Distribution of Sales Roles

In class we talked about how sales roles have started to be distributed across the entire enterprise. I have seen this in action in my previous work experience. I used to build pools, and install hot tubs. At my company we only had one person in the office answer calls and dealing with walk in customers. This person did most of the selling, but she sometimes lacked in the technical knowledge of the pools or hot tubs. So if customers had more questions she would send us to their house to talk to them personally about the specifications of the pool build or installation of the hot tub. For example a person might think that a certain part of there yard would be suitable for a pool, but if we came out and there yard had a slight hill we would have to show them how positioning the pool a different way would be better. Or for the hot tubs an example is if someone calls about having problems with it that our front desk worker could not answer then we would go out and look at it. While we were looking at the tub the customer would have a lot of questions about their specific model, or they would have questions about getting a new brand or model. And these questions were good for them to ask us because we would give them the honest opinion on the tubs because we were the ones who worked with them and saw the problems and benefits with each type of tub. I think that having the workers out in the field being able to answer question based on knowledge and experience is a nice thing to have. We were able to do this because our boss knew that it was important for us to give the customers the honest answers. Customers appreciated us telling them that they could get a better quality pool liner or hot tub for just a little or no more money. This would allow us to make more sales and retain customers. If we were not allowed to do this in the field I think that it would lead to less sales because the customer would not get their questions answered and think that our company did not have the knowledge of our products. If the customer thinks that we do not have the knowledge then they are less likely to come back to our company for future business. I think the distribution of sales roles is important.