Just for making some extra money I’m currently working in a call center offering free tickets for a networking conference to managers. Not the most famous job out there but very interesting to learn about sales. I also encountered a problem that I think is going on in lots of bigger companies…
Like in lots of call centers there is a big sign with my, and my colleagues’, names and the number of tickets we sold so far. Great system for every company that doesn’t really care about paying attention to what they are doing. Efficiency without looking at the consequences. The first week we started with all rookies from the employment agency. The number of tickets sold was low and almost each day I ended up with the first three.
The second week they thought they would spice up the stakes a bit: the ones that were at the bottom got a chat with the manager that usually didn’t resolve a lot, and a bonus would be ahead for the number one seller. The people at the bottom got more competitive and the general number of sales skyrocketed and soon enough I was at the bottom of the list and being called in for a chat with the manager: if I had any idea what was going wrong? I couldn’t see what it was that I did wrong but told him that I had no problem with him listening with me to see if he had suggestions. No response but to go back to work.
Straight after the weekend there was a meeting: there was a problem. When the buyers were called back to confirm, most of them didn’t remember what it was about and all of them canceled their tickets. Apparently some of the sellers were so enthusiastic to sell that they didn’t give all the details, just told the people that were in a hurry to get them fast. I had a lesser amount but with me everybody knew what they participated to; everybody confirmed their registration!
At that point I decided this type of sales wasent my thing and I quit. Asking myself: Why can’t these managers come up with better ideas? But worse why are they payed the way they are?