Organizational Behavior in the Sales Department
Abstract
Quality customer service and ethical behavior are what entails good sales practices by organizations. This report focuses on how organizations put profits in front if quality customer service and ethical behavior. Of particular interest is Quest Networks, a fictitious company that provides an overview of the current situation being addressed. Scholarly evidence was used in the report to answer the critical concerns, including subcultures, motivators, and sales tactics that influence the kind of behavior in sales, as mentioned above, put across by the case study “sales are everything.” The findings were that teamwork within the organization, training of the employees, meaningful performance plans, and effective leadership were the answers to the key concerns raised and that these findings contributed to quality customer service and ethical behavior within the organization. This means that various changes are to be implemented in the organization, including putting up policies on mandatory training and teamwork by employees and also structuring the organization in a manner in which effective leadership is presented. This work, therefore, adds insight into Organizational Behavior, specifically in the sales department.
Introduction
The sales department in an organization is considered among the primary departments that are of crucial importance to the organization. This department “makes or breaks” the organization as it is responsible for the money generated in the organization. Therefore, a lot of emphasis and resources are put in this department due to its massive role as the “backbone” of the organization. However, a “new normal” has arisen in this department in that sales are considered the priority among everything else. To put it in a proper context, “sales are everything.” This means that managers in this department drive their employees towards the direction of making sales in everything that they do. The managers insist on sales making since they do what they have to to survive the competitive manner in which modern organizations portray today. This, therefore, puts high pressure on the employees to hit targets on sales as issued by management. In the process of doing this, often the aspect of ethics in business is underlooked as the employees do anything to “make a sale” as they put it. This includes coning, manipulating, and upselling customers to achieve sales targets. In the process, customer satisfaction also fails to be observed as the employees of the organization consider this as less of a priority as compared to making sales. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered as to whether the venture is worth it if that is what it takes to achieve it. On this basis, quality customer service and ethical behavior are what entails good sales practices by organizations.
According to the case study, “sales are everything,” using the fictitious company Quest Networks, it is seen that sales are put above everything else, including employee values and customer service. This raises various issues, including; whether subcultures at this company compromise the presiding culture of “service and employee care and support.” This is a huge problem since it is this culture that, over the years, has brought the company to the success it now possesses. To tackle this issue, it is true that subcultures undermine the existing culture of this company. There is the presence of the group headed by Kate Bains, the Senior Vice president of Sales quest Networks, who encourages the notion of putting sales above every other thing, including the organization’s values. She is quoted several times, saying “sales are everything.” When presented with the issues at hand, for instance, by Ben when he protests that managers motivated them to lie, she quickly brushes through the issue, saying that the issues raised were as a result of drawbacks during training sessions of the employees. This introduced a sub-culture whereby managers concentrated more on making money than on customer satisfaction. There was an instance where it was seen that customers of the company had to make calls up to five times to get their pressing issues addressed. This subcultures of making money over customer service and employee values, therefore, undermine the company’s existing culture According to (Gordon, 1991), not following the dominant culture of an organization often results to negative results in the long run even if at the moment the sales being made are quite promising but against the existing culture. To change this situation, Gordon, in his journal “Industry determinants of Organizational Culture,” claims that all the members of the organization must be willing to turn from their subcultures and focus on the dominant cultures that are existing (Gordon, 1991). Therefore, the importance of the primary culture of Quest Networks is to be emphasized to the likes of Kate Bains for them to change their ways and focus more on quality customer service and ethical behavior in the process of conducting sales.
The next issue raised was whether the employees of Quest Networks were motivated and inspired to do the right thing. However, this is not the case since the employees were urged by the managers to focus more on making money than in customer satisfaction. The pressure to hit targets was so high that doing the right thing to achieve the set targets was the last thought the employees ever had on their minds. They lived in an organizational culture where doing the right thing did not matter as much as it should, and therefore, they lacked the motivation and inspiration to do it. The motivators in an organizational setting are various, including but not limited to; working conditions, recognition, skill development, role clarity, management support, compensation, satisfaction with organization and participation in the decision-making process (Mishra & Gupta, 2009). However, significant motivators include compensation, working conditions, and management support. Another primary motivator that employees feel satisfied with is achieving organizational set goals and targets (Mishra & Gupta, 2009). This being the case, the motivators in Quest Networks mainly include compensation and achieving the company’s objectives. The payment that was being issued to the employees by the managers depended on the sales targets that were achieved during the designated financial period. This affected the company’s ethical standards in that the employees did anything possible to achieve their sales targets. It is illustrated that the pressure to makes sales by the employees was so high that they forgot about issuing out excellent customer service. There was an instance where the company’s ethical standards were questioned when the employees were seen to ignore the calls of customers who wanted to cancel their existing services due to various reasons since this would lead to hindrance of the employees achieving their sales targets. There was also a case where employees were forced to lie to their customers to make sales like, for example, in the point where they were offering internet services to older people who did not have computers. All these factors affect the company’s ethical standards leading to poor quality customer service and unethical behavior, all of which are not good sales practices.
The third issue was whether the sales tactics encouraged employees to ignore company values and related policies. This was indeed the case since the primary tactic involved more focus on the money-making strategy and, as a result, less emphasis on customer satisfaction. The company’s tactics mainly revolved around doing what needed to be done to ensure a competitive edge for the company. It was clearly shown that the managers of Quest Networks pressurized the employee likes of Ben to upsell customers a tactic that ignored company rules as the customer’s needs and wants were not put first. Other tactics included managers encouraging them to ‘lie’ to achieve sales. This was unethical behavior that ignored related policies f the organization on ethical behavior. The employees were urged to conduct business in a manner that contrasted with employee ethical conduct, fairness, honesty, and customer service. Another essential tactic worth noting was the one in which each employee was advised to make a sale with every call the employee receives or makes. This meant that even when customers were merely calling to cancel their already existing services or to protest about faulty products and services, the employees were supposed to capitalize on that opportunity and make a sell to them. They were even further advised during the training sessions to manipulate customers into agreeing to accept a sale. All these tactics led to ignorance of company values, which included ethical behavior and quality customer service. A god instance is where it was shown that the employees would drop calls of customers who wanted to nullify services as this would set back their sales target. Therefore, for these sales tactics to be changed, the company must issue out strict policies on sales that guide the sales team to follow company values and related policies failure to which would result in substantial disciplinary consequences form the management. A journal article by (Plouffe et al., 2016) claimed that the use of “Strategic Frontline Employees” who make sure that the policies used in marketing were able to satisfy the customers, the company and the external business partners was the most appropriate way of maintaining straight sales tactics (Plouffe et al., 2016).
The next issue was how teamwork improvement could help drive sales. Teamwork improvement involves employees of the organization becoming more united and trusting in each other to operate as a unit. This means that the team is headed by effective leadership, and the team players strive to achieve set goals not individually bit together as one. An article by (Sanyal & Hisam, 2018) on the “Impact of teamwork on work performance” claimed that teams had a powerful impact on the performance of an organization. According to the article, various studies conducted concerning the subject in question claim that teamwork enhances the performance of employees. This, therefore, means that with the performance of the employees increasing with a partnership, more sales would be achieved since each employee is at their peak of performance. Teamwork brings together employees with different personal skills and talents. When they combined these skills and abilities, their achievements increase two-fold. This is the same case when it comes to sales. Some employees may be perfect in customer relations, others in communication, and others contain the “convincing power.” All these skills and talents combined lead to an increase in sales since the employees coordinate together to ensure that the sale is indeed completed within the shortest time possible. For teamwork to become successful and thus increase sales, ‘synergism’ should exist between the team players. This leads to all the team members being willing to participate in the team-building process. It is a fact that employees working alone are less productive than those working in teams (Sanyal & Hisam, 2018). Teamwork improvement, therefore, leads to cooperation and swapping of ideas, thoughts, and experiences, all of which enhance productivity. In the aspect of sales hence, through these coordinated experiences and skills while sticking to quality customer service and ethical behavior, sales in the organization will be able to sore much higher than when the organization merely focused on individual efforts by the employees.
The fifth issue was on what kind of training would support positive employee and organizational change. An organization requires intensive training to achieve change for itself and its employees. A journal article on the “effect of training” by (Truitt 2011) claimed that training played a huge role in reducing disputes and therefore initiating change in the organization. Training is also said to improve the production process of organizations as well as achieving a higher return on investment (ROI) the investment, in this case, being the employee who has undergone training to have a positive change. These kinds of training, therefore, include; training the employees to become more situated for their career growth. This can intensify employee motivation, thus leading to increased productivity, and as a result, the employee, together with the organization, get to experience a positive change in terms of output. Another kind of training is that of conflict management within the organization. Without this kind of training, employers and employees would be engrossed in conflicts day in day out without resolving them, which would eventually end in lawsuits, thus costing the organization a lot of resources and time. Therefore, with this training present, the organization can resolve conflicts more straightforwardly, thus leading to a positive change as resources and funds are not wasted on conflict lawsuits. Another necessary type of training is positive attitude training. Here the employees are always taught to adopt a positive attitude in whatever they do. This is because choosing this kind of mentality leads to having a higher priority of accomplishing jobs at hand. It is this positive attitude that brings about the partnership between the employees and the organization’s management, which, as a result, brings about teamwork that leads to a positive change through an increase in production. The final kind of training is that which focuses on the employee’s job performance. In this training, skills are added to the employee to be able to achieve set goals and objectives within the organization (Truitt, 2011). In general, the employees should receive training on quality customer service and ethical behavior. When this is done, both the employee and organization acquire a positive change due to satisfaction having come from achieved targets in a manner that is beneficial to both the entire organization and the customers.
The next issue was on what meaningful performance plans that drive both sales and employee motivation looked like. These plans are essential in the development of the organization as a whole. The plans for performance, which can increase sales, also, as a result, lead to employee motivation. According to an article by (Lang 2018), some of these performance plans include; focusing not on how employees failed in a particular field but rather on how they can become better in a place where they experienced shortcomings. This will help the employees not to repeat the same mistake. Another plan involves handing out training to the employees on how they can increase sales in a manner that is suitable for them; this consists of stressing on quality customer services and ethical behavior during the practice of selling. The next plan involves usage of the “Human Resource Information System” to trace the performance of employees in the organization and, after that, convey feedback to them on how they are doing. The final plan revolves around a psychological perspective whereby when the employees do a good job, they are complimented. At the same time, advice is given to them on how they can improve further in the future. All these plans are aimed at driving the company’s sales in an upward trend. The aspect of motivation comes in whereby an employee feels motivated when he/ she receives positive criticism and is able to get assistance from management where there is any problem whatsoever. When the employers, through meaningful performance plans, talk about the feedbacks with their employees, the latter has a higher probability of accepting the feedback and also, as a result, including more ideas all in the process of increasing sales (Lang, 2018). This would, therefore, turn out to motivate the employees and thus “hitting to birds with one stone” figuratively in the sense that that the organization’s performance plans increase sales and, at the same time, motivate the employees.
The seventh issue was how an effective leadership action plan that was able to achieve better service and organizational results would look like. This plan would be effective in ensuring that the organization acquires the intended results and, at the same time, quality customer service and ethical behavior are being maintained. Therefore, according to the book “enhancing organizational performance” by (Druckman & Singer, 1997, p.98), these action plan by the leaders include; shedding light on the roles and objectives of the employees. The employees are supposed to know what they have to do and the results that are expected from what they have done. T is in this aspect that the leadership of the organization issues out responsibilities to be carried out, instructions, target goals, and action plans to the employees as this would lead to positive organizational results. Another line of action in the plan includes leadership being supportive to the employees. Here, the leaders illustrate deliberation and concern for their employee’s values, requirements, and even feelings. This leads to the satisfaction of the employees about their leaders and the job at hand, thus issuing better services to customers and improving the organization’s results. The plan would also involve planning and problem-solving. Here, decisions are made on what actions are to be taken and how they are to be taken. The leaders in this scenario try to work out a balance between these two aspects, as that is the key to organizational success. Problem-solving also boosts and promotes better service as concerns in the issuance of services are quickly rectified. Keeping track of operations within the organization is a primary factor in the plan. To be successful in their endeavors, leaders require intelligence on the internal operations of the organization. This is essential in giving out information on the opportunities and problems within the organization and the implementation of strategies to achieve positive results. Finally, the plan would ensure that the leadership available is both participative and inspirational in the essence that the decision-making process includes all members of the organization and that it is displayed that the organization’s needs are above those of any individual (Druckman & Singer, 1997, p.103). This leadership action plan would, therefore, boost the organization’s results in terms of sales and improve services to their customers.
Finally, the last issue was whether the company had the right leadership team for sustainable success. This was an essential aspect that could not be overlooked. According to (Hao & Yazdanifard, 2015), the right leadership team is that which can manage change in the organization. Change in this instance relates to the idea of putting making money first over quality customer services and ethical behaviors. The Leadership team, in this instance, has to play the role of motivating and inspiring employees to change from that kind of behavior and to continuously push them until they embrace the change. This will help the business become more sustainable and adjust to the competitive market bringing about continuous success. The leadership team should also make sure that they have gained the trust of their employees as this is key to making other duties easier. The responsibilities made more manageable, in this case, include creating a positive organizational culture. This would benefit the organization to a great extent since the culture acts as a motivator for the employees to work together as a team and achieve the set goals. This thus imparts a conducive working surrounding for the employees, which brings about commitment to the organization, and it is at this point that innovative ideas come about that make the company have a competitive edge, thus achieving sustainable success in the long run. Finally, an excellent leadership team is that which can lead the employees on the right path in compliance with the organization’s values. This being the case, the organization would be able to sustain itself in the complex contemporary environment of business (Hao & Yazdanifard, 2015). Considering all these facts as mentioned above, Quest Network does not have the right leadership team to ensure sustainable success since the managers overwork and undervalue their employees through their policy of “sales being everything” and, as a result ignoring quality customer service and ethical behavior while conducting business.
In conclusion, it is evident, according to the key concerns presented in the case study project, that Quest Networks had subcultures that involved making money in a manner that derailed quality customer service and was based on unethical behavior. The employees were thus not encouraged to practice the right way of doing business due to the sales tactics that were availed by the company’s managers. However, since quality customer service and ethical behavior are what constitutes good sales practices in organizations, strategies on teamwork training and effective leadership are discussed to promote good sales practices. It is, therefore, crucial that organizations put customers and ethics first then followed by profits and not the other way round.
References
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