SEARS DIVISION TO OFFER HOME REPAIR, SERVICES : RELIABLE IMAGE.

Byline: Genevieve Buck Chicago Tribune 

Sears, Roebuck and Co. will paint your house, zap your termites, install your garage door-opener and repair almost anything from your VCR to lawn tractor to sewing machine.

But Sears won't send out an angel to scour your oven or scrub the bathroom. And Sears isn't likely to take on mowing and mopping jobs either - at least not until it's in charge of every possible home repair and fix-up chore first.

Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears became one of this country's biggest retailers - with 1996 revenues of $38.2 billion - by way of its catalog and stores, which now number 3,320.

Now it sees untapped growth potential in offering services for the home, perfectly timed as homes become more important to Americans.

Sears already is top dog in providing home services, with $3 billion in revenues. But it wants to become the one - and the only - name that everyone in the country thinks of first when the dishwasher overflows or the air conditioner conks out, regardless of the brand name or where they were purchased.

Sears Home Services became a separate division in January 1996, with company executive Jane Thompson as its president. Thompson intends to make it a $10 billion business in four years. Home services is a $160 billion industry; Sears is the largest home services provider and only does 2 percent of the industry total.

More significantly for consumers, Thompson plans to transform what is now essentially a huge, store-related repair and home-improvement business into a national company, with one toll-free phone number to call for help, anytime, anywhere.

Though it sounds ``easy on paper,'' even that simple service is much more complicated than it sounds, says retail analyst Skip Helm of Chicago-based William Blair & Co.

Thompson has, in fact, made this a top priority, saying she wants ``a seamless handoff'' between each operation and has made a significant investment in technology to carry it out.

Identifying the trusted Sears name with the repair business is risky, of course. Mention ``repair,'' and almost everybody can come up with a story about getting ripped off, stood up or otherwise mistreated by a service representative of one company or another.

In Sears' case, many still remember the uproar about auto service in California in 1992, when Sears was charged with performing unnecessary work or billing for work not done. Then there are ongoing complaints to Sears about leaky roofs or blistered paint, most often performed by local contractors rather than Sears' own employees.

Thompson knows that. She's been listening to focus groups and poring over Sears-commissioned studies of consumers.

Part of her growth plan is ``improving quality. What customers want isn't always what they get,'' she says, but she claims that Sears' repair technicians already have a 92 percent customer-approval rate.

Hoping to raise that number, Sears is responding to complaints about scheduling repairs and waiting around all day by offering evening and weekend appointments and narrowing the repair person's arrival time down to a two-hour range.

Specifically targeted at quality control as it relates to both licensed home improvement services and Sears' own repair work, a national customer relations center will open in Greensboro, N.C., this spring.

Although tripling sales in four years may seem a stretch, Sears Chairman Arthur Martinez says he considers it possible, perhaps because he always has his eyes on demographics and the part they play in business. In this case, the trends he has eyed are the rising number of aging baby boomers, two-income couples, single parents and working women.

As Thompson said: ``People are buying fewer things, and spending will shift to service. One reason is that many people are time-starved.'' She believes the industry itself could grow by another $30 billion.

Continuing demand

Eric Sorenson, managing director of the Center for Retail Management at Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, agrees.

``There is and will be a huge and consistent demand for things to be fixed. More of us are living alone, resulting in more products to fix. People don't have the time to take something to a store, the time or the skills to putter around and do it themselves. Sears is in a beautiful position. They have a gold mine, at least in the short term.''

Thompson, 45, understands what ``time-starved'' means. A mother of two and a coach to her daughter's basketball team, she is an executive described as dynamic, positive and down-to-earth.

Sears may get help, too, from its big marketing department. An ad campaign - themed to ``one phone call to Sears Home Central 1-800-4-Repair'' - is in its initial stage in a test market. But, even in this first step, the effort resulted in double-digit sales increases over eight weeks, Thompson said.

A $20 million to $30 million national campaign on the service side of Sears will roll out this fall.

Last month, Sears acquired All America Termite and Pest Control Inc. of Orlando, Fla., a Sears licensee since 1982.

And Sears is attempting to take over MaxServ Inc., an Austin, Texas, company that provides information services for use in repair operations.

The service industry is probably one of the most fragmented in the United States. Many of the specific markets, such as roofing and siding installation, have so many competitors that Sears can rank No. 1 with less than a 1 percent share.

Most of Sears' home improvement business, such as roofing and installation, is handled by licensees. Sears is evaluating all licensee arrangements to provide more consistent service.

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Photo, Chart

Photo: (Color) Jane Thompson is president of the new Sears Home Services, which will offer repair and improvement.

Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service

Chart: Sears leads pack in home services

Knight-Ridder Tribune