How To Completely Disable A Sales Force With A Cellphone
One man and a cellphone completely disabled an entire sales organization for over 36 hours this week.
You knew cellphones were more powerful than they used to be, but you had no idea they had features like that, did you ?
I waited well over 36 hours earlier this week for a salesman to return my call.
I don’t usually wait that long, when I’m the customer, nor do I make people wait that long when the roles are reversed.
When this salesman called me back, too late to get the order, I asked him what took him so long.
Our sales manager switched our cellphone carrier and it took that long for the new carrier to pick up our service after the old one cut us off.
What ?! He did this on a Tuesday ?
You have got to be kidding me, that some knucklehead had the lack of common sense to do this on a Tuesday, instead of late on Friday … say around 6 PM, after the salesmen had all quit answering their phones for the week anyway.
If they had done it at 6 PM on Friday and it took the same 36 hours for the change to kick in, they would have started working around 6 AM on Sunday. They would have had another 24 hours or so to play with, just in case.
How can you cripple a travelling sales force like that ? No voicemail. No email. No phone … that works, that is.
Nothing but irate customers can come from a sillyass decision like that.
Simply, nothing.
Maybe I should have titled this post, ” If Goofy Was Your Sales Manager. “
Put this on your list of things you let other people do first to see if it will work or not.
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2 Responses to “How To Completely Disable A Sales Force With A Cellphone”
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My carrier has a habit of not notifying me of voicemails. Several times in the last year, they were important enough to cause problems. Now, as part of my morning ritual, I call my voicemail box every work day just to verify that I’ve received all voicemails. It takes about 30 seconds.
The salesman knew they were switching carriers. He should have left nothing to chance and manually dialed his voicemail on a regular basis.
Regards,
Glenn
That’s true, Glenn.
But he should have never been put in that position to begin with.
Most salespeople aren’t as detail oriented as you are … that’s why you excel !