Thread regarding Lowe's Cos. layoffs

At @YUnZJDu-2pry

Thanks. New job is awesome. Took a pay cut but work 45 hours in 5 days now.

Funny thing is a recruiting company called me about working for Lowes again about a week ago.

I had her describe the position over the phone. It sounds like a great job, it used to be a lot of fun, corporate ruined it like they ruin everything; slowly with many small cuts and stabs.

@YUnZJDu-2nbs-

You have described exactly what happens perfectly. Hope your new career treats you better. Crazy how they expect more for less! Wait...... where have I heard that?

God bless..

PSE who recently left here. I appreciate the constant contact until install comment but.....

To do that you need an assistant. Expectations for me were $1.2 million in sales for 2019. Average sale was $4300. That is 285 customers a year. Pse has. I help!!!

Close rate of 50% is considered excellent. 570 customer appointments to make sales goal. That’s more than ten appointments a week. Bare minimum of 3 hours per is 30 hours a week. Then coordinate all pre sale activity. Enter the order, tender the sale, fax the orders to vendors, and send all paperwork to CPO through IMs. Call back all customers not sold, update project tool, take messages that CPO took from customers asking you to call them about what CPO didn’t do. Go to trainings, attend conference calls, report what you did or did not do. Visit jobs that are screwed up. Make no mistakes and fix everyone else’s. And Grow the Business.

Remember the excellent full time coordinator that quit because they made the job part time and she quit.

Beat leads out of employees who hate management and do nothing but complain.

So, yeah, you follow every customer on top of all that. You are a frock in hero. Of course you work 90 hours a week and your family has moved on.

Duck Lowes. I did. But use your own pecker. I’m done.

F--- lowes

To ANON 1 PTOAST. In answer to your comment it is not the job of the PSE to follow up with the customer after the sale you are correct. However, I find that it really only takes a minute to answer a customers question or to call the ISO to get the answer and call them back. The key to my success is that I am crazy organized. I have every minute of my day planned in advance. I factor time for a job site inspection as I usually only have one install per week. I sell mainly windows in my market. Here is the perfect example of my last job site visit.

My customer is having windows and patio doors installed. While I was there we had a brief but torrential down pour. It only lasted about a half hour but water was pouring in, out of the kitchen light fixture. Now my customer is having me quote a roof replacement for her.

These things happen and she was glad I was there because she did not know Lowe's sells roofs.

As a PSE I know how difficult it can be getting pulled in million directions all day long but it can handled if you manage your time.

@YUnZJDu-moq- I am uniquely interested in how you are doing! Congrats on the new job but it is not the job of the PSE to follow up after the sell, make job visits, make sure material is perfectly sent to the job. Not in the job description, that is what CPO is for in areas that have it. I will day they are for the most part extremely inadequate at their job. I know plenty of Million dollar PSE's that do not have time for that. Small volume store could do it but bigger store with no coordinator or install team, no way. Once again, not in the job description. Sell at consistent margin, not overcharge, have a crazy average ticket of over 5k, have a over 90 LTR, and make your sales goals that go up by 7-10 percent each year, never down but always up.

@YUnZJDu-ico: whomever your PSE, he or she, is a rare breed and a wonderful testament to how the program can be run! Grant it, they are going to get hammered by the new crew. Hearing exterior doors and garage doors are going PSE. That out to k--l average ticket!

To the person who left Lowe's to work with family and friends. You are correct in what you say. It is follow up and constant contact with the customer until the install is complete. I did say (GOOD) and tenured PSE in my statement.

In my store the main business of our PSE is referral work from friends and neighbors of our install customer. Our PSE not only keeps up with the progress of the install but is on site at least once during the install. This is why they get so much business from neighbors. The PSE had four referrals for projects that were sold and the referring customer did not have his project started yet. We see this on a daily basis and the long hour put in. This is true customer service and dedication. It's these PSE's that will do well away from Lowe's if corporate messes up the program...

As in life the strong will survive. Lowe’s sells an inferior product with poor follow up at most of its stores. I’ve been working with family and friends since I left Lowe’s. I have a connection selling high and end millworks products and have met with the owners of some large companies. When they sell a product it is followed up on daily. Salesmen are held responsible for their mistakes, order the wrong product odds are you’ll eat it out of your own pocket. Do it a couple times you won’t be employed there. The salesman is on the site not pushing other jobs. It’s their sale, so they show great service. No job is too small, they use it to advertise to the whole neighborhood. The quality I’ve seen is way better than a big box store at a little over the same price. Some were aware of the Lowe’s PSE in their area, their poor follow up and abandoning their projects is a strong selling point for the competition. Don’t assume if you get let go by Lowe’s you can get another job. The better companies already know your name and reputation. One company wanted to recruit a Lowe’s PSE because the guy could sell and was stealing their business. They made follow up calls after they lost the sale and found the guy never made call backs, the product got to the clients house damaged and was weeks late. The owner said he wouldn’t hire the guy, if the salesman knew the store had issues it’s the salesman’s job to protect those windows until they get installed. His salesman were able to get the sale back after the customer cancelled with Lowe’s. It’s nice to be on the other side. I’m sure each of these companies has its issues as well, but sitting in the big guys office drinking a cup of coffee and not needing to be the yes man is nice. Getting to hear what they say candidly is eye opening.

As I understand it, part of Menards success has been that they do not compete against their professional customers by trying to offer installations.

Lowe's was born and raised in the retail business, not in the contracting business. Retail is changing rapidly. Lowe's needs to shut down or merge, and I think that might be what they are working on.

I am a very tenured, very successful Pse...this is a very correct statement. I see the direction we are headed due to corporate greed by people who are so disconnected to the average consumer. Well said