demonstration ended, waiting for her boss to pick her up.

A week later I got a call from another distributor who had received my online demo request. When I told the distributor I'd already had a demo and informed him of the earlier quote, he offered me the same model for only $900, claiming his overhead was lower.

The price seemed too good to turn down.  I wondered whether the distributor was selling me a used model. Sales reps can resell vacuums that have been returned to the distributor. The distributor is required to disclose to customers whether a vacuum has been returned or refurbished. Such vacuums should have a different warranty card from new models, according to Shumay.

While my experiences might differ from those of other Kirby customers, they can provide you with some useful advice to follow the next time you set up an in-home demonstration or when a door-to-door sales rep from any company calls or unexpectedly shows up at your door:

• If a sales rep calls and says you've won a prize you'll receive during an in-home demonstration, hang up immediately. The call is probably a scam to get the huckster's foot in the door.

• Before you agree to a demonstration with a company, learn about the distributor by checking it out through your local Better Business Bureau.

• Don't fall for sneaky sales tactics. These include the sales rep leaving a vacuum with you for a few days, as happened when a Rainbow rep said he didn't feel like putting it back in the box at the end of his demo. Another sketchy move is when the rep tries to get you on the phone with his sales manager.

• Before you sign any deal, verify that a vacuum is new by calling the manufacturer's customer-service department and checking the serial number.

• Use the manufacturer's suggested price listed in our ratings as a reference. To get the best deal, buy on a Friday or at the end of the month—sales reps have goals to meet and might be more flexible on pricing at those times.

• Carefully calculate the interest rate on any payment plan. Some rates are exorbitant.

• Ask about the cancellation policy. For example, Kirby gives customers age 67 and older 1 year to return the vacuum. Younger customers have only three business days.

• Don't let your parents be duped. The elderly are often targets of unscrupulous sales reps, but are embarrassed to admit it. So alert them to potential scams.—Kimberly Janeway

Essential information: Read our latest report on vacuums to find standout models. Ratings of canisters, uprights, and small vacuums are available to subscribers.

Comments

[Laura]

Who in their right mind would buy a $1700 vacuum? You might as well put the money towards a new carpet. This entire operation sounds like a scam to me, regardless of how the company fares with the BBB. Conscientious buyers, in my opinion, should be wary of any company that needs to come into your home to do a "demonstration" in order to make a sale. This leaves the door too wide open for sneaky tactics on vulnerable, overly trusting buyers.

I am appalled that CR would leave out in this article that other vacuums of comparable quality (as evidenced in the Ratings) are hundreds of dollars cheaper.

[bakinrin]

This is quite timely. One Kirby sales fellow came to my house yesterday. Quite aggressive and as much as I told him I was not interested, he still brought the stuff to my house for a demonstration. I told him we newly moved and the place does not need the cleaning he offered. However, he kept insisting and even went on cleaning the staircase and telling me it was not my fault the place was not well cleaned before we moved in. I told him that was none of his business and eventually I had to throw him and his companion out. It was too much aggravation for whatever he was going to sell and I was NOT interested. Trying to be polite did not help matters. He was just too aggressive and I did not appreciate that.

[Jan Itor]

There's an old saying that holds true: you get what you pay for.

I will confess now that a couple of years ago I was a Kirby salesman. I quickly worked my way up the ranks and became a sales manager, responsible for hiring, training, and developing Kirby salesmen. Yes, I was the manager they called to help close the sale. And no, I did not encourage anyone to use any deceptive practices to get "in the door" or any hassles to close the sale.

That said, I'll admit that I was skeptical of the Kirby as well. But when I went through sales training, I quickly became a believer. We had new models from nearly every manufacturer that we did hands-on comparison tests with. The Kirby blew them all out of the water. No tricks, no gimmicks.

So let's talk about that price/value of the Kirby.

The average life span of a $300 Hoover is 1-3 years.
The average life span of a MSRP $1700 Kirby is 30 years.

Over the course of 30 years, you'll have bought at least 10 Hoovers at a total cost of $3,000, and 1 Kirby for $1700 or considerably less, depending on your negotiating skills. (On that note: Never pay more than $1200 for a new Kirby. Ever. Good negotiators should be able to get $1000, perhaps as low as $800-$900 if you can put it on a credit card or pay cash.)

The reason Kirby sales people do an in-home demonstrations is because it's the only way you can see how the vacuum will work in YOUR home and compare it to what you're using now.

Another cost/value consideration is that a lot of those cheaper vacuums can actually do damage to your carpet. These value vacuums don't have the suction power of a higher end unit like a Dyson or a Kirby, and so they have a feature called a "beater bar" that literally beats the dirt they can't suck up deeper into your carpet. Not only does the dirt damage your carpet, but the beater bar also does significant damage.

And then there's the Kirby's carpet shampoo system, which is worth hundreds by itself.

If anything ever happens to your Kirby 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the road, you don't need to pay $1700 for a whole new Kirby. You can send it to the Kirby Company, and for $175 they'll do a complete rebuild of it. Not just a refurbishment... but they'll build you a completely brand new Kirby. Important note: this service is only available on purchases from Kirby reps on in-home demonstrations and it isn't transferable, so you won't get it if your grandmother hands her Kirby down to you or if you buy it used or from a third party.

Like I said before, I'm a firm believer in the Kirby product. It WILL pay for itself AND save you money over time.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Schedule an in-home demo and see what the Kirby can do for you. If you don't like it or you don't see the value, tell the sales rep and don't buy it.

If you have any questions let me know. It's been a few years since I've worked with the Kirby company, but I'll answer any questions to the best of my ability.

Hope this helps. :)

[David]

My Hoover has lasted 10 years, and only recently the on/off switch got stuck. It worked great for those 10 years (who knows, maybe I'm a lucky one). Anyhow, to say that Hoovers only last 3 years and Kirbys last 30 years is misleading. That's what they call "fuzzy math".

I have never seen a vacuum that is worth $1700. That is insane. Perhaps the $900 quote would be more reasonable. Maybe.

The one time I saw a Kirby demo at a friend's house, the salespeople didn't even bring the free gift that they had promised. In addition, when they realized that my friend would not be buying the vacuum at that time, they tried to sell him a ridiculously priced air purifier unit. Just my one experience.

[LBC]

I've had an Electrolux for 18 years that I splurged and paid $300 for and just bought a new acessory hose for it on ebay. I just had an in home demo from Filter Queen vacuum. They wanted $2400 down from $3300!!!! They tried the have me talk to the manager on the phone stunt. I said I would pay $560 tops which is what they wanted for a down payment and $196 a month. The manager kept talkinf I had to hang up on the mnager. So $900-$1800 for a Kirby is a steal (LOL real Loud)

[Tried the Kirby]

I am an engineer by profession and had heard a lot about the Kirby both good and bad but wanted to make an objective decision so I scheduled a Kirby demo. My conclusion is that while the Kirby is well built, it suffers from a number of drawbacks that make it an impractical choice for me.

While it's possible that the Kirby would cost less in the long run, Jan Itor the Kirby Sales Manager above made it sound as though I'm going to have to buy a $300 vacuum cleaner every 3 years. In my experience, this just isn't the case. I paid about $400 for a Kenmore canister vacuum cleaner about 10 years ago and was looking to replace it in the near future. While it hasn't been trouble free, all but one of the repairs were due to cracked or broken external parts. I found that these parts can easily be ordered and replaced by the owner. The only major repair was done under warranty. How long is the Kirby warranty? Certainly not 30 years or even 10 years, so I'm still going to be stuck with repair bills. How much does it cost to repair a Kirby? I don't know, but if it's well built using high quality parts, it's not going to be cheap either.

Any powerful vacuum cleaner is going to be heavy and my Kenmore is no exception. However, I found the Kirby significantly heavier than my Kenmore. This is likely due to extensive use of metal parts which while durable, make for a very heavy vacuum cleaner. That wasn't exactly encouraging. I dislike vacuuming and having to lug an even heavier piece of equipment around certainly wasn't going to make it more enjoyable.

During the Kirby demo, the salesman vacuumed my carpet using my Kenmore followed by the Kirby. He placed a circular filter where the bag would attach to the house so that I could easily see what dirt would be picked up. The point was to show me what the Kirby picked up that my Kenmore didn't pick up. While that was an impressive demonstration at first, it later fell flat because the sales manager came over afterward and gave me the same demo on the same carpet. Problem was that the carpet had already been cleaned by the first salesman using the Kirby. To me it shouldn't have picked up anything significant. But the Kirby picked up as much dirt as the first demo. So all that little demo told me was that second and third cleanings will pick up stuff that a first cleaning didn't. If I could do the same demonstration in reverse (i.e. Kirby first, Kenmore second), I'd bet it would pick stuff up that the Kirby failed to pick up. The demo simply didn't prove anything. It's possible that the Kirby does a better job, but unless he ran the test in reverse on a similarly soiled carpet, it's hardly a conclusive test.

The Kirby does appear to be designed to pull dirt out of carpets. It's not so much that the motor is powerful. My Kenmore actually creates more suction at the hose which even the salesman admitted it after trying it out. But the Kirby is designed so that there is a good seal between the carpet and the vacuum cleaner. Because of that design, it is possible that the Kirby does a better job than my Kenmore although I haven't yet seen any evidence of it. It is certainly a more efficient design, which as an engineer, I certainly appreciated. The less powerful motor also means that it does not have the same cleaning power as my Kenmore for hard floors, or other cleaning situations. In most cases, this isn't an issue because hard floors, drapes/blinds, and dusting don't require a lot of power.

Like most canister vacuums, my Kenmore canister has a lot of features that make it convenient to use. I like the retractable cord; it makes it easy to put away the vacuum cleaner which means I'm more likely to pull it out to use in the first place. Secondly, all the attachments fit inside the canister so they're all quickly available wherever I go. With the Kirby, they have to be stored separately and when I move from room to room, I have to figure out how to lug these attachments along with me.

As I see it, there are 2 ways to vacuum the house. One is to go from room to room switching between vacuuming floors, drapes/blinds, and dusting furniture. The other approach is to do all the dusting first, followed by all the drapes/blinds, and then finally all the floors.

I have a 2 level 2700 sq ft house. I find it a lot easier to move a heavy vacuum cleaner to a room and clean the floors, drapes/blinds, and dust the furniture while the vacuum cleaner is in the room, rather than doing one type of cleaning at a time. To do that, I need a vacuum cleaner that can switch between these 3 functions easily. My Kenmore canister does that. The Kirby, on the other hand, isn't designed to let you rapidly switch between cleaning hardwood floors, carpet, drapes/blinds, and dusting furniture. To me, the Kirby has the worst of both worlds. You can't easily go from room to room and you can't easily switch between attachments. At least not as easily as my Kenmore. For me this is a deal killer. The price I could live with. But I also want convenience and the Kirby fails to deliver.

[family trucker guy]

We just had one of their sales guys leave about an hour ago. A young man came to the door and anounced himself under some name, not mentioning Kirbys, offered to shampoo 1 room for free and said all they ask is to 'tell your friends' about us. I asked my wife and she jumped on it (she'd been wanting to clean the carpets), we both had thought they were a local carpet cleaner and figured if they did alright and the price was reasonable we'll pay to do the whole house. Wrong...turns into a Kirby sale. Even better yet, with the promise to not try and sell anything, that he only gets paid by 'appointments' and not commision....giving the impression we could pick one up later if we wanted. Wrong again. By the end of the whole deal he proved he could get some dirt on a filter (I personally like the engineers impression- lets reverse the test), the new matress was already nasty, and the stains on the carpet weren't coming up - not even with that Kirby.
The overall price?- $3,000....not a chance. Then when the kid calls his boss to come get him the guy tries to do a sell thru the kid over the phone. He hacked the price in half....I said 'nope,' then asked what I would pay, ....said I'd have to research it and asked for a card. The boss said they sell by word of mouth and didn't have cards, so I told him then 'no.' Then he told the kid to ask me if I saw the matress test and asked if I liked dirt...told him I'm a trucker and constuction worker by trade....so yeah.
Turns out the poor kid was on his first sell, getting ready for trade school, and had been told that they weren't gonna have to try to make sells, and a bunch of other junk....on his first day....and 'Tada!' ....boss is doing sells thru him.
Wife liked the vacume, but not enuff for what they asked. We'll keep our Dyson. Feel bad for the kids these guys sucker into the world of sells.

[Rainbow Lover]

Rainbow is the best cleaning system, no bags ,no nasty smell, constant airflow (filters always clog up and loose airflow, you have to wash or change them) every attachement is designed not to lose airflow. Thats just the vacuuming part of it. In addition you can clean the air (Rainbow is certified air cleaner) aromatize, sanitize and desinfect it. 12 years manufacture warranty is not bad at all. I would better pay 2500$ and leave in healthy clean house than 3000$ for a freaking plazma Tv.