STORES Magazine - March 2009 - (Page 40)

NUTS AND BOLTS / ONLINE SCHEDULING Extended Coverage Area Sprint boosts customer service via online appointment scheduling BY ED McKINLEY utomated self-service appointment-setting is eliminating waiting time for customers and improving workflow for employees at Sprint Nextel stores. In fact, Sprint’s online appointment platform from TimeTrade Systems is helping to transform the company’s stores from product-oriented to customer-oriented. A For Sprint, the system can work in a number of ways. In one scenario, a shopper visits Sprint.com and searches for the closest store using the store locator. After choosing a location, the customer has the option of clicking on “Make an Appointment.” That choice triggers a pop-up window where the user enters a name, e-mail address and phone number. The customer then chooses one of seven reasons for an appointment, and selects a date and a time. The system confirms the appointment by sending an e-mail message to the consumer. In another scenario, a customer calls Sprint’s Customer Care Group with a problem. If the call center representative The number The number of Sprint of Sprint customers customers categorizing categorizing themselves as themselves as being “extremely being “extremely satisfied” rose satisfied” rose from 80% in from 80% in early 2008 to early 2008 to 90% in 2009. 90% in 2009. can’t diagnose the defect over the phone, he can use the system to make a store appointment for the customer or recommend the customer go to the website and make an appointment himself. Customers making self-service appointments see windows that look like part of the Sprint site, but actually are pages hosted on TimeTrade servers. The system bases appointments on the availability of store employees and on the consumer’s reason for visiting, which can include making a purchase, having a device repaired or receiving instruction in using a phone or service. The customer’s needs determine which employee to assign — a salesperson or technician — and how much time to allot for the appointment. Sprint chose to start with a generic version of the appointment system rather than demanding a good deal of customization out of the box, says senior vice president of consumer sales Kim Dixon. As a result, “it was one of our most rapid deployments,” says Ed Mallen, CEO of Bedford, Mass.-based TimeTrade. Dixon concurs. “We got it implemented faster [six weeks] than any system I’ve ever seen implemented at Sprint. We were able to get it up and running pretty flawlessly right out of the gate.” And, as it turns out, Sprint may not need much customization: Through the first five months, the company hadn’t come up with a need that the standard package failed to address. The only change Sprint is contemplating is the lifting of a prohibition on same-day scheduling, which does not require system customization. (Sprint had barred same-day appointments because management feared that stores wouldn’t have enough notice. After some experience working with the system, that concern no longer seems warranted, Dixon says.) Customer tutorials Sprint agreed to forsake customization to ensure the appointment system came online at about the same time that the company began offering ReadyNow tutorials for new users of increasingly 40 STORES / MARCH 2009 WWW.STORES.ORG http://www.Sprint.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - March 2009

STORES Magazine - March 2009 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Movers and Spenders What Shoppers Think Take Your Laundry Online 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Luxury for Less Q & A CONCEPT2WATCH Checkout Management Online Entrepreneurs Sustainability POS Online Strategy Online Scheduling SaaS Online Marketing Merchandise Security PCI Compliance LPinformation Supplier Directory Exception Reporting Industry Perspective Theft Research LOEB Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar End Cap

STORES Magazine - March 2009

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