Sales and Distribution Management at Ryder Truck Rental Leasing - Essay Example

Ryder Truck Rental Leasing is one of the major rental trucks leasing company in US which provides truck on lease to other parties along with commercial renting. The main contributor to the business of Ryder are companies who look at leasing trucks from Ryder as they don’t have their own fleet of trucks or requires extra fleet of trucks during peak times. The company has been consistently growing but over the last nine months some of the permanent customers have left the company and have started to work with their competitors due to poor service quality in the direction of trucks condition, delays, lack of coordination among the booking department, incorrect pricing mechanism and so on. This has impacted their business and the management looks to overhaul the present condition and is looking to bring the required changes so that the business can attract their old customers and provide the edge to their services for which customers problems are being understood. This essay thereby looks to evaluate the same from the perspective of three sales personnel so that the best one can be identified and the style of working can be gauged which will help to understand the long term prospect of the organization. Ryder Truck Rental Leasing was facing difficulties in carrying out the normal business and retaining customers because of the inefficient sales practices which was present in the organization. The different inferences which can be made based on the case with regard to the sales management practices at Ryder Truck Rental Leasing are Inability to understand the customer and their buying habits: Ryder Truck Rental Leasing was unable to understand the customer needs and requirements and was due to improper planning on the part of the sales person. Despite, having customers who have been associated with the company for a long period of time the sales person was unable to identify their buying habits which would determine the amount of trucks they would require at peak seasons and provide an opportunity to prepare for the same so that customers can be satisfied shows lack of ability to understand customer needs. Failure to price the services: Ryder Truck Rental Leasing shows a lack of ability to price their services correctly which makes it difficult for the customers to gauge the actual cost for the services. This at times results in under or over cost estimations and has an impact on the customer finances (Murray, 2010). The inability of the salesperson to calculate the final price creates doubts regarding the services and pricing which has affected the level of confidence and made customers look for other players who are able to provide a better estimate Failure to change with technology: Ryder Truck Rental Leasing also showed that the sales person were incapable to change with changing market situations which would have required that the sales person should have informed the top management regarding the depleting conditions of the trucks. This would have ensured that the required changes can be made to the trucks either by purchasing a new one or making changes to the old ones. This would have ensured that the same quality of service could have been continued and would have increased customer satisfaction but was instead lacking in the organization (Murray, 2010). Lack of proper management: Ryder Truck Rental Leasing also highlights a situation of improper management as the coordination between the sales person and other departments was lacking. This was one of the prime reasons which resulted in delays as even the bookings made by customers were not confirmed. This was aided by the lack of proper service quality standards which provided the required freedom to people to act according to their own whims and had an effect on the performance (Murray, 2010). The indifference attitude of the sales person and the lack of proper management within Ryder Truck Rental Leasing highlights that the organization was unable to understand and match the customer demands and requirements which affected the business. To get back their previous customers Ryder Truck Rental Leasing has looked to use their sales personnel and looks to persuade the customers to join back the company as quality service will be provided. Scott Eccles one of the sales people who have met Dan Kemp to influence him so that they can join back showed the following traits Enthusiastic: Scott denotes an enthusiastic trait as he believes that the service which he is looking to sell is of the finest quality and will provide different advantage to the customers. Scott believes that the company has undergone a lot of changes and will be able to satisfy the customers (Murray, 2010) Listening Skills: Scott shows listening skills as he looks to understand the problems that the customer has faced and based on it looks to pacify the customers by ensuring that such acts won’t be repeated in the future. Scott also ensures that the customer is provided sufficient time to highlight all the weakness and listens to all the problems of the customer Unable to persuade customer: Scott shows a lack in ability to persuade the customer towards their service because of the fact that the customers was previously dissatisfied with the services of the company. Scott was unable to persuade the customer to try the services at least once which will help to win back their confidence shows a lack of attitude in being able to sell the services by persuading the customers towards it (Anthony, 2003) Lack of Drive: Scott also shows a lack of drive as the sales person was unable to accomplish the task which was assigned to him. The job required that Scott should have won the confidence of the customer and persuaded him to try the services once but was unable to do so. This highlights a lack of drive and skills to be able to win customers (Murray, 2010) Lack of assertiveness: Scott also highlighted a lack of assertiveness as during the conversation with Kemp, Scott easily gave up and was unable to convince the customer. It highlights that Scott succumbed to the situation and showed a lack of skills in bringing a change in the style of thinking of the customers Thus, Scott shows lack of certain traits which a sales person requires. On the other hand looking at the traits demonstrated by Jim Harris another sales person involved in the same job and role shows the following Enthusiastic: Jim denotes an enthusiastic trait as he believes that the service which he is looking to sell is of the finest quality and will provide different advantage to the customers. This believe has helped him to ensure that even lost customers were persuaded to try the products once (Murray, 2010) Listening Skills: Jim shows listening skills as he looks to understand the problems that the customer has faced and based on it looks to pacify the customers by ensuring that such acts won’t be repeated in the future. Jim also ensures that the customer is provided sufficient time to highlight all the weakness and listens to all the problems of the customer Ability to persuade customer: Jim shows the ability to persuade the customer towards their service despite of the fact that the customers was previously dissatisfied with the services of the company. Drive: Jim shows drive to accomplish the task which was assigned to him. The job required that Jim should win the confidence of the customer and persuaded him to try the services once and was able to do so. This highlights the ability to win customers and people try their services (Fizel, 2001) Assertiveness: Jim also highlighted assertiveness as during the conversation with Kemp, Scott didn’t give up and was able to persuade the customer that the company has changed and the customer will be satisfied with the services. This helped Jim to attract the customer towards the services (Fizel, 2001) Focused: Jim was better focused and knew the final thing which he had to arrive was to win the customer back so that with future services the customer can be attracted and retained for the long term growth for the business and was able to do so highlights that he was focused on the job (Fizel, 2001) Thus, Scott & Jim denote different traits being carried out as a sales person. Comparing both the sales person based on their individual dealing shows that Jim will be more successful that Scott. This is because of the fact that Jim has some special characteristics of persuading the customers which Scott was unable to demonstrate. The fact that Jim was able to persuade the old and lost customers it will be easier for him to persuade new customers who haven’t tried the services of Ryder Truck Rental Leasing. Further, Jim was also showed that he had a firm belief that the company had changed and showed assertiveness which was not the case with Scott. Scott instead succumbed to the situation and was unable to win the customer back (Bateman & Snell, 2004). Jin should be successful because the different traits demonstrated by him is that of a successful salesman which was not the case with Scott and raises concerns regarding the long term success of Scott. References Anthony, R. 2003. Management Control Function. 2nd Edition, Harvard Business School Press, Prentice Hall, UK Bateman, T. & Snell, S. 2004. Management: The New Competitive Landscape. 6th Edition, McGraw Hill, New York Fizel, J. 2001. Does efficiency matters in managers. Journal of Management, 25 (4), pp. 567-585 Murray, A. 2010. What do managers do. The Wall Street Journal, Harper Business Review, Dow Jones & Company Inc Read More