Well another story today, from a local guy who used to be an Anglian rep, he actually rang in looking for a job, he didn’t get off the phone for half an hour, he had a good grilling, but in the end I had to say we weren’t looking for anyone at the mo but thanks for his time, anyway back to the questions I’d asked.
He told me that they had been struggling with lead volumes for ages and that on average he was sitting about 2 leads a week and that they had five sales guys all doing similar amount of leads. What he did sell he wasn’t getting paid on anyway, he had gone for more than six weeks with no pay at all even though they owed him a “couple of grand”, over the last eighteen months it has been taking longer and longer for them to get their pay, and alot of guys had just left because they literally couldn’t run their vehicles as there own funds had run dry. I asked him if he thought this was a tactic to not pay until people left and he thoguht it may be but he couldn’t state either way.
I then asked about the sweeping operation (where people ring up behind) this is done on every occasion if the salesman can’t get the deal after drop closing it then it goes staright to the Sales Manager to do a further discount over the phone but don’t accept the first phone call offer they will ring back and drop 3 times!!!!
On the customer service side he didn’t really get involved with that so he couldn’t comment but he thought it should be o.k.
The one point which stuck in my mind more than anything was this, he said he as a salesman couldn’t trust anyone down there, his sales manager had been caught cancelling his good contracts and resigning them so that he got the commisions!!!!! This isn’t the first time I have heard of this as one of my current sales guys came from Anglian and he had this happen to him. And that also Double bagging (selling for another company while working for your employer) was rife and that it wasn’t any surprise to him that Anglian were in trouble because for every one that’s sold legitimately another one was being done on the side!!!
I feel a bit sorry for Anglian on that front, we had a guy double bagging and it is a costly thing.
My own thoughts are I think Anglian have got an uphill struggle on their hands turning this monster into a profitable company again, they’ve certainly got to start treating there staff better and even paying them now and again would be a good place to start, if the staff don’t feel part of something good then they are going to look for something else. The only other thing I can say is listen to the customers, I hope in a way that Anglian can sort themselves out not for them but for the thousands that work for them. But then again on the business side it would certainly free up alot of leads.
