Death of the Sales Department
Death of the Sales Department
Death of the Sales Department
As a consumer, it can sometimes be very frustrating to contact the sales department of a company to deal with an issue, ask a question or even give them your money. Working business to business, contacting your vendors can be even more infuriating. After leaving the military, I have been in the workforce about 20 years, and in that time, I have noticed a change in the way manufacturers and even distributors deal with their customers; and it is not for the better.
People are really speculating these days, how China will take all the American jobs, and crush our economy; but we are not helping ourselves. The American workforce has forgotten the meaning of "Customer Service", and has forgotten that the customer is always right. I do a lot of bidding with my business, Goodrum International and so I often contact new companies for quotes and information. I am continually surprised at how many companies don't know if my company is a billion dollar potential customer or a crackpot, and make no effort to find out. With the economy in the shape that it currently is, why a salesperson would not be available at all times is baffling. I often need a simple quote, or an answer that I am sure a Sales Rep should know off the top of their head; but they are at lunch at 2pm or gone all week at another trade show. How can you sell your products when your salespeople are constantly in meetings? I have caller ID, and if I see a customer on the line, or even someone that I know is not a family member or friend, I take that call.
When I was still in the Marines, I was with a friend and we were walking around a new car lot. A salesman approached us and asked "Hi guys are you going to buy a car today?" We said no', so he very rudely kicked us off the lot. Really? A car salesman can kick off a young man with a steady job and disposable income just because he is not ready to commit to buying a car that minute? When your waitperson takes forever to bring your meal, and never comes back to re-fill your drink, do you mentally start marking down their tip? You should.
Why have we become a country that treats it's customer like crap, and even worse, why do we continue to give our money to people who don't give us the respect that we deserve. I always thought that those secret shoppers were just spies for the man', and they are; but maybe that is not such a bad thing. If every business owner would try to approach his company as an outsider and see how often he is transferred from person to person, hung up on, given false or incomplete information just to get him off of the phone, he would be lopping off heads before the end of the day. Speaking of phones, having an endless of loop of answering machines and hit one for dept A, and hit two for dept B, can get me screaming at my phone. It is so impossible to reach some companies, that I am ready to talk to an Indian customer service agent, just give me a person for God's sake.
Some companies avoid annoying calls from their customers by not giving out their phone numbers. Yes, I said it. You are looking at their site and have a question. You look for the "contact us" button, its not there. You look at the bottom of the page in the fine print, no number. The best you can find is an e-mail form that you have to fill out and hope that they get back to you this century. I have literally sent them messages, Hi, I want to buy your product, please call me as soon as you can" just to try and get a quick response. In a couple cases I have gotten a call up to two weeks later, asking how they can help me. Most times, these e-mails to info@generic-company dot com are never returned.
If your company has too many customers, hire more people to service them. It is not that hard to figure out. If your sales reps are taking weeks to give simple quotes, reprimand them. If your Inside Sales/Customer Service reps are losing sales for you by not returning calls, being rude, not taking the time to get the right answer to a question and in a timely fashion fire them. If you can't match the foreign competition on price, change the one thing that you can control. Give your customers good service. If you don't, someone else will.
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