India fares poorly in sales staff survey

Have you ever felt the salesperson at your neighborhood multi-brand electronics storeroom is endorsing only a few of the brands displayed? Or noticed how some salespersons only smart-sell brands which give them better commission? Due to such practices, information technology & consumer electronic majors in India may be losing up to Rs 84 lakh per store annually, indicates a new study commissioned by Grass Roots Group, a performance improvement solutions provider.

The survey, titled ‘Are You Being Sold?’, focused on 14 multinational brands in IT hardware and software, as well as consumer electronic space across countries, including India, China, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia. The performance of sales staff was judged on the basis of the complete shopping experience, including a salesperson’s response time, product knowledge and attempts to close a sale.

The study reveals that only 43 per cent salespeople in India made an attempt to close the deal and a majority of the shoppers were not even asked if they wished to purchase the product. Despite their dismal performance at the customer front, the Indian sales staff was well-versed in product knowledge and technical know-how. India is among the poorest performers in the Asia Pacific, where Grass Roots conducted the study, when it comes to preferred brand suggestions given by salespeople, which is not good news for an industry where around 30 per cent of the sales are made due to resale recommendation.

Stephen Hibberd, regional director (Asia), Grass Roots Group, says: “The competition for the share of the consumer’s wallet is fierce. Brands should not simply use reseller rebates or marketing fund contributions to generate top-of-mind activity by salespeople.”

He reasons that having spent hundreds of millions of dollars on R&D, manufacturing, distributing and advertising a product, no brand can afford to let the customer walk out of a store without buying the product merely due to a poor retail environment.