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Conquering the Counter Conundrum

Guest post by: Dr. Rick Johnson

Article Overview: Counter sales personnel face many of the same issues that inside sales and customer service (IS/CS) people face. In fact, the counter sales life becomes one of juggling several balls in the air at the same time and becoming skilled at multi-tasking. Dealing with "will- calls," customers at the counter, inbound phone calls, picking and packing at times and demanding sales representatives create quite a challenge for the professional counter person. More importantly, this counter conundrum puts customer retention and value at risk.

Conquering the Counter Conundrum





Counter sales personnel face many of the same issues that inside sales and customer service (IS/CS) people face. In fact, the counter sales life becomes one of juggling several balls in the air at the same time and becoming skilled at multi-tasking. Dealing with "will- calls," customers at the counter, inbound phone calls, picking and packing at times and demanding sales representatives create quite a challenge for the professional counter person. More importantly, this counter conundrum puts customer retention and value at risk.

There's no magic formula available to conquer this conundrum and answer the tough questions such as:

• How to effectively staff the counter?

• How to handle incoming calls?

• Should a prioritization policy be developed?

• Should the "will-call" counter be separate?

• Should inbound calls from salespeople be handled by someone else?

The sales evolution on the customer side of the equation has changed customer awareness, which in turn has led to different service output demands (SODS). These demands now focus on immediate response, cost savings opportunities and an expectation that distributor knowledge and support of their business initiatives go beyond the traditional business model. Counter distractions such as donuts, coffee or popcorn are just not enough to overcome sub-par service standards at peak times. Nothing short of service excellence is acceptable in today's market in order to retain customers and create competitive advantage.

Creating appropriate solutions to conquer the counter conundrum must be based on branch operational metrics. The starting point is to evaluate this branch data. Increasing counter staff may seem like the obvious solution, but it may do nothing more than increase costs without solving the problem. Through the analysis of these metrics, diagnose the real disease, and treat the disease-not the symptoms. Branch data analysis must include determining the pattern of peak times during the day and week for counter sales, incoming calls, will-calls and other specific counter responsibilities. Sales transactions and line item order entry information by counter personnel are relevant to the diagnosis. In fact, the following are all part of the situational analysis: faxes, e-mails, sales and profit trends, inactive and active account trends, average call time, call on hold time; call abandonment and the voice mail connection are all part of the situational analysis.

This analytical diagnosis should help determine peak activity patterns, sales growth trends by segment such as will-call, phone orders as well as walk-in trade. Staffing levels and scheduling may then be matched more appropriately according to these patterns. This analysis should also help determine overtime needs, whether new account development is successful, and what your track record is for customer retention. Zooming in on transaction errors and pinpointing when they occur will also help conquer the counter conundrum. Don't lose focus on those specific patterns that have the biggest impact on direct customer service. These include: the average wait time at the counter during peak periods, average on-hold time for call-in customers and the percentage of call abandonment. Very specifically, what are the sales trends telling you?

Lastly, don't rely on metrics alone. Talk to your "conquerors of the counter conundrum; your counter sales staff." You may find out that a large percentage of their time is utilized on activities that don't directly impact customer service and increased sales, such as those activities directed by field sales requesting prices, availability, order status, expediting or other requests that take up time. It's generally not feasible to routinely track time spent on different activities. On the other hand, depending on counter reps to reconstruct a "typical" day may not produce accurate results. A good approach is to perform some sample time audits of different reps at different times on different days of the week. Have them take five minutes at the end of each sample hour to write down how they spent that hour. When you first start this audit process, leave the time categories open ended so your preconceptions don't bias the results. As more samples are collected the right categories will begin to appear naturally.

Once your analytical diagnosis is complete, you should have a clearer picture of the issues hindering the ability of your "conquerors of the counter conundrum" to maintain world-class service and continuous sales growth. This should lead to a well thought out strategic initiative to address the critical constraints. Possible solutions may include the following:

• Call forwarding to other branches or other personnel during peak periods

• An inbound prioritization schedule

• A separate procedure for handling will-call, fax, e-mail orders and field sales requests

• Separating the will-call from counter sales

• Training, which can always impact critical constraints

• Improved technology solutions to support field sales and other customer demands

Here's the bottom line: customers must always come first. And, this must become a culture-not simply a slogan. World-class service must become a core competency, if you're going to create competitive advantage and differentiate yourself from the competition.

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Article Tags: customer retention, customer service, sales representatives



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