Tesla sales staff are paid a flat fee for every car they sell, whether it’s a £100,000 model on finance and all the options, or a £50,000 entry model.
“We match the customer with the car and while the sales executive will get a bonus on the sale, we don’t push customers into the wrong car,” Ell said.
Getting away from the minimum wage
Ford franchisee Peoples makes a point of paying all staff above minimum wage and is looking to introduce a payment package for sales staff which features a higher basic and similar bonus structure.
Brian Gilda, Peoples’ group chairman and managing director, said: “We’re not going to reinvent the wheel with the package we’re looking at, but we need to bring things into 2014.
“Small basic and high on-target earnings packages will be a thing of the past, if nothing else because of how the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is looking at the way executives are bonused.
“A high volume of sales are through finance deals and the FCA does not feel comfortable with sales executives paid to hit a target. The FCA feels more comfortable with a group bonus, but those sales executives at the top will not thank you for it.”
Gilda said the John Lewis Partnership was a good model, but most dealer groups would not be in a position to structure their businesses in a way which would mimic it.
So while the low basic salary that has traditionally come with a motor sales role appears to cause some discomfort among industry senior figures, no clear, workable alternative is immediately evident.
A view from the High Street
Andrew McMillan, former head of customer service at John Lewis and principal at business consultancy Engaging Service, has spoken at AM events and worked with dealer groups to impart his experience of the best the High Street can offer.Asked what a new model would look like, he said: “You would offer a base salary that would be slightly greater than the shops, restaurants, banks and building societies are paying locally for customer-facing staff and thereby attract the best from those sectors.
“Service advisers, parts advisers and salespeople would all be on a similar base salary, but there would be pay bands, discussed and agreed at an annual performance review, to reflect historical performance based on revenue creation and customer service excellence.
“At the end of the year, a bonus would be paid to every member of staff on the site for achieving a balanced site scorecard of sales performance, service performance, parts performance and workshop productivity.
David Oldroyd - 14/06/2014 10:11
Maybe the industry should used formal probationary periods as a mechanism to deal with under performers that have been hired. Thus low basic at joining then upped basic after 3 months then as result confirm competence then increase basic pay as it becomes irrelevant.