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Who Works Harder at our Store - Retail Sales Guy or Internet Sales Guy

elmagito

Green Pea
May 10, 2013
5
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Awards
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First Name
Robert
I would like everyone's opinion on this. Let me put together the facts and you all decide who works harder. Recently one of our sales managers indicated that the retail sales guys (two of them only) were not happy with the current situation with one of the Internet Sales Agents in regards to sharing deals.

The retail sales person claims that when they get a deal to work on from one of the Internet Agents; they have to do all the work to sale the customer a car. All the way from the test drive, negotiate and delivery of the vehicle. This specific Internet Agent is very good at obtaining appointments but is not very confident in actually closing a deal. (We are working on teaching him to be better at this part of the process). He therefore, turns his customer after the meet and greet and many times before that. The retail salesperson helping him is no longer satisfied with the 1/2 credit if they end up buying. They would like the complete deal as they feel they did all the work. (Fairly understandable). The retail person also complains that while they are working the customer on the floor, the Internet Agent goes back to work on his leads and perhaps new leads as well.

The Internet Agent feels he should get a 1/2 credit as he feels the retail salesperson does not have a clue to how many phone calls, emails, texts, cancelled appointments, quotes were sent out to the customer and many more other customers as well.

The retail salesperson claims he/she works harder than the person back at his desk working leads sitting down. The sales manager who manages both of them also feels the retail salesperson works harder also since he is unaware how much work went to obtain the appointment.

A little about the retail sales agent's workplan on an everyday basis.

1. He/She basically sits inside the showroom front door at a desk waiting for an UP to come into the main showroom. On most days during the work week, he/she may be waiting anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours. On a regular basis, he/she will eat their breakfast burrito and occassionaly on rare occasions make a follow up call to a customer on their overdue tasks list. Yes, we do give him/her a daily task list to call via the CRM but they just prefer to avoid using the CRM or making at attempt to call customers on their daily list.

The retail salesperson on most occasion starts to work once he is handed a customer to work with.

Now, a little about the Internet Agent:

This person arrives at the same time as the retail salesperson. His daily duties are as follows:

1. work on new leads by calling, sending email and also sending a text to obtain an appointment.
2. confirm via phone, text and email their appointments coming in today.
3. Call, text or email all of their recent leads where the status is still "UNCONTACTED" (no 2 way contact established yet).
4. work on current active customers they have on their pipeline by text, email or phone.
5. Send out any quotes that were requested after working diligently to try to get the customer to come in without having to give them a online quote.

On an average day the Internet Agent will make approximately 50 quality phone calls, 20 emails and 25 texts. Talk to approximately 10 to 15 live customers to seek appointments and confirm 2 to 5 appointments per day.

Now, according to the sales manager the Internet Agent has his/her life easy they just call, text and email which is very simple and easy to do while the retail agent has to work hard to close a deal once the customer is handed off to them. One additional item is that with the exception of one Internet Agent; the rest of the Internet Agent's actually work the appointment also to obtain a complete deal as opposed to a half deal only.

Please give me your opinion on who works harder.
 
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I have been in this situation twice. On both sides of the fence.

In the 1990s we had a centralized Internet department that split the front-end commissions with the sales agents whenever they proved a customer was sourced through their efforts. They were based out of our HQ and I was selling Hyundai, VW, and Isuzus at that time. This meant they were miles down the street. The scenario was fairly typical: the Internet department instructs the customer to mention them upon arrival at the store, but that rarely happened. So, we sales agents would do 4 hours of work to get the car over the curb and find out later the Internet department was going to take half. F that!

In the 2000s (after we all rebelled against that Internet department) no leads were handled for a while. I was asked to start handling them at our Honda store. I was still paid as a sales agent. It did not take long before I was handing customers off to fellow sales agents for split deals. The difference was that I did the face to face negotiating with the customer (my favorite part). I hated showing the cars and rarely went on a test drive with people, so my coworkers were all too happy to do that because most didn't' like the negotiations. I sold 52 cars one month and received a promotion to do this for the entire dealer group. We set up another centralized Internet department (BDC) that paid people on phone calls and appointments.

The point in this story is fairness. You can't send some emails, makes some phone calls, and maybe schedule an appointment to expect to be compensated like the person who spent 4 hours face to face with that customer. That is not fair! If you're going to be paid like a sales agent you need to work like a sales agent. If you're only going to get a customer to show up, then you should be on a different pay plan that does not take away from the sales agent.

That's my opinion. Just as you asked for it ;)
 
My BDC Agents would argue all day long that they work harder than the average sales person who sits around in the showroom all day playing on their phone until a customer walks in or a deal is handed to them, all the while the BDC Agent is hammering away making phone calls, sending texts, and emails. If given the option, hell yeah they'd want a half deal on EVERYTHING they touch! Who wouldn't?! However, ask the BDC Agent (who's primary focus is setting appointments) to work the deal on the floor, test drive, negotiate, sell the vehicle, close the deal, etc and most of them would be incredibly intimidated and don't want to take that step. On the flip side, take the average salesperson, and ask them to call, text, email, and follow up non-stop to develop new business. Sure they'll tell you they can do it and do it well, but in reality they don't/won't. That's why we have Internet/BDC departments now, because salespeople weren't doing it.

So, I wouldn't say one "works harder than the other". I'd say you have an appointment setter and a sales person both being compensated incorrectly. JMO :cool:
 
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So, I wouldn't say one "works harder than the other". I'd say you have an appointment setter and a sales person both being compensated incorrectly. JMO :cool:

I think this is the biggest takeaway of the conversation, so far.

Sounds like the internet agent either needs to be more of a BD agent, or really take to learning to continue working the deal, once the appointment shows up. Does the internet agent ever shadow/ride along with the floor sales rep, to get a better feel, rather than just be an appointment setter?
 
Quick survey results from last week. Here's the survey in case you missed it. https://lnkd.in/gMVph5s First, a funny disclaimer: Disclaimer: Surveys are biased. Survey results can vary dramatically depending on survey instructions/questions/answers, administrators, format, audience, etc. This survey was for fun. Dats it. Don't overthink it. Don't make business decisions without conducting your own research. Lastly, how likely are you to recommend Windows 10 to a friend? No one recommends operating systems to friends, just like no one knows what Digital Retailing is outside of our industry. Enjoy!

Quick Summary and thoughts:
-165 respondents (I guess I need more online friends)
-No one knows how many people it takes to run a new car dealership
-No one knows what an "internet manager" is.
-Around half of car shoppers never contact a dealer before purchasing
-People prefer email over text/phone/facetime when communicating with a dealer prior to purchase. My guess is the security, anonymity, filtering abilities email still provides.
-A bunch of respondents lied about knowing "what digital retailing was" or auto industry folks took the survey even when the instructions said not to. :)
-Almost 70% of people prefer coming into a dealership vs. purchasing online.