Managing Quality

Technology is great but as it comes out and is new to the market it can be very overwhelming at times causing people to avoid it until absolutely necessary. Very early on Radioshack realized this need to demistify technology to the most technically savy and even the average person. They realized they had the opportunity to take this position in the market, to be the most trusted electronics retailer by being able to offer solutions to technology wonders. Radioshack positioned itself perfectly and changed their motto to fit " You've got questions, We've got answers." This was set as the motto to make customers aware that Radioshack was "the" place to get whatever they needed. This is what their service image was designed around. Having customers feel that Radioshack would be the only place they would need to stop at to get what ever solution they were looking for. But to be able to compete in the market and stay true to their motto their needed to be great management and employees. To ensure conformance with the corporate goal before becoming a store manager they must be certified at Answers University which is based in the corporate office. This would be a vigorous 1 week training course on all aspects of the business from proper scheduling to ensuring the store was 401 ready ( stores are graded from 101-on the floor to 401-100% sales ready). They covered how to handle complaints and turn it around into a positive, and were given the authority to do what was necessary to satisfy the customer within the guidelines given. As for the employees they needed to be certified as well but these are to be taken within the store, there are three different certifications that need to be completed, Customer Selling, Customer Questions, Customer Returns. Certifications need to be passed with a 100% or they would not be able to get on the sales floor. Every new manager or store employee(temporary or not) must complete the certifications. Radioshack has its own store site called Answers Online which allows all staff members to quickly research product information, check on order statuses, check future inventory and product comparison. The company focus was not to only have the information on hand but to be able to access it quickly and with the internet they have been able to do that. The high speed internet has allowed Radioshack to serve customers faster with returns, cellular and satellite activations and product lookups.

Radioshack has embarked on remodeling all of their company owned stores to give a much more colorful, bright and customer friendly scene. They have also realized through research that many women are very interested in electronics but don't shop very often because the stores are not "shopping" friendly. Well Radioshack has made sure to make all locations pleasing for women to shop in. To ensure that stores stay within compliance their is a daily checklist to make sure the store stays clean that must be completed and signed of by the person in charge. Customer Satisfaction is RadioShack's #1 goal, TCF-Think Customers First is their strategy name. Although everything may be in place to provide great service things can go bad such as computer failures, downed internet but at RadioShack their are no excuses and the customer must be served without fail. When these issues occur the staff is ready to respond by writing manual tickets, calling in to merchants for credit card approval and calling their buddy store to do stock look ups. The customer must be served the same when equipment is down as when it is up. This is the requirement throughout all store locations to ensure that customers feel we are reliable no matter what happens. The store is staffed with 3 people at any given time to ensure that all customers are attended to in a timely fashion and even for associates to better help one customer if their is a big situation. If the customer can not be serviced within ten minutes or so then we offer to take their name and number and offer to call them back once we have all the correct information for them. This avoids the customer waisting their time and getting frustrated. The store online site as well as special 800 numbers allow staff to quickly retrieve answers. Any service we offer is guaranteed for life, no matter whether the product was purchased from RadioShck or not the staff will be their to help the customer figure it out. Whether the customer arrives in the store or calls in the service level will be the same with the hopes in resolving or solving and customer issues. Radioshack is a neighboorhood store with low employee turnover meaning that faces and names are likely to be remembered. At meetings the District Managers makes it a point to make sure that employees are patient. The policy within the stores is to never argue with a customer and to get someone else involved to resolve the issue. Customers are not treated as such rather like family from start to finish in sale. The managers biggest concern in the store is to make sure that the quality of service is consistently offered by all of his employees. To help reduce issues the manager has setup a suggestion box that allows employees to take a personal role in how the quality is served up and making sure to continually improve it. What really helps to keep customer service quality high is to have monthly meetings ensuring that the employees understand the company and store level goals and how they are being planned to be achieved. The meeting allows for questions to ensure that their is not doubt that their is a purpose essentially it sets up the monthly goals and sets the motivation tone.

RECAP:

Quality of Design: Radioshack set out to be the one-stop center for all solutions to technology issues.

Quality of Conformance: Insuring that all Radioshack employees are trained and knowledgeable on current technologies, insuring that the company has tools in place to support the staff.

The Abilities: Availability- The company makes sure that stores are properly staffed, as for when the store is closed and customers need help, Radioshack has setup on their website electronics tutorials. This allows the customer to look up a question and have a video present the solution. The website also offers Connection Solutions which enlightens customers how to use their products by simply typing in the sku. Both services are available 24/7.

Reliability- The company has setup a system that ensures that even when computer systems crash that customers can still be attended to and that employees have other resources available to get answers quickly.

Maintainability- Radioshack is a neighborhood store and it sets itself apart by being available to customers for any of their solutions. A customer will never be left stranded for an answer or product resolution.

Field Service- This is very crucial to keeping the customer loyal. For customers that have purchased a product and is defective it would be exchange within 90 days at store level, once past that it would go to repair with a 1 week turnaround. The customer is called when the product is back from service. If absolutely neccessary because of prolonged service time, Radioshack will replace the item in store to satisfy the customer.

Quality of service can only go so far in a company trying to create a profit without the proper inventory mix. For the past year the company has been focusing on their turnaround plan which includes better inventory mix and better customer experience. The customer experience has been increased by changing store layouts, adding high speed internet to speed up transaction and much better staff training. Stores have been struggling with sales because of a poor product mix. Radioshack has been very focused on strictly proprietary profitable items that don't sell very quickly which then causes higher holding costs therefore reducing profit anyway. Radioshack needs to put much more research into product selection and do better in hiring purchasers. Having an exciting line up will encourage sales people as well as bring in new customers. Radioshack needs to get back to the basics and back to their initial push which was to demistify technology to the mass market.

Technology Choice

RadioShack is a service provider and it heavily relies on technology to better help customers in detail and do it much more efficiently. RadioShack depends heavily on knowledge workers within the retail location. These workers are the key to success within the organization because they have an understanding of the business and always weigh the options before making the final decision. As a support role to them Radioshack has a very complex intranet setup. Each store has a access to a digital dashboard that it standard throughtout the entire company but when logged into by the manager of the store it is customized just for the store, for example it will show past sales and customer trends, employee scheduling,profit analysis and it gives access to place orders electronically. Because RadioShack is in the service business being able to get the correct answer/ support quickly is very important that is why the digital dashboard has links to partner websites that are specifically designed for Radioshack. Having knowledge workers and proper tools ensures consistent customer service. RadioShack uses computer-aided process planning, decisions are made from statistics stored and calculated by the computer. To assure that the right staff is available and the right product mix is in the store, managers use a program called WorkBrain. This program gives recommendations based on the past either 2 weeks or 1 month of sales to help create a schedule that fits the flow of traffic. This assures that the right amount of staff is on hand only when needed. In assuring right product mix is in store the managers use an online purchasing called ESS ( electronic store shipments). This is updated daily with onhand and intransit inventories. This program gives the manager the ability to view what is in the store by product category or specific sku, it also allows them to see what has been sold in the past 4 weeks. The manager then has the ability to order what is needed, the program publishes its own list of recommended order items based on history.

RadioShack a very good setup when it comes to serving their customers, because staff is generally well distributed throughout the day every customer gets personal attention. The process in the store is as follows: The customer walks in and is approached by an employee, that employee stays with that customer as they shop throughout the store to answer any questions, they also check the customer out. If an employee is stuck on any question they can go to the company dashboard to retrieve practically any answer. Giving each employee the quick access to answers is the key to quick customer service. Radioshack also utlilizes their website to create great customer service, customers can makes purchases online and pick them up at any Radioshack of their choice free of charge. One improvement that should be made to help free up employees and get the "I just need a battery" customer is to have self check out. This would allow customers to grab what they need and quickly check out.

Radioshack chose to standardize on Hperion Business Intelligence. Hperion was chosen because of its comprehensive dashboarding, reporting and analysis capabilities. The Hyperion BI+ Suite's enterprise reporting and analysis capabilities provide information on trends that help the retailer understand merchandising issues, manage inventory, and create cross-selling opportunities. Dashboards present business users with the precise information that is relevant to them – in a highly graphical, interactive format – so they can make timely business decisions based on up-to-the minute information. For RadioShack, Hyperion BI+ leverages a new data infrastructure featuring Teradata's 5450 server. (Decideo.com) For payroll and benefits related situations Radioshack used PeopleSoft. This program allows any employee to access their information from any computer with their given name and password. PeopleSoft allows them to make changes and have them updated immediately.

RadioShack is an E-Retailer, they offer thousands of products online directly through them but they also link them with outside sources. For example if a customer wants to purchase cellular service online they are directed to a third party company that processes the transcation and is paid for the merchandise. Any product that is purchased online can be delivered to a home or business and most recently it can be picked up at a store.

WWW.RADIOSHACK.COM

Process Flow

Radioshack stores follows a batch process having medium variety and low volume when it comes to its products line. Batch Flow works best lots of similiar products are created with slight variances, because the items are similiar they are able to be produced within the same facility. RadioShack's customer order process takes form as make-to-stock 90% of the time where the customer is unable to request and customization of a specific product although they have the ability to choose from several similiar products. On certain products such as cellular phones and computers RadioShack offers a make-to-order process, the customer has the ability to create a custom product from scratch and hae it delivered to their home. Having both of these order processes helps to satisfy the market in which RadioShack is looking to target, that is the in and out customer as well as the innovative tech person. They fall within the disconnected line flow because they create different items within the category field which helps to satisfy the customer demand to have a unique product. There are four major factors they are market conditions,capital requirements, labor and technology. Labor is one of RadioShack's best handled factors, they currently use a program called "workbrain" in which is generates a schedule weekly based on sales, productivity of employee and hours of operation. It essentially staffs accordingly to the trends in traffic and staffs the best people at the busiest times. Radioshack has a strong focus on profit and has had it for some time, this is because you can take profit to the bank, Radioshack has put itself in a good capital position. Two of the largest issues that can affect RadioShack the greatest is Market Conditions because they must focus on every market they are in and not involve any other, now they currently have 5000 stores so this task is very time consuming. Mistakes can be made between the time and idea /product is concieved to actually stocking on the shelves. Having a marketing director that lives within the market they are serving is RadioShack's strategy to success. The other major issue is whether or not the technology needed is available to do the job at hand and whether is will be able to support future growth. Understanding the technology available and collaborating with other companies is key.
RadioShack currently offers mass customization of services. Many of the proccesses in the store are handled electronically from checking in the customer, to check order statuses to checking out. Each customer gets individual attention from beginning to end and with the help of technology we are able get a customer in and out in 5 minutes need be.

Radioshack not only offers products but offers high quality service. Each employee is trained, tested and certified in over 15 major product categories. By insuring the each employee is certified RadioShack ensures no lag time between the time the customer asks the question and the time is takes the employee to locate the correct information. They have increased the productivity of each employee. RadioShack's service performance comes from understanding its capacity and understanding that you can only produce as much as your weakest link allows, throughput time and deciding what can be down in mass production to avoid delays at time of delivery.