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Building a Happier Customer: Wireless Carriers Try a Host of Strategies Designed to Increase Shopper Satisfaction and Customer Service

Posted on: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By Jason Gertzen, The Kansas City Star, Mo., The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Dec. 18--With new customers so hard to find, it's not a good idea to tick off the ones who do stroll into your store.

Yet that apparently is what Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Wireless and other major cell phone companies have been doing all too often.

The wireless retail shopping experience drew boos across the board from consumers questioned recently by The NPD Group, a New York retail consultant. Only 24 percent of the recent mobile phone buyers who were surveyed rated their shopping experience as excellent or good.

"Generally speaking, the wireless industry is not well known for its customer service and satisfaction," said Clint Wheelock, vice president of wireless research at NPD. "There is a feeling among consumers that it can be kind of a used car purchasing experience."

Confusing arrays of calling plans and long wait times in the stores are common targets for consumer anger.

Such troubling reports must make executives for Sprint, Verizon and other cell phone peddlers wince. Revamping stores and treating customers better have been priorities for the carriers. Sprint, for example, measures the satisfaction of customers visiting its stores and then factors the results into the base pay of those who work there.

The extensive attention and investments are understandable considering that the companies simply cannot afford for their shops to become a major source of consumer frustration.

The company-owned stores provide a prime sales opportunity as they attract the majority of consumers shopping for cell phone service.

Plus, it already is enough of a challenge just to attract large numbers of those consumers in the first place. Nearly 200 million Americans, or about 65 percent of the country's adult population, already carry a cell phone.

Customer service is being put to the test in the holiday season, since cell phones continue to be hot-ticket gifts.

"The name of the game in our business is getting new customers and keeping the ones we have," said Mark Crumpton, president of the Missouri and Kansas region for Verizon Wireless.

Meet and greet

Verizon and Sprint are among the major wireless companies that have been transforming the layout of their retail stores.

Sprint, for example, soon will complete extensive remodeling projects in at least 100 of its more than 1,600 stores across the country and introduced at least portions of the new display formats and other innovations in many more.

Both companies usually station a greeter at the entrance. These staff members find out why the shopper is coming into the store and then help guide them quickly to a salesperson, the repair desk or wherever they need to go.

Many of the companies rely on high-tech systems to track patterns of when customers visit their stores. Electronic counters at the doors log each person's arrival and feed it to an online system that compiles charts and reports.

Lunch hours, early evenings and weekends tend to be the peak periods, so the store managers try to staff accordingly.

Customers still can outnumber salesclerks during these periods, however, leading to wait times.

Being stuck in a lengthy line would be even more frustrating for customers, so many of the companies have set up computerized systems that allow someone to check in. Then they can wander through the store, checking out displays until it is their turn for help.

"You reduce customer dissatisfaction by making things efficient," said Crumpton as he stood recently in one of Verizon's revamped stores on 119th Street in Overland Park. "We don't want to miss sales opportunities because of someone walking out."

Sprint offers another option for customers hoping to avoid being stuck in line: Customers may call ahead to a local store and request a reservation for assistance.

Sprint has even set up a mock version of its retail stores at the company's Overland Park campus. Retail specialists experiment with various layouts and new technology such as touchscreen computers allowing customers to click through descriptions of new games, ringers or other features they can place on a phone.

"It is like having another sales representative at your disposal," said Jeff Auman, a Sprint vice president overseeing retail stores.

With a growing emphasis on using phones for far more than making a call, the wireless companies use their stores as a prominent stage where they shine the spotlight on multimedia services. Working phones are stationed around the stores to allow consumers a chance to glimpse video or click around on the Internet on a cell phone.

"They want to be able to put it in their hand to physically try it and experience it," Auman said.

Wireless industry executives think they are on track with the various improvement initiatives and are left somewhat puzzled by the poor report cards consumers often issue in regard to the service they receive.

"Expectations are higher in a company-owned store," said Auman, offering one possible explanation.

The expertise of the salesclerks is what motivated Sherri Davis to find a Nextel store when she sought mobile phone service for her yard waste recycling business called Compost Connection.

"They had somebody who knew the phone and how it worked," Davis said last week as she visited a Sprint Nextel store at Ward Parkway Center in search of a part for one of her phones.

The representative at the Nextel store in Grandview where she initially ordered the service answered all her questions and let her try the phones. Davis dismissed the idea of going to other types of outlets because she questioned how helpful the clerks would be in guiding her to the proper phones and calling packages.

"The mall kiosks usually just have young kids," Davis said.

Doing the job

Two stores that won kudos from wireless phone consumers in the NPD Group survey were Wal-Mart and RadioShack. Both received high rankings for having a helpful sales staff, a good store layout and a wide selection of wireless products, according to the New York retail consultants.

"RadioShack stores are well organized, and there is a real focus on wireless," said Wheelock of NPD. "There is a real commitment to solid sales and services practices when it comes to their people."

RadioShack sells phones and calling packages from Sprint and Verizon Wireless, though it has a new agreement that will result in phasing out Verizon products. After the first of the year, RadioShack stores will sell Sprint and Cingular Wireless phones.

The wireless carriers emphasize training their store staff and so does RadioShack. Sprint and Verizon typically send representatives to employee orientations for new RadioShack workers and regularly appear at sales meetings to demonstrate new phones and talk about special offers, said Stu Asimus, a RadioShack senior vice president who is in charge of all the company's stores.

RadioShack sales employees have to pass a series of online certification tests, and one of the first ones focuses on wireless products. The company also emphasizes the importance of this product line by giving it a prominent perch within its stores.

Many of RadioShack's customers might drop into a neighborhood store to pick up an electronic connector or plug of some sort, but these visits at least plant the idea that they are at a place to return to when purchasing wireless phone service, Asimus said.

"While you are there, wireless is such a dominant part of our store that we are going to give you a taste we are in the wireless business," Asimus said.

A.J. Smith has been pleased with how he has been treated while signing up for Sprint service and getting help at RadioShack.

"The customer service is good," Smith said while visiting a Radio-Shack store on Ward Parkway. "They are sharp and on the ball."

Wheelock, the NPD consultant, wonders how much consumers overall are noticing all of the attempts wireless carriers have been making to improve customer service.

"We have heard over the past few years about a number of new initiatives in this area," Wheelock said. "While there are improvements, they frequently don't have a noticeable effect on consumers. People still have long wait times, they still have a relatively complex plan structure to choose from, and there still are a lot of devices out there."

Others encourage Sprint, Verizon and other major carriers to keep trying.

The wireless companies would be wise to continue investing in their own stores, according to Charles Golvin, a wireless industry analyst with Forrester Research Inc.

The in-store experience remains one of the most significant influences on which wireless service a consumer picks, Golvin wrote in a research report earlier this year. Customers who buy directly from the carriers also tend to be more lucrative.

Forrester's research indicated that the typical consumers walking into a Sprint, Verizon or other major carrier's store are younger, have higher incomes and are better educated than the customers signing up for cell phone service elsewhere.

"Consumers who buy direct report spending 20 percent more on mobile every month, and are 17 percent more likely to be on a contract, and hence less likely to churn to another provider."

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To reach Jason Gertzen, call (816) 234-4899 or send e-mail to jgertzen@kcstar.com .

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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