Case Studies

Client Case Study #1

Retail-Department Store

Industry:  Sporting Goods

Client History:

Our client is a unique, rapidly growing, active lifestyle retailer rich in history, tradition and culture. What started as a grocery store with few hardware and sports related products soon evolved into a complete sporting goods store. After years of success, the company soon expanded to five stores widely recognized for providing outstanding customer service, high quality merchandise, and knowledgeable staff.

Our client appeared on the national retail scene with the opening of a store in Columbus, Ohio.

The company presently operates 40 stores in 17 states and plans to open a total of 8 stores in 2005.

Client Philosophy:

Experience THE COOLEST Sports and Outdoor Adventure Store. PERIOD.

Our client exists and thrives because they're passionate about sports, the outdoors...and getting the most out of life. Towards that end, they offer the best merchandise from top brands, such as Nike, Adidas, The North Face, Columbia, Salomon, Shimano, and many more. In addition, they staff their stores with people who stay actively involved in sports and the outdoors and who are eager to share their knowledge and help you look and perform your best

Participants:

Corporate Executives

Corporate Market Research Department

Store General Managers

Challenge:

Our client needs included developing a Mystery Shopping Program to measure their associates performance and knowledge. In addition their Marketing Department was looking for a tool with which to interview their preferred customers via email and store the data collected for reporting and future manipulation. The Corporate offices also had an in-store Comment Card program in place, but were not utilizing the information collected in any way. 

BAI Solution:

Bare Associates International, Inc. proposed and designed a web-based reporting system that would provide a fast, efficient way to record, store and present all three data sets. This all-encompassing program met each of the clients representative's original needs and as the program came to fruition, new requests that developed along the way were addressed as well including customized reporting that would tabulate summary scores for individual Department Managers for bonus purposes and the development of a customized summary “Report Card” that would presented an Overall Performance Score for each store.

Services Provided:

Mystery Shopping Program

Customer Satisfaction Research

Comment Card Data Entry Kiosk

Roll-up Report Card Reporting

Program Overview:

Mystery Shopping Program.

Each store receives two mystery shops per month.  Owing to the size and diversity of each store, each shop includes the evaluation of three departments allowing our client to ensure that each of their numerous departments is evaluated on a regular basis. Each shop also evaluates the check-out and return process allowing specific data to be collected for use in bonus the department manager responsible for this facet of our client store operations. 

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Working with the clients Marketing Department a program was designed allowing the Marketing Department to directly email their preferred customers a customer satisfaction survey on a monthly basis.  The Marketing Department selects preferred customers from their preferred customer lists that have recently shopped a location.  A sampling system was designed to aim for a 20% response rate resulting in approximately 50 to 100 completions per store each month.  The customers receive an email inviting them to participate.  The email contains a link directly to the web-based system hosting the mystery shopping program.  The Marketing Department had special requirements including the ability to rotate marketing research questions on a monthly basis based on their current needs in addition to the core questions asked regularly. 

Future plans for this program include providing a direct link back to the clients website upon completion of the survey allowing their customers easy access to their site and all it has to offer them including notices of current promotions, sales and new services.

Comment Card Data Entry Kiosk

Working with our client's Corporate Office, a data entry kiosk was designed to allow a corporate office employee the ability to enter in-store comment cards for each store location.  The corporate office employee utilizes URL's specifically programmed to capture data by store.

Summary Report Card

A summary report card was developed by using five core reporting categories: Helpfulness, Knowledge, Availability, Selection and Overall Performance. Questions and Sections from the Mystery Shopping Report, Customer Satisfaction Survey and Comment Card were selected to represent each of these 5 categories and scoring was developed accordingly.  

Results:

The program is at the 6 month mark and the client has stated it is accomplishing “all we had hoped it would and more”. The program has enabled our client to implement a bonus program for all of its Store and Department Managers that they hope will improve customer service and performance in all areas.

It is has allowed the Marketing Department a low cost of way and flexible format for collecting data on their customer's opinions. It has allowed the utilization of Comment Card data in a fast and efficient method.

Most importantly, it has allowed them to combine all three data collection tools and the reporting of all three data sets into one easily accessible hierarchical reporting system.

By utilizing one system to run all three programs, it has allowed our client to successfully combine the data from all three data collection tools into one overall summary score.

Costing:

Program costs were derived on two separate price components: the basic per evaluation costs for the MysteryShopping component and the e-mail and kiosk interfaces developed for the Customer Satisfaction and the Comment Card programs.

The pricing for the kiosk interfaces was a combined pricing based on the submission of no greater than 100 records per store for both the Comment Cards and the Customer Satisfaction Survey responses.  This allows our client to manipulate how many responses or entries for each they submit.  The first step required is to estimate the response rate for their Customer Satisfaction Survey to allow for 50 to 100 responses per store, per month.  The remainder of their allowance can be fulfilled with Comment Card entries.

Client Case Study #2

Sales Performance Evaluations

The Client
The client is a provider of full-service business suites catering to start-up enterprises and to established corporations seeking to open satellite offices. By the end of 2004 they owned and operated over two hundred locations in the United States and Europe.
 
The Project
This company has embarked on an aggressive expansion program through property purchases and a series of high-profile acquisitions. Throughout this process it is attempting to ensure consistent, high levels of customer satisfaction, and to apply approved sales techniques and practices throughout its organization.
 
Bare Associates International had previously provided this client with in-depth sales performance evaluations on an ad-hoc basis. This service assesses a sales professional's strengths as well as opportunities for improvement in such areas as qualifying customers, handling sales objections, negotiating, upselling, client follow-up and closing deals.
 

Recently we have been asked to assist our client in implementing a series of semi-annual evaluations. The objective is to establish benchmarks and integrate results into employee compensation and advancement initiatives. We are designing custom measurement instruments and processes, conducting a series of evaluations, reporting results and providing consultation services regarding the introduction of company benchmarks and goals.

Client Benefits
Through the use of sales performance evaluations we are able to provide our client with rapid feedback on specific staff and properties. By developing and testing benchmarks we are assisting our client as it incorporates this evaluative information into staff compensation and advancement programs. Moreover the data we are gathering will be used to integrate the client's new acquisitions into its network of full-service office suites, and to ensure a consistent corporate image and high levels of quality control and customer satisfaction
 

Client Case Study #3

PROCTORED EMPLOYEE SURVEYS

The Client
The client is a Major International Upscale Hotel Chain.

The Project
Bare Associates International was asked by our client to assess the internal climate of 28 international locations. Each Hotel employs between 150 and 3500 personnel. The client's objectives for conducting the evaluations included:

- To measure local and global loyalty of employees at various levels.

- To measure internal perception of guest services locally and globally.
- To measure satisfaction with work environment and benefits locally and globally.

- To measure training and communications within the workplace locally and globally.

- To benchmark performance data, establish corporate goals for performance and tie these standards into rigorous employee training programs.

Our team of proctors met with employees in small groups over several days as defined by each location. Questionnaires were created and executed in required languages; all containing the same focus and format. Proctors presented the survey process to each group, administered and collected the data in paper and pencil format. All forms were translated by each individual proctor, edited by a second language expert and then sent to our BAI Reporting Headquarters. All data was entered into a database, and reports were cross-tabulated by location, demographics and category. Reports were generated within a 7-day period and sent electronically to each GM and corporate contact. A corporate roll up report was sent to Client Corporate Headquarters.

Client Benefits
Our reports provide quantitative as well as qualitative feedback in critical areas affecting the internal environment of this organization. Reports contain extensive narrative detail and include specific trending graphs in order to help evaluate current programs. The client uses these evaluations as a key factor in determining how to improve employee training programs and benefits packages. Benchmarking and overall performance is also gathered through this process.

Timeframe
Employee Surveys are generated 2 times per year for this client on an on-going basis.

Results
The client has seen a 16% increase in employee retention since beginning this project in 2001.
 

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