Thu, May 31, 2007 13:53 EDT

Sales and Support, Two Opposing Goals?

Posted by: Romaccellion in Best Practices

Topic: Enterprise Management

Current Rating: Comments: 0

Is it the case that personnel in sales or support, in this case Help Desk, are motivated by such different incentives that they can not work under the same conditions without developing conflicting goals?

Recently, I have observed a number of instances where sales personnel and support personnel have gone head to head over differing goals. This is not about the minor disagreements that often appear in the workplace, but I was recently in attendance when a number of sales staff, worried about our company appearance, began demanding the attention of the entire support division, some of who were on critical calls at the time with customers who were already in our service.

To clarify, I'm not talking about a simple matter of asking quietly in the background. Several sales staff moved to the desk and demanded, loudly and without care of the conference call in effect, that the person clean up areas nearby. Despite repeated protests from both technical staff and the customer's representatives, this continued for a time before the personnel moved away.

Is there any way to avoid this sort of disrespect? I have been considering a number of varied incentive programs, as much of the motivation that I believe drives this behavior is due in part to he current commission system. The most promising system I have been able to decide upon is a time-based commission, where the commission is paid only partially at the signing of the contract, and the rest is paid monthly with the condition that customers are pleased with their service.

Is there a different form of incentive that would not take away from the effectiveness of either technical or sales personnel?

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