In a recent post and poll I wrote on Double Glazing Blogger, I wrote about what I thought were the reasons for the poor reputation of the industry. The poll in that post posed a number of options, and so far, more than half of those who have voted have said the bad reputation is down to the sales force.
52% say it’s sales people
This is the poll, that is still live, that people were asked to vote on:
At the time of writing this post, 52% of people blamed sales people for the industry’s bad reputation. As a sales person myself I am disappointed to see my group come top of this poll, but at the same time I’m not surprised.
As I go on my travels to other people’s homes to sit my own leads, one of the most common complaints is about the the sales people from other double glazing companies. These tend to be the main reasons:
- had to kick the other sales person out as they wouldn’t leave after four or five hours
- started at a stupidly high price just to come down four or five times to the actual best price
- sales person didn’t have a clue about what they were selling
- the sales person was rude
- the sales person under-sold/mis-priced the work originally and now the company has called back asking for more money
- the other sales person slagged everyone else off and didn’t talk about their own company
You can see why the sales lot are to blame when home owners reel this list of complaints off. Some voted to say that the reason was a mix of all three, with poor customer service and bad installers making up the rest of the votes.
Training the sales force
Can we blame the sales people themselves for this? Yes and no.
The companies that employ these sales people have to ensure that their force is trained properly. They need to know how to deal with home owners professionally in a modern fenestration sector. They need to know their products inside and out. And if they’re asked a question, be sure to find the right answer if they do know it, not lie and make things up.
They also need to be taught to sell on the strengths of their own products and own company. Home owners hate it when their allotted time is spent slagging off everyone else with very little being said about their own wares. It looks unprofessional and sleazy.
Sales people are the very first stage for many home owners when it comes to having home improvement work done. If their initial impressions are not good, or they are left unhappy or worse after the visit, the chances of that lead turning into a sale go from good to slim in a very short space of time.
So if the industry is to try and improve it’s reputation, there looks like a lot of repair work to do on the industry’s sales force to start doing that. Saying that, it’s worth saying that there are plenty of quality sales people out there who do their jobs well, earn a good yet honest wage, and are credits to the companies they work for.
Please continue to vote on this poll, it will be interesting to know what the rest of the industry think. And as always, all comments are welcome in the section below.
