SEARS RECALLS 350 WORKERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 15, 1992                   TAG: 9201150071
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SEARS RECALLS 350 WORKERS
The Sears Telecatalog Center said Tuesday it has recalled 350 part-time employees and is training its catalog sales workers also to take service calls for Sears appliances.
Tom McVaney, manager of the telemarketing center, said his staff is in the process of recalling another 100 people for training for the new service call program, expected to start in about two weeks.
Sears Telecatalog hired about 800 part-time workers late last summer to take catalog calls for the Christmas season. That work ended at the close of last year. The Roanoke operation has nearly 1,400 employees, many of whom work part time.
The service calls previously have been handled at the company's three service centers in Greensboro, N.C.; Mobile, Ala., and San Antonio, Texas. Under the new program, service calls eventually will be taken at Roanoke and the company's nine other telecatalog centers.
Initially, telemarketing workers in Roanoke will take service calls from customers in California. McVaney said he does not know what area will be assigned to the Roanoke center permanently.
If a Roanoke customer called for repair of a washer-dryer, for example, the telecatalog employee would check the schedule at the nearest service center, Greensboro, and set a date for the work to be done by a Roanoke-based service crew, McVaney said. Location of the nearest service center is determined by the customer's zip number.
Adding the service calls will help balance the seasonal work cycle of the local telecatalog operation, McVaney said. Calls for appliance service calls are heaviest in the first seven months of the year, he said. When service calls slack, the catalog business picks up until the end of the year. He called the combination "a great use of people."
Sears' catalog business in the just-ended Christmas season was ahead of 1990, McVaney said, although he could not quote firm figures.
"We're kind of optimistic about 1992," he said. The recession has had an effect, but catalog sales, he said, have been "pretty good."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB