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.
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