Uncooperative
I have been at my company for just over a year (in sales) and have been subject to quite a bit of opposition from the women in our (very small) accounting department. They are very unwilling to do anything but data entry, ie - taking my sales order and directly entering them into our accounting system. If the most minuscule detail is left out (ie - a project number when I provided a serial number off of our equipment which in my company is interchangeable) the paperwork ends up right back in my office. When I have questioned this I have received nothing but resilience, to the point where I have heard, "that's not my job, it's yours" more times than I can count. Or the most recent example: I had a customer that wanted to pay us their 50% down for a piece of equipment I sold them but had yet to be invoiced. I do not handle invoicing/collections so I forwarded the email to the appropriate women in accounting while keeping the customer CC-ed and asked if she could provide some clarification as to why the invoice hasn't been sent. I get a phone call shortly after from this women in accounting who specified a few questions that needed to be asked of the customer before an answer could be provided. (why we need to question when someone wants to pay us, I will never understand) Now instead of paraphrasing what was necessary on her end I asked if she would mind simply answering the customer directly in the email chain between the three of us that I had created earlier. She responded with a quick and harsh no. When I asked why not the answer, as it always seems to be was, "that is not my job. It is your customer so answering them is your job." Can I express her questions to the customer? Of course. But why play middle man and paraphrase when you have an email ready to go between the three of us that you can respond to? Everywhere else I have worked this is how information is passed between departments. What is worse is that management knows and decides to ignore this in order to "keep the peace". This instances only scratch the surface of the resistance I have faced (and our sales team in general), however, I did want to see what others thought of the situation/advice for moving forward. I have never known of any company that allowed one employee say to another that something is not their job and refuse to help, especially when the questions being asked are not outside their realm of expertise.
I know nothing about sales but if something isn't their job or your job who's job is it? What do the other sales people do?
Mrs.Davis I have never been in Supervision, but I have worked with people unwilling to cooperate. The key to me was communication; understanding the relationships we have. Without becoming counter productive I would normally have to figure ways to work through the friction. Maybe check into Communications: books, websites. etc. sign, Details
Hi Morgan. The first thing that leaps out at me is the accounting department's proprietary notion of customer ownership. The customer isn't the exclusive property of the Sales Department, nor is the customer the property of ANY specific department. The customer is the COMPANY'S customer and everyone in every department should be doing everything they can to keep that customer happy, content and eager to come back to do more business, even if that means pro-actively modifying existing business processes to the annoyance and inconvenience of staff (who are there to WORK, by the way, not pass the buck). Secondly, the departmental compartmentalization and "not my job" attitude (what I call the "hot-potato passing game") is the result of managerial ambivalence to which I would ask management if the company was doing SO well financially in these economically challenging times that it can afford to risk losing customers because of some arbitrary, bureaucratic-imposed barriers and inter-departmental barricades? In most cases, management would respond "no". The other thing that leaps out at me is the accounting department's uncooperative attitude, which I suspect is attributable to something I call "periscope vision". I've a background in accounting and I will tell you that the people who gravitate to that field tend to be anal-retentive, detail-oriented, obsessive-compulsive personalities whose procedural inelasticity tends to border on rigidity. In a lot of ways, they are worse than cops (no offense intended to our law enforcement brethren). To most accountants, there is only ONE way to do something, and of course its their way. Any alternative or deviation is flat out WRONG, regardless of how much the company, or the customer, benefits by it. In short, they see all business through an accounting periscope equipped with GAAP lenses and FASB sharpness controls. So in a sense you're in a position not entirely unlike that of Sisyphus of Greek mythology (he was the guy who was condemned by the Gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again, for all of eternity). You're going to have to change the way the accounting department thinks, and that's not going to be easy insofar as it's going to require enlisting the active support of management. I think about the only thing you can do is point out the accounting department's obstinacy, intransigence and lack of "team-play" to upper management and how it risks losing customers to competitors who are more responsive and pro-active (if it hasn't already led to such a loss). Of course, that will cause friction with the accounting department and I'm sure they will do everything they can to make life difficult for you in return. In the end, unless you intend to stay with your current employer for a long time, I'm not sure that the game is worth the candle. If you're only going to be there for a year or two, you might be better advised to simply play the game the way the accounting department want's it played, let them hide in their bunker and collect your paycheck.
Hi there. Its the holidays...... people will do whatever to take that away from us! Well I am from Okla. Well now that u have the training, find another job, a better one! They're showing the company doesn't need your expertise. Challenge them on it, find another gig! U shouldn't stay there any longer, don't waste your time and talents! Please forgive me, I am one who wants to cut thru the B.S., not talkin' bout' Bible school either! It is well and good that one should attend.
Good luck!!!