If you've been following the letters pages of kbbreview over the last couple of months you'll no doubt be familiar with what's turned into quite a quarrel between kbb retailers and sales reps. The whole thing started with a letter from bathroom retailer Bryan Benfield, who claimed the standard of representation has "dropped to an all-time low" and that the guys that visited him were not only scruffy and disorganised but often arrived unannounced, kept their mobiles on in meetings and were more interested in talking about football than in generating new business.

Sales reps, as you might expect, came out fighting. They claimed Benfield had got it wrong and were keen to put their side of the story across - the appointments they made that the retailer forgot about, and the new products they came to talk about that the retailer wasn't interested in. 'We turn our phones off in meetings,' they told us, 'it's the retailers that don't...'

To some it might all seem a bit petty, and probably a very good marketing exercise for Benfield's business. But we certainly seem to have struck a raw nerve with this one, and the argument shows no sign of abating. So as a follow up to the letters we've been getting, we've dug a little deeper and sought out opinions from across the industry spectrum. Is Benfield the Victor Meldrew one area sales manager recently described him as? Or do reps need to sharpen their act in a climate where showroom sales have become less easy to come by?

Eli Briski of brassware giant Grohe offers an interesting perspective in that despite being the company's UK sales director with a team of 22 reps, his background is in retail. "I've only been on this side of the fence for four months and I think Brian Benfield is 100% right," he tells me. "Ninety five percent of reps out there should be shot. To think you can have a relationship with a retailer because they support the same football team shows a total lack of professionalism. I've seen it so many times. It shouldn't be any different to going to a doctor or a dentist or anyone in a professional capacity. You can treat them with friendliness but they're not your friend."

A recent letter from a retailer echoes Benfield's frustrations: "I absolutely hate it when a rep/rat walks in with no appointment and dumps samples and brochures on my desk," she says. "Our turnover isn't as big as their favourites, but if you find out about a client you build a rapport. To all you reps out there I'd say take pride in who you are and who you work for. You can win or lose business in the first 10 minutes of your call. Do your homework, make appointments and maybe there won't be letters complaining about you."

However, having first sided with Benfield, Grohe's Briski admits the Rugby-based retailer hasn't dealt with his problems as well as he might have done. "People who run showrooms should have the bottle to get on the phone and deal with it," he says. "Don't just let it hang there. What did Benfield actually do? I don't remember him saying he phoned the manager up to tell him his rep was a waste of time and not to send him again. He doesn't impress me with his leadership skills."

Dave Jacques, owner of Jacques Bathrooms in Solihull agrees. Despite being on the retail side, he finds Benfield's comments surprising. "Any rep that walks in without an appointment is damned ignorant," he says, "but if you're not happy with them, why write letters to people? He hasn't got to sit and listen to someone talk about football if he doesn't want to. It's about man management. If a rep's phone kept going off in my showroom I'd just tell him to get out."

Jacques also stresses the important distinction between sales reps and agents. Unlike a rep, an agent might have a portfolio of 10 products, and be happy to tout these to every showroom in the area. It's one of Jacques' biggest gripes. "If you give a product to an agent they'll have it in Tesco and the Shell garage over the road," he says. "They'll bang it in anywhere and that doesn't work; instead you have to develop the outlets you already have."

So what's the difference between a good rep and a bad one? Opinions naturally vary, but even the reps themselves have strongly opposing views. Alan Friar, UK sales manager with Just Trays, says his reps are seen as "more of a nuisance to a retailer than a help". However, he argues that those who say they're too busy to meet them are missing a trick. "We work for ourselves but indirectly for them as well," he says. "In the current climate, any missed opportunity is a potentially valuable one."

To Friar, building relationships is all about finding common ground, which can be as simple as discussing the photographs on a showroom wall. But the most important point, he says, is to find an objective for a follow up meeting and to leave any visit with an open-ended question.

Where different manufacturers disagree, it seems, is on the amount of visits their reps should make. "I never tell people they have to do a certain amount of calls a day," Friar says. "It's all about the quality, not the quantity. Some do eight calls a day, plus travelling time. That's 15-20 minutes per meeting. What can you get from that? You're running around like a busy fool."

But Briski at Grohe disagrees. "How can you measure quality on numbers?" he says. "What a cop out, that's blaming someone else. Don't tell me how many calls you've made, tell me what you've achieved. Some reps go in thinking their approach is the best one, but every call and person is unique. A salesperson is a more professional job than being a doctor because it's a psychological thing and you're under pressure from the minute you walk through the door."

Two sides to the story then. Believe the manufacturers (see below) and you'd think every rep was a smart, well trained, punctual individual with a focused agenda and a genuine commitment to developing new business. The reality often seems somewhat different. "There's an argument to say reps should be qualified in some way or go to sales school," concludes Friar at Just Trays. "Most fall into it without training. But it's also about who manages the reps. It's about instilling the right attitude, otherwise they could be thinking they're doing the right thing when they're not."

What do the manufacturers think?

Gary Dart, md, Duravit

"We recently surveyed our dealers on what they expected from the rep. The answer was clear: brochures, returns and to be 'Superman' should the back room have let the retailer down. Since the rapid slowdown the retailer has become more focused on what the manufacturer is doing to stimulate sales and what value they can add to their business.

"It's interesting that the word 'rep' is disliked by the 'rep' yet I was always proud of being a 'rep' when I was one. We look to them to talk to the dealer about how to improve our business with them, but more importantly how together we can compete against their competitors. We want the rep to have big ears and establish from the retailer, the sharp end, what consumer thoughts are on our products and why they have or have not chosen Duravit for the bathroom. Get ideas from and give ideas on how to improve business. We look to our guys to book appointments, have an agenda and a purpose for the visit.

"We've been encouraging our dealers to use our back office for support on brochure requirements, returns and simple technical enquiries. We have many people in the office, so a better hit rate of talking to someone when the retailer needs it, not that good old reps' mobile phone message bank. That doesn't mean the rep offloads the dealers' needs to the back office. It should be 'yes I will organise the office to send you brochures/returns paper work/collection of returns'. If our area sales managers are not doing this, then please, the management needs to know. A poor performing rep is of no good to either business."