House Calls Are Extending Sales for Electronics Stores : Retailing: With consumers reluctant to lug in their computers and big-screen TVs for service, in-home repairs by technicians are on the rise.

Electronics super-stores are holding shoppers’ hands like never before, and repairmen who make house calls are proliferating as retailers go to new lengths to sell personal computers and big-screen televisions.

Retail giants now offer customers 24-hour computer repair service, same-day PC installation, software loading help, home theater setup, in-store training classes and toll-free hot lines.

But the rise of in-home service is the most dramatic example of how far retailers are going to get business.

“You have to make calls to the home,” said Dan Mihalovich, vice president of product services at Sears, Roebuck and Co. “If you really want to get into this business, you’re going to have to spend a ton of money on technology.”

By offering additional service, retailers hope to build customer loyalty at a time when electronic sales are booming.

Although PC sales are not rising as robustly as earlier this decade, the number of computers sold by retailers in comparison with other sources is climbing, said Richard Zwetchkenbaum, research director at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.

Overall sales are expected to be up 20% this year, but the portion of PCs sold by retailers is rising faster.

Sears estimates it makes at least 200,000 house calls annually for computer buyers alone. That is in addition to the roughly 600,000 calls handled by a Sears help line for computer users.

Others are getting into the act, including Circuit City Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co. Inc., two of the fastest-growing electronics super-store chains in the industry.

Minneapolis-based Best Buy began offering in-home repair service for appliances and electronics four years ago. It recently added computers to the list.

“We are in a test market right now in Minneapolis,” said William Richardson, director of product services at Best Buy. It is considering adding the feature to one more market.

Best Buy also offers computer training courses in classrooms in many of its stores for about $49.

Circuit City provides at-home computer repair, but that is handled by General Electric in third-party warranties. Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City also runs a hot line to handle calls from PC owners seeking help.

“If your VCR breaks down, it means for a week you can’t watch a movie,” said Jim Willcox, senior editor of Twice, a consumer electronics magazine in New York. “For a small business, it could mean you’re out of work for a week.”

Sears, with 16,200 technicians, 13,800 service vans and 17.5 million house calls a year, ranks first in the field. Its drivers logged 185 million miles last year alone.

Art Richards, a Sears service technician in Schaumburg, Ill., has been fixing gadgets for customers for 27 years.

Besides providing repair service, Richards gives Sears a second chance to romance its customers.

“I’ve been asked to walk the dog a number of times,” he said. “I had one woman ask me to baby-sit for a few minutes when I got through [fixing] her TV while she went down the block.”

But extra service perks can backfire if retailers build false hopes and don’t deliver. Callers to toll-free lines often wait 30 minutes or longer before a person answers. In addition, repairmen often show up with the wrong part. And all the service comes at a cost to customers, who buy extended warranty contracts from retailers--the price of which fluctuates with how expensive the product is.

If you don’t have a warranty, the cost of a house call can run from $28 to $40, covering the trip to the house and the first half-hour of service, said James Hodl, associate editor of Appliance Service News in Lombard, Ill.

PC makers offer in-home service under a warranty without charging extra, but that often lasts just a year or two.

“Many of the computers we sell today come right off the shelf with one- and two-year in-home service contracts that are offered by manufacturers,” said Alan Bush, president of Computer City.

The trend is a throwback to the 1950s, when sales of bulky television and stereo consoles took off, said Mihalovich, a 29-year Sears veteran. It was in the ‘50s that Sears first put service technicians on the road.

Another burst of technology swept the industry in the 1980s with the advent of videocassette recorders and CD players, but they could be carried into stores for repair and didn’t require in-home service.

“Now as you get into the ‘90s, the [size of the] product has come full circle, and it’s very large again,” Mihalovich said, referring to big-screen televisions and personal computers, which people are unwilling or unable to bring in for repairs.