Rogers sales reps get comissions cut

Canada’s biggest GSM carrier, Rogers (NYSE: RCI), has taken the axe to comissions despite a 30% sales increase in 2008 to date. Folks at Rogers Plus stores across Canada (but not call centres) as well as Rogers’ subsidiary, Fido, will be effected by the changes.

• 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%

So why the cuts? After all, this could only lead to disgruntled employees and diminishing customer service. I caught up with one of my bros at Rogers and he broke down the situation like this…

[via BGR]

“Rogers Plus was owned by InterTAN (who owned Radioshack and now operates The Source) since around ‘99. Rogers Corporate, who also owns Rogers Video, took over the ownership of Rogers Plus in January, 2007. Comission structure changed from InterTAN to Rogers Corporate then, and again in January, 2008, giving out less money for the same amount of sales for brand new customers. Everything else was pretty much the same.

Comission changed again in October 1st, 2008, however, ALL comission products got changed. We get money for selling certain things now that we didn’t get before, like 1-month contracts and 1-year contracts (before we didn’t actually get paid to sell those lengths of contracts). We get a lot less money selling data on a cellphone, now; they justify it as people don’t need to be ’sold’ on data, customers will come into a store and get it. We used to get 17 dollars, now we get 12. We get less money than other stores that sell Rogers phones, such as ‘The Telephone Booth’ and ‘Wireless Wave’, but their comission structure also changes every 3 months. Rogers sales reps went from 18 dollars for a new 3-year customer, to 14 dollars for a new 3-year customer, to 12.

As soon as the change was announced, our district manager came to our store and talked with the best sales people. We compared it to the district manager when his district got increased, and we were like… ‘You got an increase in pay, right?’, and we say, ‘Our workload got increased by that much (with bill payments and customer service issues) and we got our paycheque cut.’ It’s a decision made from an ivory tower, without speaking with the grunts below. It’s a corporate decision, because they know we’ll sell tons at Christmas.”

Wow, that’s some story, Rogers dude. So, now the question remains: do you show your local Rogers rep some comission-lovin’ this holiday season, do you stick it to Rogers by going with Telus (NYSE: TU) or Bell, or do you start hammering 1-888-764-3771 and lay the verbal haterade into Rogers managers?