Conference 7.286::digital

    This business of not returning phone calls is getting really serious!
    
    As a former IBM and DEC customer, I can tell you that IBM puts HEAVY
    emphasis on returning phone calls, and then checking to see if you
    reached the person you were looking for...and then checking again the
    next week just to make sure.
    
    I honestly believe that until we start summarily firing people who do
    not return calls, it's gonna be a big problem.  But first, we have to
    put the support structure back in place....i.e., responsive secretaries
    who really understand the importance if what they are doing.  And then
    get rid of all the damned answering machines and all the other techno-
    weinie alternatives to real people.
    
    We should also make it an absolute requirement that every sales and
    sales support person have a car phone....period, end of discussion.
    K.O. visited Tucson a year or so ago and promised that car phones would
    happen.  Wanna guess what percentage still don't have them?
    
    Do I think this is gonna happen?  NO.  Will the situation ever change?
    NO.  Am I disgusted?  YES

    
    Re: .1
    
    >I honestly believe that until we start summarily firing people who do
    >not return calls, it's gonna be a big problem. 
    
    It's ALREADY a problem and not just among sales reps.  I didn't 
    have any reason to do much internal calling until I was in product
    management but it amazed me to see the number of persons who
    ignore phone calls AND VAXmail as well. 
    
    Steve
    

    It appears that if DEC salespeople are that weak in managing
    accounts with IS buyers, that they are even weaker when dealing
    with those customers which have a less straighforward relationship.
    I don't know how to say this more clearly, but here is the
    example:  A close friend of mine is a regional sales manager for
    Alan-Bradley in the factory automation product line.  These
    Alan-Bradley products usually incorporate many Digital products
    (microvaxes, network equipment).  Now, one would hope that the
    Digital salespeople in his region would be cooperative in terms
    of working with him to put together mini-trade shows, demonstration
    exhibits for large potential customers, and the like.  
    
    But, just the contrary has occurred:
    salespeople have been rude, unresponsive, and totally unsupportive
    when asked to lend assistance for network configuration and the like.
    When Alan-Bradley sells a network factory package it results in the
    purchase of much Digital equipment - but this fact seems to escape
    them.
    
    Stock owners ought to be angry about this issue.  I'm sure that
    there are *many* great salespeople out there, how do they feel
    about their organization?
    

re .0

> I spend several weeks each year listening to DEC and IBM 
> customers behind one-way glass,

Uh, is this literal, or a phrase I've not heard before?

Stephen

    No, it's literal.  That's how a lot of these things work.  It
    facilitates videotaping, i.e., people are not sensitive to the
    presence of a camera.
    
    Agree that internally not answering the phone is also a big problem.
    As an old codger, I find it incredible that a generation (dare I say
    the "Y" word??) that can't be out of touch of a phone in their
    personal life, treats them so cavalierly in their business relation-
    ships.
    
    Somebody help me....aren't there really small, portable, "Pocket"
    phones available now.  Maybe everyone should have one.
          

>Aren't there really small pocket portable phones available now

Yes, but they do not yet work well inside buildings due to the
fact that the cellular phone companies are targeting cars and
have chosen cell sites to only provide good outdoor coverage.

At the current rate of installation of new cell sites, it will
be at least five years, and in many areas longer, before they
can be considered to be truly reliable.

Furthermore, the cost of using them is EXTREMELY high.

/john

    re .3
    
>    Alan-Bradley products usually incorporate many Digital products
>    (microvaxes, network equipment).  Now, one would hope that the
>    Digital salespeople in his region would be cooperative in terms
>    of working with him to put together mini-trade shows, demonstration
>    exhibits for large potential customers, and the like.  
    
    He should find out which DIGITAL internal organization realizes the
    revenue from his sales, probably a Channels TOEM sales group, and
    pressure / request assistance of THEM.  They are the ones that benefit.
    
>    But, just the contrary has occurred:
>    salespeople have been rude, unresponsive, and totally unsupportive
>    when asked to lend assistance for network configuration and the like.
    
    When rated on 'certs per minute' it's often difficult to put on the 
    corporate hat and spend the time.  So get help from the group that
    carries the budget.
    
    karl
    
    

    >He should find out which DIGITAL internal organization realizes the
    revenue from his sales, probably a Channels TOEM sales group, and
    >pressure / request assistance of THEM.  They are the ones that benefit.
    >
    
    We all benefit.
    
    >When rated on 'certs per minute' it's often difficult to put on the 
    >corporate hat and spend the time.  So get help from the group that
    >carries the budget.
    
    Perhaps local delivery of service should be charged back to the group
    who gets the benefits. BUT we should never balk at business, we should
    do the work gladly and with pride and then sort out the structures that
    are internally wrong that allow this sort of rediculous behaviour to 
    happen. 
    One of the problems with the get someone else to do it argument is that
    the customer and Allen Bradley are twiddling there thumbs while it goes
    through "the right channels" to "the right people" with "the right
    focus". It takes more work than if someone had just gone an DONE it
    in the first place.
    
    John

    
    Re somewhere further back --
    
    
    Don't knock answerphones. I voluntarily gave up my secretary, as I
    thought the cost to DEC out-weighed the economic advantage. Replaced her
    with an answerphone, which I monitor frequently.
    
    It's the sort that you can strip messages from anywhere, & put on a new
    outgoing message from anywhere. I make sure that the outgoing message
    is updated daily, or more if my circumstances change -- delayed at
    meeting etc. I check it before I leave home, & before I go to bed. 
    
    That way I know whether anyone, internal or external, has reason to
    change my day. They can & do leave messages at times when the office is
    closed. All my contacts regard it as a considerable improvement, because 
    they always get through to me direct, with certainty, & with minimal 
    delay/cost -- 7 days of the week, any time zone.
    
    I have to honour the implicit bargain by getting back to them as soon 
    as possible. Makes my life more manageable, keeps callers happy, saves
    (much) money -- a good deal.
    
    Let's not mix up the tools & the objective.

    
    Yes, Colin, but you are incredibly conscientious. You always answer
    your messages and you always reply to mail. The vast majority of
    other people's machines where I've left messages did me as much good as
    if I'd been talking into a black hole!
    
    I agree with you though.  It isn't the fault of the tools. It is the 
    attitude of the user that is causing the problems. Non-personal means
    of communication (answerphone, E-mail) make it very easy to simply
    ignore people you don't want to talk to or be bothered with.
    
    Personally, I think it is incredibly *rude* not to return phone calls or
    answer mail (that was not sent just for info) and I have very little 
    respect for people who behave this way.
    
    Sorry for continuing the rathole.
    
    LaDonna
    

	Ah, the telephone.

	So you think that someone should stop what they are doing and talk
    to you just because you want to talk to them?  My you have got a lot of
    gall.  No more than most people in this self centered society, but still
    a lot of gall.

	I will agree however that answering machines are all most as bad as
    telephones.  If it's part of your job to deal with a telephone, like it
    is part of a recruiter's job, and you use an answering machine, you are
    not doing your job if you do not return phone calls.  If you ask someone 
    to call you back and have an answering machine, TURN the **** THING OFF!

	E-mail is a much more polite medium.  It waits for your convienience
    and should be given the return curtesy of an answer.

    
    Email might be polite, but of limited use with outside contacts ....
    at least here in Europe. I'd like to see it used much more with our
    customers & suppliers (in both directions).
    
    Are IBM significantly better than us with email? Not a trick question
    -- I don't know myself. 
    
    One major point re -1. 
    
    "So you think that someone should stop ...just because you want to talk
    to them"..etc  
    
    That's exactly what a customer expects, & that's one of the areas where
    I understood we were being unfavourably compared with big blue.
                 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    I also think that lots of folks are simply incredibly poorly
    organized.  I have heard people talk of 2-300 message
    pile-ups in their E-Mail.  I don't know how anyone can let the
    situation get that bad.
    
    I also strongly agree that when a customer calls...you stop everything
    and give him your highest level of attention and service.
    
    Former vacuum cleaner, life insurance and computer salesperson.

Re last few:

	I think you missed the point about the telephone.  IF it is your job
    to answer the telephone, by all means answer it.  If there is a message
    on your answering machine, listen to it.  If your secretary has a note for
    you, read it.  If you need to return a phone call, return it.  But what do 
    you do if you are talking to someone (as part of your job of course) and 
    the phone rings?  Bluntly, the phone call is a rude intrusion.  If someone 
    were to walk up to you and insist on breaking in to your conversation, you 
    would expect it to be important if they were that rude.  You get no such 
    assurance with a phone call.  The telephone is THE leading example of how 
    a technical system disreguards and degrades our social system.

	So, you expect the person on answering the phone to be nice.  That
    expectation is unreasonable.  It is truely supprising that as many people
    as do, are nice when they answer the telephone.  If you do get through to
    a person on the telephone, you should be nice even if they are not.  How 
    many of these people complaining about not getting calls returned are
    polite when they leave messages?  I'd bet that it's not that many.

	The answering machine is a partial solution.  Even with an answering 
    machine, you get this horrible noise doing its best to disrupt your 
    conversation or train of thought.

	Now I have to deal with customers on the phone regularly.  I know I
    get anoyed when someone breaks into a conversation with them but I do 
    my best to be nice when it happens.  I don't always succeed.  When I 
    return a customers call, I work quite hard to get around the road-blocks
    put in the way of telephone contact because I believe that the customer 
    wants to talk to me about a problem, but I try to be polite about it, and
    I understand why the road-blocks are there.

    Re: .14
    
    Not to sure that I understand the note...but...If the time of the call
    is ~bad~,I say "I'll call you back".  If I call,I first ask " are you 
    busy?".
    
    What is the Bad Deal?
    
    Marc H.

Re .15:
    
>    Not to sure that I understand the note...but...If the time of the call
>    is ~bad~,I say "I'll call you back".  If I call,I first ask " are you 
>    busy?".

	You're nice about it.  A lot of people arn't.
    
>    What is the Bad Deal?
    
	The *@#$ noise it makes and the over all system design it is a part of!

    Can I return to a moment to the frustrated Allen-Bradley 
    sales manager?  Reply .7 suggested this person find the
    responsible marketing group, and .8 thought the local sales
    ought to be more responsive.  
    
    Since I doubt that he is unable to follow .7 advice (how would 
    find this entity?) then how would some of you suggest he could
    get the local office to be more responsive?  He's hesitant
    to escallate to a district manager in fear of even further
    damaging the fragile relationship he's got with the salesperson.
    
    This is really timely: I just read where DEC lost out on a
    mega-deal against SUN in a Allen-Bradley automation
    product.
    

    
    Re: .17
    
    > .... He's hesitant to escallate to a district manager in
    > fear of even further damaging the fragile relationship he's
    > got with the salesperson.
    
    When people are being let go after years perhaps decades with
    Digital, and the company unilaterally decides that they should
    go to bi-weekly pay to make more money, and we have budget cuts
    galore, and people walk on eggshells waiting for some axe to
    fall, and all because we aren't doing so well, IT REALLY P*****
    ME OFF THAT A CUSTOMER HAS TO BEG US TO HELP HIM SELL OUR STUFF.
    
    I would do more than escalate it to a district manager.  I would
    tell the district manager that the I wanted another reliable
    person assigned to my account TODAY, NOW, RIGHT AWAY!
    
    Steve
    
    

	Just as I left the field, the local sales group
	was trying to sell a great deal of "DEC stuff" to a
	military base in the area.

	The local sales folks earnestly drove back and forth ( 3 hour
	round trip ) to the base several times a week to work the
	sale.

	They repeatedly found themselves having to wage war: not
	with Sun....not with IBM....but with the DEC sales group
	somewhere in the northeast "chartered" to sell to the
	military.

	It was horrible, and embarrassing to watch as the folks
	in the other group threw wrenches into the efforts of
	the local sales team...all from a comfortable distance...

	All they had to do was let the local group do all the work, and
	watch the "certs" roll in.

	Personally, if I'd been "Ken For A Day", I'd have cleaned
	house up there....

	Steve H

    Digital values the absence of conflict more that it values results.

    
    re .14 --
    
    Don't know how DEC switchboards work elsewhere, but in my office you
    get good clues on whether to interrupt a conversation because of the
    telephone -- 1 ring or 2 rings on the call.
    
    Like you, I wouldn't interrupt a conversation with a customer or, say,
    a personal interview with a member of staff. The answerphone can handle
    the call, same as if I wasn't here.
    
    However, if I'm working at the desk & the call is internal, I may
    choose to take it immediately -- & I prefer to, because my experience
    is that if I put it off, it costs me more time in the long run (call
    back & person not there, etc).
    
    If I'm at my desk, & the call is external, I will always take it -- the 
    people paying my salary come first, & all that good stuff. 
                      
    

    -.20  You are right on, don't make wave, for one thing, don't point out
    lousy management in some groups, or the shortcomings of some processes.
    How can anyone get their work done, they are hindered, even if they
    try. How many more level of management (brickwalls) can they build 
    between the workers and the ones making decisions? How many times more
    can the decision maybe rumor be turned around? Why can K.O. not clean
    house, because politics is still around. With all this lay-off, I hope
    the right people get picked. Good luck to all the ones left. Hopefully,
    the brickwalls will not be so high anymore and people can finally do
    their job.
    
    

    I agree with the person who mentioned being organized as a key factor
    in providing others with a feeling of responsiveness.
    
    Organization is not automatic for me - I have to work very hard at it,
    but it's extremely important to me.  When too much happens too fast,
    and  my desk gets piled high in a day or two, I am most likely to
    neglect returning a phone call or mail message.  When I use my planner
    and write down all calls to be returned and use the 'mark' feature in
    mail to mark messages I must respond to, but cannot do so immediately,
    my life goes better, and people get responded to.
    
    I try to go through everything on my desk at the end of each day, too,
    and prioritize that stuff.
    
    When I get a call from the field for customer support, that goes to the
    top of all other priorities.
    
    Even so, I still mess up once in a while.  I feel badly when I don't
    manage to respond to the personal mail messages people send, but I
    feel that the business ones come first.
    
    I continue to be amazed by people who can function in a total state of
    chaos - you know, all the counters in the office a foot deep, totally
    ad hoc filing system, no planner, car resembles a dumpster.  If I were
    interviewing job candidates, I would probably ask them how they feel
    about being organized, and what systems they use.  Someone who
    responded enthusiastically to this point AND had the technical
    knowledge would score high in my book.
    
    I have a higher trust level in organized people, even though I'm aware
    that some people who appear to live in a total state of chaos actually 
    know where everything is and do manage never to drop the ball.
    
    Holly
    

One thing that I am surprised did not show up in the survey is a
complaint I have often heard from customers:  Digital sends too many
people to meetings.  YOu know the ones.  The meetings where you have two
customers facing 10 Digital people.

The reason for this is obvious.  Rarely in Digital do you have a
situation where you can find a person in authority so make agreements
with customers.  Instead each group involved in a project sends a
representative to represent their own interest.

We publicly display our internal confusion.  I know IBM does not do
this.

John

    
    re: .0 and others.
    
    This is not good. These types of customer complaints have been 
    consistent since I joined digital 13 years ago. I cannot understand
    why it is so difficult to get people to return calls *especially*
    in the Field. Communication is important and listening paramount
    to understanding any client's (internal or external) requirements.
    
    Any policies out there on how to deal with Customers via a telephone.
    
    Don H.
    
    

    re: .0 and others
    
    I think the report should be circulated to all sales managers for
    discussion at their next unit meetings.  
    
    The complaint that "DEC salespeople don't get the resources they need"
    point to a problem that other salespeople and I have vocalized time &
    time again.  We need Digital to back us all the way when we're making a
    sale.  An IBM salesrep receives the full support of IBM to make something
    happen if the salesrep believe it's important for the customer.  Ever
    tried to do the same thing at Digital?  It's doable, but extremely
    difficult.
    
    

Well, here in our District the report on customer sensing did make the rounds.
I read it and have done everything I can to fix what is broken. I'm not sure
everyone read it, understood it, internalized it and adjusted their behavior
accordingly... in other words, for the most part, its business as usual.

I don't necessarily blame this on the individuals, though. The environment
that sales has to work in is not good. I don't think its set up for success.
Resources of every sort are hard to come by, the administrative systems are
cumbersome and hardly user-friendly, and trying to figure out our licensing and
other policies are increasing my purchases of extra-strength Tylenol.

When we are measured on Customer Satisfaction instead of certs, you just might
see a change in philosophy and behavior.

Regards,

Jim
Sales Support

    Several of the replies have implicated the notion of "metrics" as
    possibly one of the root causes of our un-acceptable behavior.
    
    There is a copy of a recent KO memo making the rounds. It's been
    sub-titled by forwarders with the likes of "The new Math" or "New
    Management, No metrics".
    
    I think there is a clear message here which I happen to agree with: "If
    you push formulas onto peoples' performance you get only irrational
    results."  I know this may bring out all the cliches...you can't fix
    what you can't measure...et al.  These may be true, but they speak to a
    different topic.  I interpret the KO memo as saying "quit trying to
    simplify the complex topic of individuals performance by applying
    measurements that legitimately apply to processes, (not people).
    Or, said another way, "measure processes; judge people".
    
    I wondered how others might be interpreting the memo?
    
    /pope 

    I really doubt that KO talking out loud, yet again, in another memo is
    going to have the sweeping impact of changing the processes the he's
    had in place for 34 years.
    
    There's a contradiction in there anyway: the result or lack thereof in
    a "process" is not some abstraction to be measured.  It's customer
    satisfaction, market share, and profits.  You know, the things that
    really count in this world.  Hold people accountable to their
    commitments.
    
    Digital values the absence of conflict more than it values results.

    I tend to agree with Pat......I saw the memo and my immediate
    impression was that all those folks who were on the disribution
    lists that were deleted......therein could be the real problem.
    I can only imagine, but I feel that these are a lot of the layers of
    managers who are so ar removed from the IC's......the intent of
    the memo will never be implemented.  These are the same folks who
    will beat people into the ground over metrics, metrics, metrics.
    
    Yes, I read the memo.....I try to live up to the intent of that memo;
    but until KO walks into a meeting (perhaps unannounced....well I can
    dream , can't I?) and hear someone in the middle of the chain telling
    us about the importance of metrics as it equates to continued funding
    for our group.....the metrics bashing won't stop.
    
    Those of us who are willing to buck the trend (and perhaps, or so it
    seems these days...are getting away with it....only because the
    response from our customers has been so positive).......a lot of people
    will continue to do the right thing.....although there is the risk
    that we will "right thing" ourselves right out the door.  And the
    newer people who bought into the metrics concept and are delivering
    metrics, but not good service or quality answers.....will be among
    those who are rewarded....what else can I say?
    
    Pat makes a good point......we can't confuse doing the right thing
    with "giving away the store".  Like it or not, DEC has to make a
    profit.....but if we work smart we can keep our customers happy,
    really sell what is appropriate for them and hopefully gain on our
    share of the market, and we'll weather the storm.  Sometimes "doing what
    is right".....also means doing what is right for DEC.  Since I work
    so closely with SW licensing.......I shudder when I think of how
    much we truly have lost in what we have given away.  The money is
    lost and we have set an expectation with our installed based customers
    that is going to be difficult to undo.
    
    Right now we do have a lot of our installed base customers who are
    unhappy with us.....we only have ourselves to blame.  They love the
    hardware, but we're killing them in other areas; bottom-line.....our
    indifference (as it is viewed by the customer) justified or not....
    is going to bring us to our knees.
    
    As was illustrated in another note, my "customer" is a sales rep;
    he views DEC-SALE as marginally helpful.....he's entitled to his
    opinion, and he's entitled to be annoyed or angry if his expectations
    of what we can do for him has been set falsely......and my gut is
    telling me that this is exactly the case......I can only hope is
    that he won't write us off.....will try us a few more times....and if
    he doesn't get the answer he needs.....that he is willling to push
    back.  Yes, I know this can take "time".....and time is a precious
    commodity for so many people today....but we all own a share of that.
    
    I truly hope we weather the storm......but it is getting more
    difficult to keep reassuring myself that *I* am the only person I
    have to answer to (not my creditors) :-)
    
    Karen
    

    RE: returning calls
    
    I found that I was missing lots of phone calls since I was on the phone
    so much and incoming calls were getting forwarded to my group
    secretary, where they wound up in my message slot which I might not see
    for hours.
    
    So - I had my manager order me a multi-line phone.
    
    Now, when I'm on the phone and another call comes in, I ask the person
    I'm talking with if they can hold for a moment (noone has ever said
    "no"), answer the call, explain that I'm on another line and I'll call
    them right back, and resume my previous conversation. I have found that
    this utilization of existing technology has substantially reduced, but
    not entirely eliminated, a lot of the phone tag I used to play.
    

    re: .31
    
    Most of the people in my group have a multi-line phone because we deal
    a lot with sales, sales support, CMPs, and sometimes customers.  We
    were recently asked to justify our multi-line phones.  It turns out
    that a multi-line phone at our site costs $1200/year MORE than a single
    line phone.  All our phones also have a message light that can be
    turned on to indicate that we have had a message taken for us.
    Unfortunately, only the building switchboard operator has the
    capability to turn the light on.  Our calls never roll over to the
    switchboard, they roll to 2 or 3 secretaries on our floor.
    
    Bob

    So ... what about two single-line phones?
    
    Steve

    Re: .33
    
    That might work.  One drawback I can see to that is that in order
    to make it act like a multi-line phone when one line is busy, it would
    require each phone to point to the other for rollover when it is busy
    and this would limit the rollover choices when both phones are busy.  I
    could live with that.
    
    Bob

I have just moved into an office without DTNs.  I now have to call a lot of
main numbers for DEC facilities and it is scary.  It would be in
interesting exercise for the management to try calling people in various
facilities through the main number.  They would find that in several
locations it takes forever for anyone to answer the phone.  Often you
get bounced from one number to another.  It is crazy!

I remember a couple of years ago I called a certain large Digital
facility's main number and I let the phone ring for 20 minutes to see
how long it would ring.

  Maybe John Covert will post an authoratative reply, but somehow I
  suspect that the $1200/year figure represents some department get-
  ting rich at the Corporation's general expense and detriment.

                                   Atlant

    
    Re: metrics
    
    Back a few someone mentioned that we should be measuring processes
    and not people.  Deming, Six Sigma, etc. would totally agree with
    you, but we aren't even doing that.
    
    Until we have a reliable way to measure how well we are satisfying
    our customers, we are going to continue shooting in the dark when
    it comes to trying to satisfy them.
    
    Steve
    
    

re: <<< Note 1373.24 by KYOA::MIANO "John - NY Retail Banking Resource Cntr" >>>

> One thing that I am surprised did not show up in the survey is a
> complaint I have often heard from customers:  Digital sends too many
> people to meetings.  YOu know the ones.  The meetings where you have two
> customers facing 10 Digital people.

> The reason for this is obvious.  Rarely in Digital do you have a
> situation where you can find a person in authority so make agreements
> with customers.  Instead each group involved in a project sends a
> representative to represent their own interest.
    
    I agree with this interpretation. There is another factor which I tend
    to notice even more, out here in the field. We are less and less able
    to find single individuals who can provide "technical support" as a
    whole. More and more, we have a database expert, a UNIX expert, a CASE
    expert, an Office expert, and a Networks expert. It would take them all
    day to sort out their story, even without a customer present!
    
    EIS seems to believe that technology is so complicated that the best
    solution is to have an "insect society" solution with lots of highly
    specialized "workers" who are directed by a superior caste of "business
    initiates". These might be EIS managers, consultants, or even salesmen.
    The problem with this approach is that the clever business people don't
    know a lot about anything technical, so they need a different
    specialist for every topic that might turn up.
    
    Experience (backed up by poor old common sense, who rarely gets a
    look-in these days) says that what delights customers is a visit from 1
    (one: "ONE") Digital person who has an appreciation of the business
    that the customer is in, realizes that we all work for money, that time
    is money, etc.... and who also knows enough about most things that
    Digital sells to be able to relate them to the customer's needs. This
    is by no means as impossible as you might think - we have a good 
    number of people who are quite close to that ideal. The trouble is, we
    don't value them, grow them, or attempt to keep them.
    
    /Tom

    re: -1
    absolutly right on!
    
    but, in order for that ONE person to function...s/he must be in a
    position to "assume ownership" of the problem.  by that i mean, s/he must 
    be willing and able to tackle the whole problem (whether it's a sales, 
    software, or hardware issue, or a combination of any/all of those) (or 
    even a policy issue).  the need to call in specialized resources can be
    determined later...with minimum impact on the customer.

To follow up on what I said before (.35) on people not answering
telephones.  Today I called a person in Digital and I got the voice mail
message that said "... or if you need assistance please press 0 and someone
will help you."  Since I am going to be out of town most of the week I
pressed zero so that I could find out from the secretary when the person
would be in so I could call while on the road.

Well the phone rang, and rang, and rang.....and rang.  Finally I had
to go to a meeting so out of a perverse sense of curiousity I went to
the meeting with my phone off the hook.  When I cam back to my desk an
hour later guess what?

The phone was still ringing!  And people in this company wonder why we
don't make budgets.

    Most of the comments here tend to focus on the phone situation, but
    there is another issue worth covering. Customers in the focus groups
    felt DEC did not have the resources that IBM has. I am sure this is
    true based on shear size, but since we have fewer accounts than IBM, 
    it should be somewhat relative in support per account.
    
    How is it that we have too many DEC people show up at customer meetings
    and the perception of shallow support?
    
    How is it DEC has THE HIGHEST COST OF SALES IN THE INDUSTRY, that
    we spend more on selling as a percent of Revenue than any other
    company and have the perception of shallow support.
    
    The study in .0 includes one memorable quote from a customer,
    "If IBM had DEC's equipment, DEC would be obsolete". Makes me
    feel good as part of an engineering group that we have good products,
    makes me think we have a tremendous opportunity for increased sales.
    
    Would commissions, IBM style, change the behavior of the sales 
    force and then the perception of the customer? Would we get more
    sales per rep with commissions? Are the people that our customers
    see changeing too often because we don't pay comissions? 
    
    I think we need to get to a commission pay structure. Comments?
    
    
    
    

    re: .41, on the need for commissions to motivate Sales,
    
    In eleven years of working closely with Sales in the field as Sales
    Support, SWS/EIS/PSS/acronym-de-jour and even as a customer, it has not
    been my experience that salespeople in Digital lack motivation. There
    are some that lack skills, some lack training, some lack management
    support and direction. Few lack motivation.
    
    What they seem to lack most is the inclination of the rest of
    corporation to support what they're doing, rather than constantly
    obstructing it, inspecting it, second-guessing it and otherwise making
    it harder to do.
    
    The only "motivational problem" I've seen is the rep that, after years
    of jumping artificial and unnecessary hurdles to do their job, gets fed
    up with the whole thing and fills time until they find a new job.
    
    Just MHO,
    Larry.

    re: .41
    
    I'm not sure commissions is the answer either because, like .42, I'm
    not sure motivation is the problem.  I interpret the description in
    .42 to mean that the sales person lacks authority.  I suspect that
    in IBM a sales person can "get things done" on behalf of the customer
    better than a DEC sales person, and that is what I mean by "authority".
    
    In .41 it was noted "If IBM had DEC's equipment, DEC would be
    obsolete".  This is an indication that IBM's equipment is not up to
    the standard set by DEC.  I don't think this lack is an accident.
    I think IBM deliberately doesn't develop products for which there
    is not a justifiable business need.  We've talked about doing that
    at DEC, but as best I can tell we aren't (yet) doing it.
    
    Someday Digital will get enough fiscal discipline to refrain from
    building products for which it can see no profit.  To do that we must
    first find a way to determine how much of our profit comes from each
    product we sell.  When we reach that point Digital will be a sounder
    company, but the Engineering part will be less fun to work in.
    
    A friend of mine used to work for IBM.  I'm not sure just what his job
    was, but he was a hardware engineer of some sort, and specialized
    in some aspect of chemistry.  He told me that he had been given the
    job of making a certain process more efficient.  He spent a long time
    working on the problem, and finally came up with a plan to improve
    its efficiency by a small percentage.  His superiors praised his work
    but told him that they would not implement his recommendations until
    they had to rebuild the facility anyway, because the increment of
    improvement which he had demonstrated was too small to justify
    an early rebuild.
    
    Their decision was, I am sure, correct from a business perspective.
    They must have measured the savings to the company of changing to his
    new process, and determined that it was less than the cost of
    rebuilding the facility.  Nevertheless, he was disappointed that all
    of his work did not provide any immediate benefit to his company.
    He left shortly thereafter.
    
    I think these two differences between IBM and DEC are related.  If a
    sales person has more authority, I think that leads quickly to a
    greater focus on the customer and his needs, as opposed to building
    whatever feels good.  An increased focus on individual customers
    leads to strategies which attempt to predict what customers will want
    in the future, so we can have products ready for them.  That leads,
    in turn, to measuring the success of the strategy by measuring profits,
    and this is the "fiscal discipline" I was talking about.
        John Sauter  

    It's not just DEC: I called AAA's 800 number, got a recording 
    that all lines were busy, wait, then a recording I could leave
    a message, wait, then a recording that the "mailbox was full",
    obviously the error message from the voice-mail service, and
    then a hang-up--no apology, no alternate number, just "click".
    
    			-John Bishop

re: .41:
    Would commissions, IBM style, change the behavior of the sales 
    force and then the perception of the customer?

Probably...  But if the problem is poor support, maybe we should
pay commissions to support people.

Ha Ha.  Just kidding.

Martin.

    
    
    
    

    Re:.0
    
    I seem to remember a couple of years back, I think, the same
    study/project or similiar.  Were you involved with that one and how
    does this current study compare response-wise?  Are we (I'm a sales
    rep) changing in the customers mind or is it still the same?
    
    Bo

    Before we start bashing ourselves excessively on voice mail, answering
    machines and our lack of professional phone manners (and we certainly
    DO need to do _some_ bashing !), we should realize that we are not the
    only ones with the problem.
    
    I am in the Credit organization, which means I spend most of my time
    "Dialing for Dollars".  In most of the larger companies I call, voice
    mail or something similar has been put into effect.  In a week I would
    lose track of the number of times my calls don't get returned, or get
    routed around eternally when I elect to "push 0 to be connected to
    another person"
    
    We seem to have a relatively new piece of technology which, as it
    becomes more commonplace, is changing the way we communicate.  I think
    we all can see how mis-use can cause problems, and it also makes it
    easier for someone who does not have professional phone manners in the
    first place to really become a pain in the *&#.
    
    Should we be concerned if we are perceived to be worse in this category
    than IBM ?  YOU BET
    
    Is it OK, since other companies have similar problems ?  NO WAY
    
    Is the answer getting rid of all our recorders/voice mail systems ? 
    NOPE
    
    It seems that we've had this problem longer than voice mail has been
    around, so we've got a people behavior problem.  Train 'em, work with
    'em; and if they don't clean up their act CAN 'EM
    
    Phil

    In the early years of my longer than most peoples career at Digital I
    TWICE heard Ken Olsen tell the New Digital Sales Representatives class
    in Sales Training that he wanted to replace the Sales Force by a
    Catalog. This was in the days when Digital was small enough that Ken
    did talk to many of the NDSRT classes.
    
    When I became a genuine budget carrying DECmobile driving Digital Sales
    Representative, more than ten years ago now, I spent most of my time
    fighting with Digital internal organizations getting them to deliver
    all of what my customers had ordered and paid for and to live up to the
    commitments they made to my customers.
    
    Now, as a long tenured contributor to corporate overhead, I sit in
    meetings and ask what it is that customers actually want to buy, I
    either get a stoney silence or the last irate customer fire drill/phone
    call/lost sale answer which engineering explains can't possibly be
    satisfied because "it doesn't conform with standards".
    
    When the value placed on Sales and Marketing skills relative to
    Engineering skills rises in the company, the situation will change. Our
    customers have been quite explicit in what they expect from their
    vendors. May be we should invent a CCITT/ISO/OSF standard for attention
    to customers so that Engineering can understand how badly we do in that
    area. 

    re:.-1
    
    Tom Peters in his books makes the point that everyone wants excellent
    service and can recognize it when they get it.  For Federal Express
    they have made a competitve advantage out of it.  In other notes here
    we've outlined other companies that do.    Excellent service is
    consistently good service and when there's a problem, resolving it to
    the satisfaction of the customer.

RE: .41

>    How is it that we have too many DEC people show up at customer meetings
>    and the perception of shallow support?
  
     Because customers do not always value "meeting participation". If they
     can meet with ONE Digital person and get a problem solved, then
     we have done a great job. If 20 people show up and one solves the
     problem, then they walk away thinking, "Gee that one person was 
     pretty smart ... who were all those other clowns?"

     I think IBM just may use resources more wisely than we do, giving
     the customer the ONE (two, three, or whatever) people they need
     at the point in time when they need them. Jamming 20 "Big Shots" 
     into a room to impress the customer is stupid. Applying the person
     you need at the time you need them is the trick.
  
>    How is it DEC has THE HIGHEST COST OF SALES IN THE INDUSTRY, that
>    we spend more on selling as a percent of Revenue than any other
>    company and have the perception of shallow support.

     I think it has something to do with the fact that we usually try to
     outnumber our customers by at least a 2:1 margin at all meetings
     and presentations.

;^)

/se


    

    RE .50
    
    This is the comment I was fishing for; that IBM uses its resources more
    wisely than DEC. The next logical question is, "How do we deploy our
    resources in a wiser, more efficient way? I didn't get the support for
    commissions that I thought I would (perhaps those reps that would
    support the idea are too busy to read this). In any case, I believe
    we can be more effective with the resources we have; but how?
    
    Also, in .42 you mentioned all the hurdles in place to keep a sales rep
    from getting his or her job done. Can you list a few? Perhaps posting
    them will be the first step to removing them. Are they already listed
    in this conference?                            

    The Digital sales world is changing even as we read this file. The
    letters P&L will mean something to us, in sales, in the very near future. 
    The vision is to have "Customers Enthusiastic about DEC", and the goal 
    is to have "More Profitability" in the process of doing so.
    
    Our mission is to have a "Customer Focus", that gives our customers what 
    they want and need. We want to do this whilst we reduce costs and turn 
    into a company that operates as a "Customer Driven Organization". We
    will do this while we retain all our traditional digital values of honesty
    and integrity.
    
    We will aim to service our customers by selling them solutions that
    support their business needs. We will do this and still work for one of
    the best people orientated companies in the world.
    
    regards
    
    Eric H.
    

 
 Re .52

 How???

re: .53,

    	How indeed!  This is the same question which undoubtedly still
    reverberates throughout the evolving centrally-planned economies of
    Eastern Europe and Asia.  It all basically boils down to motivation.
    How do you motivate your employees?

    	There are basically two distinct schools of thought on this
    subject:

    1.  One school of thought attempts to motivate its work force
    	through the manipulation of wages in which the higher the overall
    	corporate profit, the higher the wages that can be paid to the
    	overall work force (and vice versa).  This school is based on
    	the notion of maintaining full employment at all costs in order
    	to maintain a higher level of worker morale.  In bad times, on
    	the other hand, everyone tends to suffer [theoretically equally]
    	under such a plan.

    2.	The other school of thought attempts to motivate its work force
    	through the threat of lay-offs.  In this environment, raises (as
    	well as the lack thereof) are based on the achievements of each
    	individual worker with commissions and bonuses quite commonly
    	awarded, and there is a constant pool of unemployed workers who
    	stand ready to take the jobs of those who underperform in their
    	jobs, as lay-offs are quite common.

    	Most corporations tend to implement a combination of the
    two schools of thought, but the general trend at DEC would seem
    to be that of moving away from a primarily school #1 base and
    towards that of school #2.

    	Myself, I sort of prefer the method used at Radio Shack to
    motivate its employees.  This method is called "Salary *or* Commission"
    (which ever is the greater of the two).  In this environment, the
    employee is guaranteed a base (almost subsistence) salary, but also
    has the potential to improve their income by selling so much as
    to surpass their salary and get paid based upon commissions instead.

    	The way this works is as follows: an employee earns a minimum
    wage of some sort each week (guaranteed income level).  Each time
    an employee is credited with a sale, a 5% commission on that sale
    is tallied towards that employee's weekly total.  At the end of the
    week, the total commissions are compared with the base salary, and
    the employee gets the larger of the two as their weekly wage.  In
    all the retail jobs I ever had, I don't think I was ever so motivated
    to sell as I was at that Radio Shack job.
    
    	Of course, not everyone is a sales person, so there are other
    factors involved, but I see no reason why the same principles can't
    be applied to other functions as well.  I still maintain that the
    ideal way to implement such an idea would be through the Info-Market
    approach outlined in note #1024, but then I always was an idealist!

    				    -davo

	re .54:

	There is a third school of thought which motivates employees by

	* Treating them like free adults AT ALL TIMES

	* Informing them fully

	* Consulting them appropriately

	* Giving them respect, including suitable praise when they do well
	  AND criticism when they do badly - without fail

	* Enlisting their enthusiastic cooperation, which can be gained only
	  by making them feel empowered, responsible, and recognised.

	As far as I know, this is McGregor's classic Theory Y.

	I used to sneer when managers said "money doesn't motivate". But
	they were right - it doesn't do a real good job. Lack of money
	will demotivate - but usually there is also lack of the things
	listed above. Both the strategies described in .54 use money
	to manipulate the employee in a harsh, uncaring, Theory X way.

	The trouble with Digital is that it expresses all the right
	sentiments (such as "our people are our greatest asset") - 
	just like other companies. But as soon as the pressure is on,
	it abandons those principles in practice, while endorsing them louder
	than ever verbally - just like other companies.

	Look at the Corporate Philosophy, with its simple, old fashioned values
	of quality, honesty, simplicity, and trust. If the majority of our
	managers and people understood and practised those values, we wouldn't
	need anything else.

	/Tom

    I would like to see a major move to an aggressive commission schedule.
    I see no reason in the world why a hot-shot DEC salesman should not be
    able to make 300-400K a year.  With that kind of income, he'll make
    sure he's got the resources he needs, even if it has to come out of his
    own pocket.  I know for a fact that CRAY salesman made 250K ten years
    ago, and distinctly remember a report on Wang in 1976...when 100K was
    common, and several sales folk were making over 200K.  We ain't
    serious.
    
    On VoiceMail (gag), I can just see a scenario in about five years when
    the whole g-d country experiences a complete telecommunication lock-up,
    with all these stupid systems talking to each other.  I'd throw them
    all out!!
    
    I really liked the "new management system" memo from Ken, until I read
    the part about business managers getting good, complete data on a
    weekly basis.  What a joke!  If Ken believes we have the processes,
    people, and systems to do just that piece of it....he has a serious
    disconnect with reality.  Our admin systems are horrible...and getting
    worse.  I "manage" millions of dollars of service income, and I have
    no idea at all what the real situation on my products is.....and I'm
    not alone.  Equally disturbing is the idea that Ken apparently thinks
    we can transition to this new system using the same bad actors who got
    us into this mess.  It's really scary.
            

re: .54,

	Geez!  And I thought I was idealistic?!  ;^)

	Seriously, I think what you have written looks good, and I can
    imagine it would make good copy for any number of DEC's many such
    loftily-worded personnel messages (i.e. DECpropaganda), but if you
    really want to follow your rule #2 ("Informing them fully"), then
    I think we'll all have to return to earth orbit for a momment and
    take a long hard look at the facts of [corporate] life.

	Let's face it, aside from those of us here who have either won
    Megabucks, struck oil in their backyard, or inherited a titanium
    mine, we all have rent or mortgages along with oodles of other such
    bills to worry about paying each month.  This means that unless we
    take home some sort of satisfactory income from this wonderful job,
    that we will end up on the streets.  Furthermore, since money doesn't
    grow on trees, this means that we are constantly motivated to earn
    those wonderful greenbacks that put food on the table and which seat
    us at tables in the relative comfort of a home.

	Therefore, while it may be that many of us are suitably well off,
    classy, or downright brainwashed enough to think that money is not an
    effective motivator, then I need only remind these folks that unless 
    they live in Utopia-ville, that the food, housing, and life support
    systems which they depend upon for their very existence depend upon
    this capitalistic evil known as "money".  Try removing these things
    from your own family and see how long you remain unmotivated!

	Call it "Theory X" if you wish, but unless you can generate an
    almost religious fundamentalism in your work force (which, by the way,
    is yet another management theory), then you're going to need to use
    some sort of monetary behavior modification method or another if you
    want to motivate your people.  The point is, in these relatively tough
    times, money talks and, well...you know the rest of the story.

				   -davo

    When I'm "underpaid", I'm motivated to fix that.  In general this means
    that I'm motivated to change jobs/companies.  It seems extremely
    unlikely that I'll solve my financial difficulties by staying put and
    working harder.
    
    When I'm "adequately paid", the possibility of additional money can be
    motivating, but a **GOOD** manager is a far better source of
    motivation.  Unfortunately, many people don't feel they have good
    management so money's their best shot and in these times, there's
    never enough money to go around.
    
    And when I'm "overpaid", well, ur, ummm, I don't know... I've never
    been "overpaid" ;-)
    
    Rich

>                     <<< Note 1373.56 by COOKIE::LENNARD >>>
>                                -< Poor Ken!! >-
>
>    I would like to see a major move to an aggressive commission schedule.
>    I see no reason in the world why a hot-shot DEC salesman should not be
>    able to make 300-400K a year.  With that kind of income, he'll make
>    sure he's got the resources he needs, even if it has to come out of his
    
    I would like a more aggressive commission schedule.  I see no reason in
    the world why a a hot-shot Product Team (5x5, 6x6, whatever) should not
    be able to make 300-400K a year.  With that kind of income, they'll
    make sure...
    
                ...that the bloody products they bring to market WILL SELL!
    
    I don't care HOW good a salesperson you are, you cannot (for long) sell
    what you don't have.
    
    We STILL do an incredibly effective job of bringing real pieces of junk
    to market (this VT1000 I am hammering on is a prime example) along with
    the quality products (ie, VAX 4000).  Let's reward the winner product
    teams with $$$$$ and the losers with an opportunity to develop products
    in another company.
    
    More in line with today's problems, find the consistent winners and
    give them MORE development money (it's called a low-risk investment);
    find the consistent losers and give them a pink slip (it's called
    expense reduction).
    
    FWIW
    
    Dave

I agree that additional monetary incentives will help, but the PRIMARY problem
is as stated a few notes ago: 

The Sales Force does not feel empowered and spends most of its time 
fighting with the rest of Digital and struggling with the administrative 
processes and tools!

When we fix that, we'll be VERY successful and all those who deserve it will 
get monetary incentives in the form of better and more frequent salary 
increases.

Today we have the SP2 program (recently improved, I believe) and other 
incentive programs for the Sales force... So a hard-working sales rep who gets 
results can increase their income substantially. Their annual income may not 
reach six figures, but its a start.

Jim

    re: .60
    
    The sales force is not the only part of Digital that spends time
    struggling with administrative processes.  I recently learned that
    even our product manager does not have a complete list of customers 
    who have bought our product.  While Europe is 45% of our sales,
    he only gets breakdowns by country, not by customer, and even the
    per country listings aren't always available.
    
    A few years ago, when I was acting as a product manager, I couldn't get
    a complete list of DECsystem-10 customers who also had IBM 360s for
    a survey: I was designing a gateway product and wanted to find out
    what customers wanted in such a product.  I think I ended up with only
    nine customer names.
    
    I think there's something rotton in our administrative systems if we
    don't even know who our current customers are.
    
    Sorry for the flame; this pushed one of my hot buttons.
        John Sauter

    re .1 -- John, we really don't even have admin systems.  I'm looking at
    a service report out of Europe, that lists Media and Documentation
    Update Service (MDDS) contracts sold to customers on a  SW
    product THAT HAS NO MEDIA OR DOCUMENTATION!!  I'll bet the product
    manager for General Mills for Wheaties can pull up data that is current
    as of the close of business the previous day on manufacturing costs,
    quality, sales cut anyway you want it, expenses, forecasts, etc. etc.
    We can get poop-poo-caa-caa.  I get a smattering of general misleading
    data about mid-quarter on the previous quarter, and that's only from
    the U.S....forget Europe and GIA.  I've sat in a dozen meetings in
    the past few years where urgent presentations were made for dramatic
    improvements in our admin systems.  Senior management nodded sagely,
    and deferred decision until "next fiscal year", when "the numbers
    might be better".  You do not get rewarded in this company for spending
    money to improve things administratively....you get rewarded for making
    your numbers, which I also happen to know are 50% crap and fudging, but
    not one has good enough data to challenge what's happening.
    
    Sp2 is a farce...what is the max, 18K?  I'm talking real money.
    
    Also agree that product teams should get dramatic bonuses...50-75-100K!
    Product teams turning money-losers loose on our customers should be
    ousted, quickly.  Once again, the problem is we don't really know
    which are good and which are bad.  Everything works on an allocation
    basis, and by the time it gets to the Executive Committee level, every-
    thing looks great.
    
    Whew!!!.........Dick                                   
    

    re: .62
    
    Look on the bright side: maybe the report is accurate.
    Maybe there's a salesperson out there somewhere who can sell Media and
    Documentation Update Service on software products which have no media
    or documentation, just in case they ever do, and still maintain a high
    level of customer satisfaction.
    
    If it's true we need more such salespersons.
        John Sauter

    ...yeh, that's kinda in line with a new telephone support service I
    was thinking of creating...it's very aggressively priced for customers
    who have no phones.
    
    Our sloppy (read non-existant) admin systems are mostly a result of
    30 years of run-away product acceptance, high growth, and good profits.
    We really didn't need to know what was going on.  We desparately need
    to know now, but no one is going to spend the bucks....sigh....

    Regarding the Media and Documentation services for products that
    required no initial H-kits; I'm assuming you might have been referring
    to VMS......  DECNET, VAXCLUSTER SW etc. are part and parcel of the
    VMS media....the license enables those products.  I've been yelling
    and screaming since I've been with RSS that quoting MDDS for those
    products was a rip-off at best, but "felt" fraudulent to me.
    
    About a month ago we received notification from country SPS that
    MDDS on these products was being retired immediately.....but when
    I think of the customers who have been paying for MDDS on those
    products for a couple of years....arrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
    
    Our group as no evidence that all our yelling and screaming made a
    difference on the decision, but I'd like to think we did.
    
    Karen
    

    No...it wasn't one of those....but similar.  I agree we often stretch
    the limits of "legality" with a lot of our SPS contracts.  Like update
    service, etc., on layered products that we really have no intention of
    ever updating again...Oh well.

    A footnote on human behavior:  I refuse to believe that Twentieth
    Century Man can withstand a ringing phone.  When we read stories of
    phones unanswered for twenty minutes or an hour or whatever, I am sure
    the phone was not connected or not heard.  It sure wasn't ringing in
    someone's office.

    I have had instances of "Phantom" phones that have rung when people
    tried to call in. Fortunately they escallated the issue and I found the
    problem.
    
    It seems that if you unplug the phone it will still give a ringing 
    sound to the caller. The explanation that I was given/demanded,
    was that the "Computer does not know that there is not a phone in the
    wall jack?". Hmmmm!. 
    
    I now have all my phones bounce to a person, a tape or voicemail. The
    capability is there. It is up to managment to make sure that it is set
    up that way. 
    
    I also wish that every persons direct number had an alternative
    secretary or managers number to call. Elf could make these fields
    compulsory. It would not, of course address the external calls but a
    "bouncing" system would.
    
    Getting people to return calls is entirely another issue...
    
    reagrds
    
    Eric H.
                        

After being in the field for almost 8 years, most of it being married 
to a Sales Unit Manager, I've gotten an interesting perspective on what 
motivates our sales force.

I don't think money is a mitigating factor.  Take it from me, your 
average sales rep does not get rich off this company.  If they wanted to 
make the major $$$$$ they would be with somebody else.  However, Dec is, 
or rather used to be, a very comfortable and secure company to sell for 
and that's not all badness.  When you consider that the average selling 
cycle for a Vax 9000 is upwards of 2 years, you need to reward the sales
rep who is willing to spend the time and take the risk that long-range
selling engenders...and make no mistake, this company did not become 
successful from short term sales.

So how do we reward our sales force?  If they make 100% of their budget, 
he and the missus (pardon the stereotype) get to spend a weekend in 
Area headquarters listening to VP's telling them what a great job they 
did.  By the time they get done paying for the rental car, hiring a 
babysitter for the 1.5 kids and boarding the family mutt, it costs more 
than it's worth.  Then if they're really good, they get to do it all 
over again for a whole week!!  I can't tell you how many times I've 
heard salespeople complain that DEC100 and Decathalon are punishments, 
not rewards.

So why not make money a motivating factor?  SP2 is a start, but as 
another noter state, it's not nearly enough.  Rather that scrap the 
salary structure and institute a commission, why not create a better 
bonus system?  If I remember correctly, Dec pays $5000 to send a sales 
rep to Dec100 and $15,000 to send them to Decathalon.  That,coupled with
SP2 would provide a good sales rep with a good chunk of bonus money, yet
wouldn't encourage short term, quick sales which would eventually run 
this company into the ground.

And while I'm playing Ken For A Day, let's get rid of this internecine
rivalry between organizations.  I was at a meeting last year where a 
program was discussed to replace our customers 780's and 785's with 
newer, more cost effective technology.  A sale manager requested a list 
of all of the current 780 owners within the district from the Field 
Service manager and the bozo refused to give it to him, telling him to 
find the information for himself.  Seems the F/S manager didn't want to 
lose the service revenue from those costly old dinosaurs, even though it 
meant a better solution to the customer.

Moral of the stories: until we stop giving lip service to customer 
satisfaction and make our customers, both internal and external, our 
main reason for coming to work every day, we're going to get the 
results, year after year, that are reflected in the base note.



Sandy

    
    Re: .69
    
    Some very good points here, particularly the one regarding the selling
    cycle for a VAX 9000.
    
    I'll relate briefly a story told to me by the person who experienced
    it.  He was at a DEC function with customers.  Sitting to his right
    was the Xerox account manager for the DEC account.  He asked this fellow
    from Xerox what happens to an AM at Xerox who doesn't make budget.
    The Xerox fellow said that in Xerox such a question doesn't make 
    sense by answering this way: "In my last account at Xerox, I only
    made 50% of my budget, but I received a bonus and a promotion to
    manage the DEC account.  Why?  Because Xerox does a customer
    satisfaction survey each year.  The year he got the bonus and
    promotion, he won running away among all Xerox AM in the customer
    satisaction survey. 
    
    For DEC reps who need to spend 2 years trying to sell a product,
    we need a way of measuring how well they are working with the
    customer along the way and giving them credit for that.
    
    fwiw,
    Steve
     

    RE: Last 2 (.69 and .70)
    
    Both excellent replies.
    Right on the mark.
    
    /se

    re: .69
    
    A minor nit, but those that can't do, NOTE and those who can't NOTE
    complain about everything in DIGITAL.NOTE (or something like that!!!)
    and those who complain like to dump on recognition programs.  Your
    dollar figures on DEC100 and DECathalon (Circle of Excellence) are off
    by almost an order of magnitude.  I don't know where you got them, but
    I certainly travel in the same circles as your spouse and can state
    unequivocally that they are nowhere near the amounts you mention.
    
    So there...
    
    Al
    

    re: .61
    
    >>...struggling with administrative processes...product manager does not
    >>have a complete list of customers...breakdowns by country, not by
    >>customer... I think there's something rotton in our administrative
    >>systems if we don't even know who our current customers are...
    
    This is a very serious problem for my group.  We do over half our
    business overseas, and our single biggest overseas customer (according
    to the reports we get from Digitals databases) is Digital UK, followed
    closely by DEC Germany.  
    
    We have one person on our staff who is spending the majority of her
    time calling country managers and badgering them to tell us who our
    customers are.  Sometimes they won't tell us, citing national laws
    which restrict passing information across international borders.  What
    a great use of our (very limited) resources.
    
    We do about 20% of our business in Japan, but our resident bean counter
    won't acknowledge that business, since it's not in any database she
    ever heard of.  We have the facts, (how many licenses are sold, the
    approximate revenue, etc.), but she doesn't want to be confused by the
    facts, so our revenue stream is undercounted by approximately 20%.
    
    It's pretty sad when the bean counters can't even count the beans...
    

    I just read the entire file and found some very interesting things,
    both positive and negative.  The base note seemed to be talking about
    Customer Perceptions - yet we got into discussions all over the globe,
    frequently forgetting the Customer's Perceptions.  I have been with DEC
    about 18 mos. in a Sales Support role.  I started in data processing as
    a user over twenty-five years ago.  I first bought a S360 in 1969 and
    since that time have purchased IBM, Tandem, Stratus, Sperry, Burroughs,
    and Amdahl hardware, plus timesharing of CRAY, GE and Honeywell.  Point
    I am making is that I have a great deal of customer experience, in 
    banking, engineering, manufacturing and public employee sectors.  In
    that entire experience I have no opinion of DEC Salesman - I never had
    one call on me or respond to an RFP.  In addition to the companies I 
    listed there are many pitches I have heard from companies that no
    longer exist - but never DEC.
    
    Now, I think our products are better than most of the others (I like
    Non-Stop SQL), and I have seen our sales force in action. I have not
    seen them act like IBM, where one month after I moved to a new city,
    two hundred miles from my last employer and in a different industry my
    IBM salesman called and took me out to lunch.  During lunch he told me
    that his high school age son was on the High School baseball team and
    he had heard that I had some experience in player development and could
    I help him improve?  I had not met the man and he hit me in my most
    vulnerable spot - I had coached American Legion/Semi-pro/Big League and
    sand-lot baseball for over 25 years, was new in town and had gone out
    to Fresno State to see if I could do some coaching just because of my
    love of the game.  He never told me how he found out, but the next
    saturday morning his son and I started working out, and you guessed
    correctly if you said that the IBM salesman was welcome in our business
    and in our home.  I believe you call it relationship selling.  My next
    move the IBM salesman called and invited me to play golf before I had
    met him - had been in town a week - and he had hit on love number two.
    
    My question is about the customer's perception when he has never met
    the Digital salesman???
    
    I working as hard as I can to get our story out.  It is a GREAT ONE, if
    we'll tell it and relate to the customer and solve his business needs.
    Hardware, incentives, sales support, telephones, etc. can contribute,
    or detract, but only if you relate to the customer, solve his business
    needs and tell your story.
    Daryl 
    

    RE .74
      **************GREAT RESPONSE**************
    
      That had to be one of the best and most positive notes I have ever
    seen in this file!
    
    
    				Keep selling a solution,
    				Steve M..

	We have the network that SHOULD make the kind of response IBM has 
    possible AND WE DON'T USE IT!!!!!  Does anybody know how we can change 
    this?

    
    Re .75
    
    That was a great note! 
    I have always believed that sales are made through this kind of
    activity, and it's great to hear it from the customer perspective.
    
    Why don't we do this?
    
    I believe that we JUST DON'T THINK THIS KIND OF THING IS IMPORTANT!
    It's not important enough to be included when our salespeople
    are taught how to work within Digital. In sales, if you aren't
    metriced on it you don't do it. If you personally can't book it,
    you don't spend time on it. There is no gain to an individual
    salesperson if they spend time bothering to CARE. So it doesn't
    happen. We are not metriced on teamwork, cross-regionally, so
    it doesn't happen. While one regions' gain is anothers loss,
    we have no incentive to work together.
    "Being nice" and "bothering" with these "details" are seen as
    not only not valued, but actually contrary to the way a
    salesperson should be!
    "What is he going to spend, and when? You don't know? He's not
    planning to spend before quarter close? I'm a busy sales rep -
    my time is valuable, and unless you tell me $ I am not interested.
    Why are you telling me about this guy - get off my line and don't waste 
    my time..(slam)"
    
    We have become too arrogant to believe in "the personal touch".
    We have lost sight of one of the key basics of selling....
    IMO.
    
    'gail

    REF:  <<< Note 1373.77 by YUPPY::DAVIESA "Phoenix" >>>
         
    >><<We have become too arrogant to believe in "the personal touch".>>
    
    A correct assessment typical of many companies.  And it is imbedded
    deep within the culture and operating philosophies of organizations,
    which is then manifested in literally all actions by most employees.
    
    Succinctly stated, it is the difference of belief practiced by a
    company, i.e.:  I will make MONEY by making and offering quality
    products and services, as I define them, doing so at the least cost,
    
    VERSUS
    
    I will satisfy specific customer wants and expectations with my
    resources in specific product and service areas AND in all employee
    activities, with focused constant change on improving all products,
    services and activities as they relate to customers and satisfaction,
    and as a CONSEQUENCE of doing "this" BETTER than other companies, the
    winning of customers, customer loyalty and lots of revenue, margin and
    profit will be a natural outcome.
    
    MANY "preach" the latter philosophy but in fact practice the former.
    

    
    Re: .78
    
    You're quite right.
    
    Among those economists held in high regard, most are in agreement
    that companies that don't start actually practicing the latter and
    not paying just lip service to it will have great difficulty surviving
    into the 21st century.  The intensifying competition is quickly making
    all markets into buyer's markets.
    
    Steve
    

    I think that one thing which has NOT been mentioned in this string is
    the simple fact that the vast majority of the DECsalesForce  W A N T S
                                                                 ---------
    to do what's right ... think strategically ...return phone calls ...
    take responsibility .. understand the customers business needs ...

    Yes, I honestly believe that DEC has some of the best sales people in
    the industry .. they can't do what they really want to ... however,
    when I'm in a position to do something, you can bet that I will do it.

    When I'm in charge ... you'll have very little trouble getting a
    terminal to set on your desk .. you'll have no problems ordering a
    stapler .. you'll have no problems getting resources ...

    ...you will have one hell of a time if you hold "mandatory attendance"
    sales meetings ... If I see 10 sales representatives in a room, all day
    long, I'll add up their (loaded) salary, and, you'd best be able to
    justify the use of that money .. both tactically and strategically,
    both long term and short term.

    ...you will have one hell of a time when you want more paperwork from
    the sales force ... when you send out a form to be filled out - you'd
    damned well better be able to justify it.

    ...you will be in deep trouble with me if I check the sales expenses
    vouchers and find that they are NOT spending time with customers (I
    have seen some sales representatives go for a YEAR and never take a
    customer to lunch).

    There's a lot more ... 

    I've been at selling for MotherDEC for 14 years now ... as I look back
    at some of the more non_sales_related_time_consuming elements that a
    sales person had to contend with 14 years ago ... not a heck of a lot
    different then from now.

    Seems as though we've all had this discussion before ... I wonder if
    y'all will be having this discussion 14 years from now ... 

    How long ... oh Lord ....

    Jerry
    
    PS - look at the next resonse for an "example" of what I'm talking about.

    What is to come?  Sit down Nancy (author of the base note) because you
    may not like this.

    In my area of responsibility (Bakersfield, California) I have a large
    number of oil companies.  Exxon, Arco, Shell, Texaco, Mobil, Chevron,
    and Occidental International...to mention a few.  These are major sites.

    Now, under the new "sales plan" (for FY92) that I've heard about, the
    corporate account managers are chartered to plan and "buy" resources to
    support their accounts.

    Suppose that a corporate account manager "buys" a fraction of me to
    handle Texaco, Mobil, and, Occidental.  Suppose that the Shell account
    manager, who is located in Dallas, decides not to support any fraction
    of me to call on Shell in Bakersfield.

    Now, Shell (locally) calls me to come out and talk about *something*,
    be it an upgrade to his 6000 or some workstations  (the subject matter
    is of no consequence for purposes of this discussion).  I am not
    chartered (i.e., budgeted) for Shell Oil ... guess what I'm going to do
    Nancy ... take a wild guess:

    		"Thank you for your inquiry.  Your account is being
    		handled from the Dallas, Texas office [2,000 miles
    		and two time zones distant] and I'll have them contact
    		you concerning your inquiry"

    How do I know that I'll do this?  Because I've already asked as to how
    I should handle this type of situation.  The sad part is that I'm
    (literally) located within walking distance of their offices.  Sure, I
    could put on my corporate hat and walk over to sell them a million
    dollars in hardware ... but ... I will get  Z E R O  certs for that
    sale ... it's not on my goal sheet.  From a measurement prespective I
    will be a failure.  That is what any potential salary increases are
    based on...DEC-100...DECathlon...advancement ... DEC has a happy
    customer, and, I'm a failure?  There's something wrong with this
    picture!

    Suppose I hold some sort of DECdays function for my accounts .. do I
    invite the other oil companies?  Not hardly - I don't even know the
    "contacts" in those companies .. they're handled from another location.
    
    I could find out, invite them, devote my time toward some accounts
    which may generate revenue for DEC ... the customer may end up happy ..
    but I'm a failure since I'm chartered for SPECIFIC accounts, why,
    because I'm funded to do so.

    I've always tried to be a very strategic sales person ... one of the
    most significant elements of that is the very basis of customer
    satisfaction ... any customer will buy a relationship long before he
    buys your product.  I have been rather unsuccessful at 2,000 mile
    relationships in my personal life .. well .. maybe DEC knows something
    that I don't know.

    I'm worried, but, somewhat of a survivor .. maybe it will all work out
    in the long run, but, at what price?  I repeat my last entry in this
    string ... how long oh Lord?

    Jerry

    
    
    	Your right it doesn't sound like the right way to conduct sales...
    
    	Having been in it for 14 years what do you think the right way 
    	to do it is ?
    
    
    						Mike
    						----

    
    SALES::RULES_OF_THE_ROAD:$USER[GENERAL]ONE_OF_MANY.RULES;1
    
    People buy from people.
    
    Customers will always say NO. They will say yes when they have the
    RIGHT buying information.  Selling is the process of getting the
    customer the information to make the buying decision. Therefore SELLING
    doesn't start till the customer says NO!        
    
    Salespersons become people when they help the customer 

I'm a member of the Xerox Corporate Account Team and our FY92 Account plan has 
the majority of the Sales Support resources in Rochester, NY, with a few 
tenths of a person at various locations, such as LA, where there is a 
concentration of Xerox sites.

I just spent two weeks in LA and plan to spend more time there in the coming 
year to support the account. I live at Xerox in Rochester and am getting to
know it as well as Digital (where I've worked for 13 years). I'm not thrilled
about being away from my family for long periods of time, but I know I am
better prepared to support Xerox than someone local who may not deal with them
very often. I'm sure each customer and compnay has their own idiocyncracies 
and it is my opinion that only people who work with and partner with the
customer on a regular basis will be suitably prepared to support them in the 
competitive environment of the 1990s.

Regards,

Jim
Sales Support

    RE: .84

	Let me see if I understand this. Because you know the company
	you can support an individual office that you only talk to a couple
	of times a year better then someone who sees that office weekly
	but only gets to know that office? And you can do it more cost
	effectively? This is the claim of the people Jerry is talking to.
        Heck of a theory.

	You say that "only people who work with and partner the customer
	on a regular basis will be suitably prepared to support them." You
	can do that for a customer in LA from NY better then a sales rep
	in LA? And as cost effectively? Heck of a theory. What about
    	building up a relationship with the customer, learning their needs and
    	problems? I can see being an order taker but sales in the 90s is
    	a lot more then that.

	Somehow I'm skeptical. Perhaps its just because I've seen so many
	good sales people get in and learn a bunch of companies inside and
	out. Perhaps it's because I've seen salespeople who live at the main
	office lose sales because a remote site would rather deal with someone
	local. Or because that site had different needs and personalities
	then the main office. Lots of companies have a culture that's very
    	different in the field then it is in the main office. Look at DEC!

			Alfred

    What Xerox has in Southern California can by no stretch of the
    imagination be called a _field_office_.  Trying to support it from New
    York is the height of craziness!  This is a major installation and on
    its own is a large customer!

    Sandy

From: clarinews@clarinet.com (ALAN GERSTEN, UPI Business Writer)
Subject: IBM chief blasts his employees
Date: 29 May 91 19:25:49 GMT
 
	NEW YORK (UPI) -- Troubled by falling sales, declining income and
employee performance, John Akers, chairman of International Business
Machines Corp., blasted some of his managers earlier this month, IBM
confirmed Wednesday.
	``Mr. Akers has been talking to management for a while, and the
message is that we need to improve,'' said Peter Thonis, an IBM
spokesman in Armonk, N.Y. ``We need to execute better than we have.''
	``The message is to let management know what is expected of them,''
Thonis said.
	Publicly, IBM, the world's biggest computer maker, blamed its
problems on the recession. Privately, Akers told IBM managers the
company had ``too many people standing around the water cooler waiting
to be told what to do,'' according to notes of his remarks.
	Parts of Akers' message have filtered outside IBM, but the most
detailed version came in the notes an IBM manager, Brent Henderson, took
at a small group seminar Akers addressed earlier this month. Akers spoke
to the Advanced Management School, IBM's best and brightest, a group of
about 20 managers in Armonk.
	Henderson, who was unavailable for comment, apparently thought he was
circulating the notes to IBM employees in his area.
	However, the notes spread via the electronic mail system and were
obtained by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
	Thonis said he couldn't confirm every word in the notes, but ``I can
confirm the tone of (Akers') message.''
	In the first quarter, IBM had a net loss of $1.73 billion due to
sagging business, unfavorable exchange rates and a new accounting
charge. Analysts said IBM is losing market share to clone makers, which
charge less for their computers.
	IBM entered the personal computer market in 1981 and quickly became
the market leader, a position it still holds, but competitors have
chipped away at IBM's lead. IBM also has many competitors for its
mainframe computers.
	IBM's overall worldwide market share has fallen to 23 percent from 37
percent, which it had in 1983.
	Against that background, IBM has introduced new products, cut prices
and promised to remain ahead of competitors.
	Akers is 3 1/2 years away from IBM's mandatory retirement age of 60 and
is beginning to talk in terms of his legacy.
	``The fact that we're losing market share makes me goddamn mad. I
used to think my job as a (sales) rep was at risk if I lost a sale. Tell
them theirs is at risk if they lose one,'' the Journal quoted Akers as
saying at the management meeting.
	``I'm sick and tired of visiting plants to hear nothing but great
things about quality and cycle time and then to visit customers who tell
me of problems. If the people in labs and plants miss deadlines ... tell
them their job is on the line, too,'' the notes said, according to the
Journal.
	The company has too many sales representatives ``popping out for
coffee with their customer and calling it a call,'' the Times quoted the
notes as saying.

~~~~ FLAME WHITE HOT ~~~~~~~

from someone who is an engineer and used to be in the field, AT customer
sites listening to their complaints.

How about:

	1) For XEROX (as an example) there be two account teams, (or
	   two half teams) which focus on  their respective XEROXs
	   (New York and Southern California) AND COMMUNICATE WITH
	    EACH OTHER.

	2) How about we have distributed account support, we have a
	   wonderful network. Then people like Jerry could service
	   their local customers WITH THE SUPPORT AND ADVICE OF THE
	   TEAM IN TEXAS. 

These must be awful ideas, they would:

	1) Have a local, familiar salesperson face for the customer

	2) Focus on the cultural differences (a NY suit going
	   to southern California is akin to sending a Frenchman to
	   Japan when it comes to area cultures }8-)} )  (Ask Brian
	   Reid about his "business suits".)

	3) Be cost effective (cutting down on travel expenses).  What
	   is the possibility that the NY-Southern Cal travel expences
	   equal at least one full time SENIOR sales salary.

	4) Make the local salesperson feel useful (no you cann't go
	   across the street, the account rep will fly in from 
	   Timbucktu)

THIS IS A BLOODY CROCK

I lived on a customer site for 4.5 years.  The local office did several
million in business.  Their corporate headquarters was in Canada.  We
were lucky that all support did not have to come from Canada since the
customers local site was fairly autonomus.

BUT

IN THE 4.5 YEARS THERE WERE 4 CHANGES OF SALESPEOPLE AND 3 CHANGES OF
SALES ORGANIZATION (those they could buy from).  Because of this and
the fact that a sales call was "Is there anything you want today?" they
started to do business with other vendors (SUN, APPLE, etc) and were
busy evaluating others.  We haverecovered some, the customers local
office is gone, and the people were moved to the American Corporate
headquarters where most of the products they were creating using out
equipment are in endlife.  Is this a win ?   Could we, with better,
distributed, coordinated service have made this branch MUCH more
successful.

From one who was included in the customers advanced development team
(and was moving them FROM U*X to VMS and would have succeeded with
better support) even though I worked for DEC, you have a resounding YES.
We could have had a major influence on the product line, if there had
been anyone, over time, listening.


~~~ FLAME OFF ~~~~

We have GOT to get away from domains, everyone owns the sale, even me.

We have GOT to get away from "my turf stay away" to "Yes I can help
you make you and me successful"

Many grand and glorous organizations have gone down in grand and
glorious flames (Rome comes to mind).

    re: .88
    
    Well said.  There is clear benefit to having CAM-type
    resources available while the local reps establish local
    relationships and provide strong input into the Account
    Plan.  And there has *got* to be some stability somewhere
    along the line...
    
    Joel
    

Let me clarify a few things (as I call AMEX to make arrangements for another 
trip to LA).

The Xerox Team does have a local Sales Rep in the LA area. The majority of the 
Sales Support will be coming from Rochester, NY. Local (LA) Sales Support
resources may be used in particular cases, but relatively few are budgeted
(5-7 tenths of a person). 

I agree that its kinda weird supporting a customer this way, but there are 
some advantages and I'm going to give it my best shot. As we move into FY92, I 
expect this whole philosophy and the process it brings will be refined and 
adjusted so that we're closer to "doing the right thing".

Regards,

Jim