Forced Department Switch!

Currently at Rogers I work in Cable Fulfillment, which is a fairly easy position most of the time.

You have a 50/50 chance of getting either a dealer or a customer on the phone. With dealers/retailers they just spat a bunch of information at you while you setup an account for them and add services to it for the customer. Sometimes you get some real jerks calling in who treat you like dirt (there are dealers who have the same problem with reps so...). You get the ones that have no idea what they're doing, or they have NONE of the customer's info so it takes you 3x as long to get through the call, or finally they try to use a promotion that the customer isn't eligible for and then argue with you about it for 10 minutes. If you get the last rep, sometimes they will hang up in a huff, or other times they will pretend to understand, but they will (I'm going to stab at 100% of the time) call back at some point to try and get the promo added on via another rep. They think we don't write notes on the accounts or something, haha, fools!

Then there are the customers, which are pretty good most of the time. The only real downside (and I would say is at no fault to our customers) the new retail promo we have for HD is disappointing due to a 1 year commitment latched on to it. Most customers become pretty unhappy about that, I can't really blame them. Anyways, customers are fine because then we can sell them things and most of the time they aren't rude, they expect you to be there to help!

OK, so this week many of us were notified that we were being recognized as being in the top 20% in sales in our department (wow...). What does this mean for us? We are being moved to "Converged Sales" where we will be expected to sell, sell, sell and meet some ridiculous sales targets. Personally, I'm not a sales person...really, really not! I'm not overly comfortable with it, and I definitely hate sounding pushy. So this is now my job, to be forced to go beyond my comfort level and get customers interested in our services.

There are pluses to working in Sales of course...
- never have to work Sundays (until they change that...)
- never work past 9pm (this makes me very happy)
- still make the same salary
- potential to make more due to sales (maybe not a plus for me)

And there are negatives as well...
- no more quarterly bonuses (I was really hoping for those, although they seem to not exist,lol)
- have to meet certain targets in order for our sales to count for anything
- constant stream of calls (whereas now we are so relaxed)
- there are others I can't think of, lol

Our training starts on Monday and we'll have to work 4-midnight for 7 days. I'll get over that, no big deal, even though for some strange reason Alex seems to have all 11:30-8's aside from one shift over that time. What are the odds!

I am a little apprehensive about this move to another department. It's not really a promotion per-se, it's just a move, so to me it's not a big deal in that respect as I really don't plan on having another job that has anything to do with selling anything. I'm worried about not making my targets and then being constantly pressured by my manager about it, trying to find out why I'm not selling things. I could tell the truth...I hate selling things, but regardless of what department I'm in, it plays a part in my position there, so I don't think the truth is relevant.

I guess we'll see how things go, and hopefully soon we'll find out a heck of a lot more, because so far, information as been lacking.

The other awesome part, my acting TM (she rocks) got me some time off for my move which if I stayed in fulfillment I would have NEVER gotten as there was no availability to do so!! Not even a slight possibility of getting them. So they're all booked and now I have almost 1 week off after I move. I might have to work 1 or 2 days the week after our closing, but I'm quite alright with that! =)

I will update with what I learn over the next week or so.