By: Samantha Whitten (bio)
Furniture and Appliances Now

"...I think RTO is one of the most useful and valuable services ever conceived..."
Samantha Whitten

Almost every day I hear from people who have poor opinions of the rent-to-own industry. I hear people say that RTO is a scam, that we’re just trying to squeeze a dollar from a poor man by offering him the nice things he wants and then jacking up the prices to keep him in debt for years. I hear a lot of "That big screen TV isn’t worth that much," and "That’s too much to pay for a computer." One of the biggest frustrations I face is hearing these remarks from fellow RTO employees. I want to tell you how I feel about rent-to-own.

I think RTO is one of the most useful and valuable services ever conceived. I think the man who cooked up this concept deserves a medal. I have worked in many different industries, from retail to fast-food to factories, and I’ve never felt the kind of value that I feel here. What we provide goes way beyond the product on the sales floor, and you can’t get this anywhere else. We are giving people a chance to have everything they want, when they otherwise wouldn’t have that chance. Sure, you might pay more for a big screen here than you would at Best Buy; in retail you don’t have the option of taking it home before it’s paid for, and setting up a payment plan that works best for you. We’re not just out to get all the money we can from any sucker we can find. We are here to provide a service to those who need it, in a way that is also profitable for us.

My passion for rent-to-own goes far beyond its money-making capabilities. I take it personally. We are part of these people’s lives. I have retirement-age customers whose children and grandchildren are also my customers. I have customers for whom I am among the first calls from the hospital when they have their babies. I have customers who bring their dogs to visit me. We see these people nearly every week, sometimes for years; you can’t avoid building relationships with them. That something you don’t get with other types of transactions. It’s up to us to make them place as much importance on the relationship as we do. We can’t do that if we’re not behind our business. I don’t ask anyone to buy into something that I wouldn’t do myself.

I was told once that in this business we are "problem-solvers." I have found that to be a true and accurate summation of what we do. Problem: You don’t have a couch to sit on. I can solve that. Problem: You get paid every other week, and you don’t have the cash in your wallet for a big down payment. I can solve that too. You don’t have a truck to haul this in? I do. Your stereo crapped out two weeks after the warranty ended? I gotcha. Layoffs, sick kids, short paychecks? No problem. We’re here to help.

In my opinion it is extremely difficult for a person to succeed in RTO without his being driven by the surety that we are doing a great thing. Without the feeling that what we do is valuable and important, the policies and procedures that we follow seem pretty futile. We have to take our business seriously, and we have to impress upon our co-workers the importance of what we do. Those who haven’t jumped on the RTO bandwagon will just stand in the way of those who are truly fired up. Our reputation starts with us; our image starts here. Who will defend us if we can’t properly defend ourselves? And why would anyone stand up for us, if we don’t believe we deserve support? We must take pride in our industry, for there is no other like it. In every interaction with our customers, in every meeting with our employees, all day every day…all rent-to-own, all the time.