Rogers and Fido drastically cut commission despite 30% increase in sales
Uh oh! It looks like there is trouble brewing within the rank and file of the Rogers and Fido sales staff, assistant managers, and employees at the director level. A decision by the Rogers finance department to cut sales commission by as much as 50% has seriously irked the sales staff who played an integral role in the approximate 30% increase in sales since the beginning of 2008. Normally one would assume that a company wouldn’t mind fairly compensating their employees with commission for all of their hard work and doing such a damn good job at selling their products and services, but as we have seen so many times in the past, Rogers isn’t a normal company.
Consider the following as an example of what would happen to the average large store employee working on commission-based sales. Under the old system, signing a customer up on a 3-year contract with a monthly plan above $40 would net a $25 commission. With the cut the same employee only stands to make $16.20, a decrease of 35%. If the monthly plan is under $40 a month the new commission system makes for a cut of 34%.
- Single options now only pay $1, a decrease of 50%
- Value packs now only pay $3.80, a decrease of 24%
- Non-term data now only pays $9, a decrease of 10%
- Month-to-month activation now only pays $3, a decrease of 40%
- Commission on accessories has decreased 30%
Added up, the average employee of a large store stands to lose over $500 a month in commission because of these cuts at a time when the amount of sales are so high that many stores are paying 50% more than their budgeted commission because of a drastic increase in the volume of sales due to the iPhone 3G, lower data costs, and new low-cost monthly plans.
The action taken by the Rogers finance department will have a profound implication on the level care that both Fido and Rogers customers receive. No longer will the in-store sales staff be willing to assist customers with their problems after they have been sold their phone and plan because the sales staff have to make more sales to compensate for the cut to their commission. This will mean more and more customers will be sent away and told to call customer service which will in turn place tremendous strain on the resources of the call centers and forcing customers with problems to wait on hold for a longer period of time than necessary.
To make matters worse, there is the potential that a lot of the sales staff will simply tender their resignation, meaning that customers will have the pleasure of dealing with freshly trained sales staff who haven’t the slightest clue about what they’re really doing.
The cut to commissions will impact each and every customer of Rogers and Fido in one way or another. If you’re the type of person who feels this is wrong, you can call Rogers or Fido toll-free within Canada at 1-888-764-3771 and 1-888-945-3436 respectively.
Tags: commission, fido, pay, Rogers
So, I am guessing from this and every other story I’ve heard about Rogers that they are just real assholes.
Wow. I don’t live in Canada - but I might call up Rogers just to tell them that they are assholes.
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nice nice, and of course I’m sure all the top executives cut their pay by at least 20%. This is why stockholders rule the world and at the same time destroy their own fortunes.
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Ridiculous
Ted and gang’s time is coming
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Well if anyone who works at rogers is reading this:
goto:
http://www.bellcareers.ca/
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And they increased internal sales commissions.
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I love that there is coverage of this. When Rogers priced the iPhone, there was an immediate Internet backlash that led them to drop prices. Perhaps a similar backlash here could influence them to re-visit their commission cuts. That would be truly groundbreaking. Hopefully Rogers/Fido employees keep the momentum going here.
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I could tolerate Fido’s so-so mobile service/signal, thanks to their decent phone support, but with this change, I’m actually worried. When will Rogers get it together?
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p.s. Bell did something similar recently and is facing a lawsuit from it’s Bell-branded independent dealership chains:
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMe48mJFvpeptjUvDW1a0U0zqh1g
The funny thing about all of this is that it demonstrates that we really do have an uncompetitive wireless industry. When two of the three providers are cutting staff sales commissions, it is a good sign that there is some collusion going on. Not to mention the fact that every single carrier has a $6.95 “system access fee” (i.e. a surcharge that they charge because they can). Funny how system access costs are EXACTLY the same for all three firms,
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Yep. You got that right. Rogers is a total asshole company. Well, to be fair, the owner and management are hypocrites and assholes, and many staff are nice people caught in between.
Anyway, yeah, Rogers is an asshole company. And as a proud Canadian, I am ashamed of this.
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So that’s Rogers/Fido way of saying thanks to all the hard working people, who may I remind them, are on the floor day in and day out dealing with all the BS from customers? That’s crazy!
Come on Finance people, take care of the folks who essentially acquire the customers to help pay *your* salaries.
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This sucks… Fido folks have largely been very helpful to me, despite being appendages of the evil Rogers empire.
If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know!
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I feel really badly for all the Rogers and Fido staff affected by this. This isn’t a dying company that needs to cut costs. It’s a highly profitable company that’s just trying to squeeze every nickle and dime it can from it’s own employees. Makes me sick and wish I hadn’t just signed a 3-year contract with them.
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Commission Sales. My guess is the cut back because of the increased fraud from sales reps, who just happened to sell more than the customer wants or asked for and adds extra so called free phones. That Rogers then has to take back, a few months later. And rogers is just trying to covering this cost.
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I can’t believe I signed up for 3 years.
I can just forget about any reasonable CSR now
What’s the motivation now?
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AT&T cut our sales commission 1 1/2 years ago by almost 50% a month and it got no press.
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It is unbelievable that profits increase and yet their pay to the hard working employees decreases! Despicable.
A friend of mine that works for Rogers sent a letter about his concerns and their reply basically said; because they have made it easier to sell the products and because they are all selling such a higher volume, they need to make these adjustments.
Many of the top stores are loosing skilled employees left and right. The new staff that come in with near no knowledge about the industry, will be non the wiser.
For Shame!
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Ya well, Rogers messed with the wrong group of employees. We will stick up for each other and let ourselves be heard!
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Back then people thought Capitalism was the greatest think since slice bread. Now we realize that capitalism just like communism is flawed when a few greedy individuals totally devalue the system. Unfortunately unless we have everyone working for the same goal, getting paid the same amount and guaranteed to get into heaven(or whatever) it aint gonna work and people are gonna get hurt.
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i hate to say this unfortunately it will happen and no one will leave. I’ve seen it happen where i work which is not rogers nor fido. Everyone said that they would leave cause of changes, that management doesnt listen, customers will suffer and etc. yet no one left since unfortunately less money is still better than no money and the amount of people that would need to leave are really large. Only option i can see if unions as much as everyone thinks otherwise times are really bad in the economy and they will use that to make the cuts and say leave if you like. But who is willing to take a chance in today’s economy?
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UGH please don’t turn this political. No system is perfect–hello, it’s Earth, not heaven. Capitalism just happens to be the lesser of evils.
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at&t cut their employees pay almost 2 yrs ago. About a 50% commission decrease which meant most employees took a $700-$1000 pay cut per month. Not even 6 months after they did this they had their biggest profit quarter in cingular/at&t history. Funny how corporate companies work, they want you to be loyal to the company, but aren’t loyal in return to the employee. Rat Bastards!!!!
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Before the iphone was launched, there were protest groups and petitions that asked, begged and pleaded for people NOT to buy the iphone. Almost 60,000 people signed the petition. If people would have just waited a couple weeks to a month to buy the phone, Rogers would have been forced to change their price plans, 3 year contract terms, commission rates, and possibly more.
What happened? Not only could the sheep not wait a couple weeks, they actually stood in line to throw their hard earned money at Ted Rogers, and let him know what a great job he was doing. The funniest part was that some of the people who waited in line, were the same people that joined the protest groups and signed the petitions!
I guess they figured Rogers would change their ways by mere wishful thinking, or by signing a petition, or by letting other people protest. Surely signing up for a 3 year contract and giving Rogers $80 a month would not hurt the cause.
Sorry, but I have absolutely zero sympathy for anyone who bought the phone, pushed the phone because they were making a big fat commission off it, or for anyone else who supports Rogers.
Because of everyone’s selfishness, Rogers will be posting record earnings and will continue to enjoy their monopoly unchallenged for some time to come. They will continue to rip off their customers and staff.. simply because they can.
People had a chance to make a difference, but instead it was their own greed that sealed their fate in the end. You helped create the mess, now live with it.. because you only have yourself to blame.
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This is going to affect everyone, corporate or not. Third party Fido and Rogers dealers will be following suit in their own way.
Disgusting.
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i can only see this cange effective i they pay them hourly to make up the commsission that what tmos usa dos 60% hourly 40 % commission for coerperate stores but yeah robbers giving peole the shaft but with stockmarkets oarond the globe fraking out can you blame em?
however yeas canada teltcos reek of monopolism an collusiion what do you expect?
yes their is no competiotion
a forging cometitor needs to com in and knock em off their high horse. also that law that reqires a canadian comapny to be headed by a cnauck only that’s part of the problem since you have an MBA cnaadian runnig the show nobody trys thinking outside the box or trying to compete
captiolism is good beacus it complies with the comppetitve individual naute of humans
socalism dosn’t work because of this nobody like conforming to uniformity also economic wise it just dons’t work
in england gordon brown grw the bublic sector an sharnak the privat sector bad enogh finacials ar in the toilet right now
but if your citicens ait working weres your taxpayer revenue? it shrinks FAST. cnadas telco environs ar making it a busnus hostile enviorment
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Bells SAF is actually $2 more a month.
Bell $8.95
telus, solo, rogers, fido = $6,95
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