In our Tales from the Sales Team series, we’ll cover actual concerns and questions from real salespeople about their paycheck and sales commission.
“I have a question about my sales commission earnings. Who do I talk to?”
– Liz, a sales representative for a large corporation
Liz works at an organization that operates with several layers of management and multiple departments. She isn’t quite sure where to go with her commission question. Does her manager know the answer or is it someone in the finance department? She spent close to half a workday tracking down someone to answer her question. The rigmarole left Liz pretty frustrated and annoyed
A quick and easy solution to handling commission questions and disputes will diminish any frustration your salespeople may have.
When salespeople question their earnings, it’s important to answer those questions quickly and clearly. If the process for addressing commission disputes is too complicated, it causes frustration and impacts morale. That’s why Core Commissions offers a dispute management feature that is easy to use and offers a clear path for employees.
Why Offer Dispute Management?
As we pointed out, when your employees don’t have a clear path to resolving issues with their earnings, they get frustrated. If one employee experiences this, others will too. Eventually, the frustration spreads across the entire team and you’re facing a much larger morale issue.
With an easy-to-use feature, such as Core Commissions dispute management, your team gets a direct line to the person with all the answers. All a salesperson needs to do is submit their question through a portal and your commission administrator will get it answered for them.
If it’s something that needs to be escalated to an executive, the employee receives a notification, keeping them in the loop. They’re aware of the entire lifecycle of that dispute, easing any frustrations about the original issue. It shows your salesperson that their question is important and is taken seriously.
Best Practices for Handling Disputes
Even if you have an easy-to-use tool in place to address disputes, we have a few suggestions for how best to handle questions about pay.
- Address Serious Disputes in Person: Questions about commissions will pop up. Occasionally you may come across one that is a bit more serious. This can happen if an employee feels they’ve been shorted a large amount of money. In a case like this, it may take a little longer than usual to find the solution. Management needs to address this in person with the employee to make sure they feel seen. Otherwise, they may just get notifications about an ever-escalating dispute without any human interaction, which could result in a bigger problem.
- Communicate the Dispute Management Process: When implementing a tool like the dispute management feature, ensure that your employees know how to use it. For instance, create resources and documents that outline the process and provide them to staff. It’s also best to mention it during team meetings and during the hiring and onboarding process.
- Make Sure Questions are Answered Quickly: Even when employees have an easy way to submit questions, they likely have an expectation that those questions will get answered quickly. For that reason, be sure to address questions as quickly as possible. In fact, it may be wise to communicate the average time it takes to get an answer. This provides an expectation for your employees as they begin the dispute process.
- Eliminate Errors to Avoid Disputes in the First Place: By implementing commission software, like Core Commissions, you’re already eliminating most errors. By providing accurate commission calculations and reporting, you’ll diminish the need for disputes.
Our dispute management tool comes with the Core Reporter, Enterprise, and Managed Services packages. We’d be happy to walk you through how it — and all our package features — work. Contact us for more info or schedule a free demo. We look forward to working with you.