Richard and one of his best salespeople, Dora Losich were having coffee in the staffroom.  There were a number of other LoveIT salespeople there, they had just finished reviewing the monthly sales figures.  Jenny wandered through the room, clearly she was just finishing a conversation with head office on her cell phone.  “Yes, it is a major problem, you can count on me to take care of any obstacles”.   She snapped shut her phone, startled to see a half full room of faces staring at her.


 


Richard invited Jenny to join them for a bit.  Jenny smiled, but didn’t sit down.


 


Later that day the following email exchange took place between Jenny and Richard.


 


Jenny to Richard cc Marketing Manager: So what is going wrong? Your team’s sales are awful.  Is it Dora?


 


Richard to Jenny: Dora’s a great salesperson, really excellent.


 


Jenny to Richard: So you would say that Dora is doing a good job?


 


Richard to Jenny: Times are very hard here at the moment. One of our best customers is becoming very concerned and is hesitating to place significant orders. Rumours are getting around about all the changes. It would be a lot easier if the marketing team created some different price points.   It’s impossible to sell at those prices in this market.


 


Jenny to Richard: I heard you were a good manager but you don’t seem to be achieving much to me. Sounds to me like Dora’s not trying hard enough. Spend less time drinking coffee with her. She should have all those male customers eating out of her hands.


 


Richard sat back and sighed.  His mind turned to problems in the key account technical support unit.  The high staff turnover and declining sales had left the unit two staff members short.  Before Duncan’s retirement he had always thought he should expand this unit, now any plans for expansion appeared to be on indefinite hold.


 


Richard had noticed a disturbing pattern of communication with the technical support staff.  Ordinarily, when he wanted them to work on a project or task he would email the relevant information to that person.  For the last two months at least, his email requests had gone unheeded, and the staff complied with these requests only after he visited them in person and gave them a specific deadline.  Each time they apologised for the delay but said that they were so overloaded with requests that they sometimes didn’t answer their phones.  Unless someone asked for something more than once, they felt that a request was not particularly urgent and could be put on hold.


 


Richard believed this was unacceptable.  He believed that staff in this unit had no way of prioritising tasks and that is why some very important projects were put on hold until he inquired about them.  He realised, however, that the staff had no way of prioritising tasks and that is why some very important projects were put on hold until he inquired about them.  He wanted a system whereby the unit could provide some sort of response to requests within 24 hours, would be able to prioritise tasks identifying their relative importance, and not feel so overloaded that they ignored his requests and didn’t answer their phones. 


 



Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com


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