Unfair employment term?

ultimatefighter

I work for a popular brand of motor car just outside of Barking.

We are paid £12,000 as a basic wage which is under minimum wage because we have a commission based system for pay which pays based on how many vehicles are retailed to customers. Retailing a vehicle takes time and involves far more than taking some money and giving some keys.

If a customer gives any score for the survey they receive (which is up to them to score as they wish) other than 100% there is a deduction from wages of £250 per customer who doesn't give a perfect 10 out of 10 score.

We don't get paid £250 per car we sell. Usually between 100 and 150. If all 10 customers theoretically returned a bad score I would be paying to work there.

Is this not an unfair term in a contract of employment? It did not exist upon commencing with the company but was put in place from this month.

Gavin83

They can theoretically make deductions to your commission based on certain criteria but they can't pay you below minimum wage, regardless of circumstances. How old are you?

Given the size of the brand (I can guess who it is) I'd imagine they'll be aware of their legal obligations though.

shortcrust

I'm not really clear how it works. Do they take 250 off the 12,000 if you get a bad score or is the 250 not added to the 12,000?

They can't pay less than the minimum wage. It sounds to me as if in practice your basic salary is the national minimum wage (around 14,000 if you're over 25) with a bonus system that begins to pay when you've made more than 2,000 'points' through sales. Every 'point' over that is a pound on your salary. If that's how it actually works then they're not doing anything illegal in presenting in the way they do. I guess they think it's more motiving. If I were you I'd rather it was a bit more transparent.

theoretica

As Gavin says, the bottom line is does your pay every month (if you are paid monthly) equal or exceed the minimum wage?

ThemeOne

I don't know the legal position but I do sympathise with you having to be so beholden to customer feedback. I work in training where we are also slaves to feedback, though there is not often a financial deduction.

There could be lots of reasons a customer doesn't give 10 out of 10, even if they had good service. The employer should be looking at the general trend of feedback, not making an automatic deduction for each individual feedback less than 100%.

Undervalued

theoretica wrote: »

As Gavin says, the bottom line is does your pay every month (if you are paid monthly) equal or exceed the minimum wage?

Exactly.

Providing it does then there is nothing you can do apart from try to negotiate a better deal or leave.

That is not to say I like the scoring system but I suspect you are not unique. I recently had a windscreen replaced and the chap doing it went to great lengths to persuade me to give a perfect score for similar reasons (or so he claimed). OK, I was perfectly happy with the job he did so I went along with it. However I would have been reluctant to do that had it been about somebody who was selling. Somehow I always feel I could have got a better deal and that salesmen are trained to screw me!.......

whatajoke2016

I don't think this is a very fair system.

Gavin83

ThemeOne wrote: »

There could be lots of reasons a customer doesn't give 10 out of 10, even if they had good service.

That's true. Some people will never give 10 out of 10 as they consider that perfect and they believe no one can be perfect. Regardless of how flawed this logic is it could affect his salary.

Undervalued wrote: »

Exactly.
However I would have been reluctant to do that had it been about somebody who was selling. Somehow I always feel I could have got a better deal and that salesmen are trained to screw me!.......

Not really sure this is fair either, not all salesman are trying to screw you. At the end of the day you know the price and you know what you want to buy, as long as you pay that price and don't buy anything extra you aren't being screwed.

I used to work in sales and we weren't allowed to be that flexible on price and could only give a discount in exceptional circumstances. Car sales may well be different however.

shortcrust

I think having reread the OPs post, they don't get £0 if they get less than 10 out of 10, so it's perhaps not as brutal as I'd thought.

I still don't like the system but I understand why a car sales company might want to link bonuses to customer feedback. The worst customer experiences I've had have all been with car sales people. One took my keys so that he could get a part exchange figure for my car as I browsed. I had to threaten to call the police to get my keys back after which he threw them on the floor and told me to eff off.:mad:

Guest101

shortcrust wrote: »

I think having reread the OPs post, they don't get £0 if they get less than 10 out of 10, so it's perhaps not as brutal as I'd thought.

I still don't like the system but I understand why a car sales company might want to link bonuses to customer feedback. The worst customer experiences I've had have all been with car sales people. One took my keys so that he could get a part exchange figure for my car as I browsed. I had to threaten to call the police to get my keys back after which he threw them on the floor and told me to eff off.:mad:

Why did you give him your keys?

jobbingmusician

It says he TOOK them - maybe they were lying on the desk?