Emerge Group - Wireless Retail Services

Customer Loyalty

jayers — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:31:40 +0000

On average research shows finding new customers costs five time more than getting current customers to do more business with you. Unfortunately, when advertising and marketing, most wireless dealers only target new prospects. Ignoring your current customers means disregarding people who, when given the opportunity would buy more. In fact repeat customers also tend to purchase more expensive products. For most carriers, lowering your churn by 1% will account for a 5% increase in profitability.

Happy customers also provide an invaluable asset to your business through word of mouth, helping you increase revenue without increasing your acquisition costs. Satisfied customers tell nine people, while dissatisfied customers tell twenty-two. Top performing retailers are twice as likely to focus efforts on improving the lifetime value of their customers and companies that prioritize the customer experience generate 60% higher profits than their competitors.

When it comes to customer loyalty the statistics are staggering, take a look around and you’ll quickly discover every major retailer offers a customer loyalty program. A quality program requires some key elements; exclusive discounts, customer feedback, relevant & useful information, and quality branding. Sending your existing customers rewards or incentives to shop with you again is an effective method for generating sales and increasing loyalty. This can be done through regular email communication, creating another touch-point with your customers. Asking for feedback is also a great way to show your customers that their opinions matter to your business, and that you’re listening to their concerns. It also allows you to see your business through their eyes, so you can examine where your company is meeting expectations, and where it has potential to grow in the future.

Communicating with your customers throughout their entire lifecycle is an invaluable tool to reduce deacts, increase referrals, generate addition revenue through accessory sales and maximize upgrade potential.

Determining KPI’s

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:13:20 +0000

The first step in effective operations is establishing priorities for what information needs to be tracked and measured, also known as key performance indicators (KPI’s). KPI’s will vary by company and potentially department depending on the size of the company.

When prioritizing which KPI’s to track the impact of each indicator on the company’s profitability should be considered. Improvement of some revenue metrics can bring more incremental profit to the company than others. Also, some operational metrics of risk and loss can have a higher detrimental impact on profitability than others. Also, there are multiple layers of KPI’s that need to be tracked. These are company level, market level, store level, and sales rep level. Examples of sales driven KPI’s are units sold per store, gross profit per store, gross profit per sales rep hours worked, new to renewal ratio, feature attach rate, and accessory attach rate. Examples of operationally driven KPI’s are deactivation percentage, inventory loss percentage, percentage of inventory over 60 days old, sales rep hours per store, and sales discounts per transaction.

Measuring And Tracking

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:12:17 +0000

After determining which KPI’s are most important to track a reporting system needs to be implemented to ensure that information is flowing in a timely fashion, and that each layer of the organization is receiving the information that is necessary to drive their effectiveness. As a general rule, the more often and expeditiously KPI data can be updated the more useful the information will be. In addition, to the extent POS data can be scrubbed against the wireless provider data and corrected, the more accurate and meaningful the information will be. Reports can be distributed via a company intranet or by email push. While drill down information should only be distributed to the applicable location, region, etc it is helpful to distribute sales rep, location, and region rankings for KPI data to encourage competition between sales reps and locations.

Enforcing

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:11:24 +0000

For each KPI metric there should be a goal and a minimum standard established. In general minimum standards should not be set below profit and loss breakeven threshold for that particular category. For each sales rep, location, and region the KPIs should be reported in relation to minimum standard and in relation to goal. Recognition should be given when reps, locations, or regions exceed goals. These can also be tied into a performance bonus system whereby exceeding a goal will trigger accelerators on P&L or Gross Profit bonuses. Conversely, if minimum standards are not being met in one or more categories corrective and or disciplinary action should be taken.

Daily Responsibilities

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:10:33 +0000

Whether there is dedicated Operations Manager or all operational responsibility is dedicated to the sales management team having a daily schedule of operational tasks that must be completed is essential to ensuring that no key functions are being overlooked. The following are some examples of daily and/or weekly tasks that should be scheduled:

- Review previous day’s cash deposits actual against the total per the POS system (cash out)

- Review paperwork, contacts vs. POS, look for signatures in proper areas and that data matches (home number, address, etc.)

- Review previous days hours worked versus scheduled

- Review previous days closing and today’s opening inventory counts

- Prepare and analyze weekly de-act report, broken down by company, region, store, and employee level

- Generate and distribute KPI reports for previous day’s activity

There should be checklists maintained for each location to ensure that each task has been completed and that all discrepancies found have been followed up upon. Also, it is recommended that a portion of weekly sales management meeting are dedicated to operational review where the KPI statistics are reviewed and corrective action game plans are formulated.

De-Acts/Fraud Prevention

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:09:30 +0000

With phone inventory and subsidized model managing de-acts is critical

Need to analyze de-act data from carrier and monitor rates by market, location, and sales rep

Also helpful to breakdown by reason code (fraud, non-payment, etc)

Institute de-act quota percentages and take disciplinary action if exceeded against sales reps and sales management

Implement customer service follow-up program to proactively reduce de-acts and gain insight into potential negative trends

Use secondary contract/collections to mitigate de-act losses

Charge sales reps back for de-acts

Run comparisons of carrier activation data versus POS data to spot fraudulent transactions that sales reps ring up that are non-commissionable

Pay sales commissions and bonuses based on carrier data to discourage non-commissionable transactions.

Monitor physical contracts and investigate any that are done manually (outside of the carrier activation system). These are usually an indication of fraud

Build the right team

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:26:46 +0000

Operations and Sales Management are two entirely different beasts and ideally should be managed by two different teams. Operations is a very black and white world; requiring structure and organization while sales quite the opposite. Sales Management is as much an art as it is a science. No one method works for everyone or every time. Sales management requires high-energy, charisma, and the hands-on ability to produce results.

In sales the right team chemistry, environment, and energy is everything. When building a sales team you’ll produce better results with 5 reps that work well together than one superstar rep that nobody gets along with. Create a positive, supportive environment where all reps are encouraged to help with each other’s customers, assist new employees, and provide feedback to upper management.

The manager should be friendly but not friends with the sales reps, there needs to be a separation to ensure no favoritism or rule bending goes on. The more involved the manager is in the recruiting and hiring process the more he will naturally take ownership and responsibility for the employees.

Creating the right environment

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:25:36 +0000

Driving sales is a non-stop process; every hour of every day your reps need to stay motivated. As you know that’s easier said than done, for starters compensation is not enough you need competition and goals.

To create competition posting daily top ten lists is a good start but the lists are meaningless unless management pays attention and cares about them. Location managers and district managers should review them daily and be sure to praise those that have moved up on the list and encourage those that have moved down on the list to move back up today. These lists can involve more that just activations, all KPI’s can have their own list, or the list can be a combination of the KPI’s.

Consistent communication is another key to creating competition. There should be multiple times set throughout the day when District Managers communicate with stores; a brief phone call updating the sales and issues that have come up. We recommend 5 times a day; opening, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, closing. This creates continuous motivation as the manage never wants to answer the call to tell his boss nothing has been done since they last spoke. Depending on your District Managers work load these updates can be done as text messages and the phone calls are only required occasionally if something is out of line or additional motivation is needed.

Setting Goals

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:24:40 +0000

Setting and managing goals is a tricky science to master. Setting goals too low doesn’t provide the necessary motivation while setting them too high can cause frustration and abandonment of the goals. The best answer is to find a systematic method based on previous sales. Picking arbitrary numbers to hit each month with no basis behind then will most likely cause employee to not buy into them.

Once goals have been set for the month you then need to manager to them, adjusting the required pace needed to hit each day to stay at or above them. Always having a hyper goal is effective for top achievers as well.

Recruiting is a continuous process

jayers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:18:55 +0000

Creating a steady pipeline of quality candidates is one of the most important and difficult tasks to accomplish. In order to avoid the typically peaks and valleys of finding qualified candidates there are a few vital aspects to keep in mind:

Even when your stores are fully staffed keep your eyes open and the process going. Where most fall short is only focusing on recruiting when there is an immediate need. This normally means you’re short staffed and rushed to fill the position, hiring the first individual good enough to fill the position but not allows the best possible candidate.

Talented individuals are looking for work everyday and they typically find work quickly. If you’re only searching part of the time you’re only going to find part of the talent, you can always make room for the right person.

Also, anything that is part of the daily / weekly routine becomes more efficient and more of a habit. Knowing there is a stack of qualified resumes ready at all times keeps low producers as motivated as possible and encourages managers to make necessary replacements sooner.

By having professionally designed “Now Hiring” signs prominently displayed in your locations at all times, creating quotas for your managers to present at least one quality application a week, and maintaining up to date job postings on all free websites and local universities will ensure a consistent flow of applicants.