I’ve managed a lot of people in all kinds of dealerships over the years. The sales floor is a competitive environment filled with stressors, and each salesperson handles their stress differently. It’s the responsibility of management to provide guardrails on certain behaviors while still fostering a healthy, motivated team effort in delivering excellent customer experience.
I’ve had times where salespeople were so at odds with each other that it resulted in physical altercations, one that migrated outside to the alley behind the dealership. These events never end well – it always means one or more people are terminated immediately – but this particular one resulted in years of litigation.
My job as the auto group’s CFO was to mitigate employee behavior that might lead to altercations, whether verbal or physical. We had a great team that respected each other and our numbers proved that it’s possible to outperform competitors while maintaining a positive, supportive work environment.
Adversarial sales behavior
Arguments, disputes and misunderstandings happen and they are often the end result of a chain of events. The goal is to develop a culture where these negative adversarial behaviors are rare, and actions are taken long before they escalate.
Devising a strategy and taking action, including written policies, are super helpful from a company liability standpoint. And perhaps more importantly, disrespectful behavior alienates customers and there’s no good reason for it to ever happen. Who needs an added obstacle to sales? No one.
In a competitive sales environment like a dealership showroom, where salespeople sometimes view their fellow team members as adversaries, negative behavior can indeed spill over into customer interactions. This phenomenon is supported by several studies and analyses on sales behavior and internal marketing.
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Impact on Customer Experience
Customer-Oriented vs. Adaptive Selling Behavior
Salespeople’s behavior can be categorized into customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior.
- Customer-oriented selling behavior focuses on satisfying customer needs from the customer’s perspective, aiming for long-term relationships and customer satisfaction.
- Adaptive selling behavior is more aggressive and sales-oriented, focusing on short-term sales performance and individual salesperson success.
In a highly competitive environment where salespeople see each other as adversaries, there is a tendency to adopt more adaptive selling behaviors. This generally leads to aggressive sales tactics that prioritize immediate sales over customer satisfaction, potentially harming the customer experience.
Competitiveness does not mean aggressive behavior towards other human beings.
Toxic competition
Internal relationship marketing (IRM) refers to the strategies and practices that organizations use to build and maintain positive relationships with their employees. The primary goal is to create a motivated, engaged, and loyal workforce that can enhance overall organizational performance.
I have to admit, until I was researching this topic, I wasn’t familiar with this term “Internal relationship marketing.” I guess it’s because you just don’t run across it much in the dealership world. But, wow, anything that emphasizes the importance of employee satisfaction and its impact on customer experience has my attention.
High levels of employee satisfaction or “internal customer satisfaction” are associated with improved customer-centric behavior, which in turn improves customer satisfaction.
Healthy competition can motivate salespeople to perform better, but when toxic internal competition becomes entrenched, it can lead to several critical challenges, all of which are an obstacle to sales.
- Increased stress and turnover: A highly competitive environment can lead to higher turnover intentions, as employees may feel threatened or undervalued in a competitive climate.
- Decreased cooperation: Excessive or poorly managed competition can lead to decreased cooperation among team members and can undermine team cohesion and performance.
- Decreased intrinsic motivation: Individuals focus more on outperforming their peers rather than serving customers.
- Potential for unethical behavior: Intense competition can sometimes lead to unethical behaviors that damage the team’s integrity and the company’s reputation.
In an overly competitive environment where salespeople are adversarial, and the behavior is either ignored or encouraged by managers, internal customer satisfaction is lower, which leads to reduced customer focus. This negatively affects the quality of customer interactions, as employees may be more focused on outperforming their colleagues than on meeting customer needs.
Competing retailers and customer service
When the same product is available at every dealership within a reasonable driving distance, car buyers begin separating key differences between retailers. Dealerships known for providing a positive customer experience, responsive customer service and efficient vehicle maintenance gain a competitive advantage.
When salespeople believe they are in direct competition with each other, the quality of customer service suffers. The adversarial atmosphere leads to less collaboration and communication among team members, resulting in a disjointed customer experience.
Perhaps you’ve witnessed this or experienced this yourself. Customers want to feel like the entire organization is welcoming them and when collaboration and communication break down, the opposite happens.
Challenges for today’s dealerships
Current selling trends support a shift towards more consultative and personalized sales experiences. I come from high-line where selling vehicles has generally been a little more consultative, but now the entire industry has an opportunity to improve the buying experience for consumers.
High-pressure sales tactics are showing to be less effective, and in some cases off-putting, especially beyond the initial transaction, causing consumers to search for alternatives (and of course tell their friends and family).
In an overly-competitive sales environment there is a risk of reverting to high-pressure tactics to secure sales. This often leads to a negative customer experience, as customers may feel pressured and undervalued. This is NOT healthy competition.
Impact of adversarial behavior among salespeople
Adversarial behavior among salespeople can significantly impact overall team performance in several negative ways:
- Reduced overall productivity: Time and energy spent on internal conflicts and adversarial relationships is time not spent on productive sales activities, leading to decreased overall sales performance.
- Energy drain on management: Adversarial or hostile behavior often requires increased management intervention. Like my example earlier, salespeople with negative behaviors consume a disproportionate amount of their managers’ time and energy, taking focus away from productive activities and team development.
- Talent migrates to the competition: Top performers and rising stars become disillusioned with the lack of leadership in addressing adversarial behavior and choose to leave the organization.
- Toxic work environment: Adversarial behavior creates a negative atmosphere that leads to decreased morale, increased stress, and a less enjoyable work environment.
- Compromised customer relationships: Adversarial behavior within the team spills over into customer interactions, potentially damaging relationships and negatively impacting all sales outcomes.
Mitigating the negative effects of adversarial behavior
To address these issues and improve team performance, sales leaders should consider the following tactics to stop negative team behaviors before they happen:
- Implement Management By Walking Around (MBWA) to stay connected with team members and identify issues early.
- Address problematic behaviors promptly and consistently.
- Foster a collaborative and supportive internal culture that prioritizes excellent customer experience over individual sales performance.
- Provide clear expectations for both sales performance and behavioral standards.
- Recognize and reward positive team behaviors alongside individual sales achievements.
- Adding female salespeople to a male-dominated sales environment can positively influence team dynamics and mitigate or shift negative behaviors.
Don’t allow healthy competition to become toxic
In a competitive sales environment (showroom or service drive), where salespeople perceive their fellow team members as adversaries, negative/sales-obstructive behavior can indeed creep into customer interactions. This adversarial behavior leads to more aggressive sales tactics, reduced customer loyalty, and a decline in the overall quality of customer service.
We are again facing challenging times in auto retail. There is no good argument for adversarial sales behavior that impedes sales. By prioritizing customer experience and long-term relationships while still focusing on optimal sales performance, dealers can navigate these difficulties more effectively to build a stronger, more resilient foundation for future growth.
Controlling expenses is the #1 concern for dealers. Get your FREE DEALER SELF-ASSESSMENT to see how you measure up against manufacturer-specific benchmarks. Get it today!