Would you challenge this or find a new job?

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I work in business to business sales. Mostly done on the phone. Our potential customers respond to advertisements the company places and then we call them to make the sale. I have been there for 2.5 years.

Over the last year or so the company has made lots of changes. One of them is the quality of the leads that we get. There are a lot fewer, and whereas they used to be 'warm' leads half the time now the customer either doesn't answer their phone or they deny making their initial enquiry online.

However, no matter how much we all tell management that the leads have changed and that there are fewer and they are poor quality, management basically gaslight us and say it's not the case and that we all need to work harder. Which is all well and good but when I go an entire 8 hour shift without one customer answering my call, I am stuffed!

Lots of us have tried to raise the issue with management. I raised it with my manager, very calmly and factually, back in March and he basically shouted in my face and said that I was lying and 'knew what I had to do' if I wanted to make sales.

To add, two of the team are allowed to cheat as they are the favourites, so they basically make up sales and put them through, then get hailed as heroes by management.

Would you escalate this to HR/grievance or just find another job?

Both.

Who provides the leads? Is it the marketing dept in your company or do they come from elsewhere. If so can you raise with colleagues in the marketing dept to see how to work together to improve? And is there a way to show % conversion rate based on different channels? I'd hope they are targeted on bottom of funnel conversions otherwise the temptation is there to aim for quantity over quality. If no progress I'd just leave and others will too, HR won't be able to do anything.

I have been in Sales/Management/training for many years and if you are only relying on rubbish leads then you won't get far. Management are probably paying 3 for those leads so will not want to admit its the issue, its easier to blame the sales people. Having said that I never had a job where all leads were provided, I used to generate my own
Either they need to improve the quality or allow you to do other lead generation yourself. If neither are an option then leave. With cold calling experience you should find another job without too much trouble.

I would just find another job. You're justified in taking the issue to HR but to be honest, is probably not worth the aggro. Good luck and hope you find something better soon.

We have a department for lead generation. I believe they are currently buying leads in, though.

We are not allowed to self gen leads, much as I would absolutely love to!

I would do both, wait till you have secured another job offer- references done etc, and then escalate.

As @Hoppinggreen said in that case if they're buying the leads and not generating themselves, then they're probably shit. I'd just look elsewhere if I were you. Not worth the crap with HR to end up with the same outcome. Eventually if leads aren't converting and sales people are leaving then and only then might they be held accountable 🤷‍♀️

Thanks all, I think I will just look elsewhere for a new job.

Even if things pick up leads wise I can't get past the gaslighting from management and the blaming of sales staff.

We get regular bollockings as a team about low revenue and sometimes they go around us one by one and ask us to explain why the previous days revenue was low. If we say we had voicemails all day we are told we are lying or that we are being negative.

Say to them that if they think you are all lying, then they need to start recording the telephone conversations you are making, and then they can hear for themselves how shit the marketing leads are.

That's the ironic thing, they do record all calls

Definitely find a new job - somewhere where the managers actually have some management (and interpersonal) skills.

Sounds horrendous. Get out asap