Case Study / Over 5,000 Vodafone sales staff and managers equipped with new attitude and skill set to deliver an outstanding customer experience across 17 countries. A consistent approach to transforming mindset that changes the face of retail one smile at a time
Vodafone is quite a dynamic company and very brand led so for cultural fit we wanted a company that had worked with superior brands that we respected and who were specialists in retail rather than just general training providers. rogensi ticked all of those boxes. 01/ The Client Vodafone is one of the world s leading mobile communications providers, operating in more than 30 countries and in partnership with networks in over 40 more. Across the world, it has almost 360 million customers. 02/ The Challenge Vodafone recognised that it needed to update its retail experience to keep up with the changing needs of its customers and the increased complexity of smart phone technology. It also wanted to present a consistent, branded customer experience across all of its 15,000 plus stores worldwide. We realised that one of the ways we were going to win in the market place was to give people an unbeatable customer experience, says Jamie Tait, Head of Learning & Development at Vodafone. Vodafone s research indicated that customers wanted to be able to research devices easily and play with live versions in store, feel reassured that they were buying the right product and leave the store with a phone that was set up and ready to use. The company formulated a strategy for a retail transformation project that would be rolled out in thousands of stores across 23 countries, but it was clear that there was a need to develop the retail staff as well as the stores themselves. We wanted to really transform not just the look and feel of the physical store, but the way that customers interacted with our products and our people, says Tait. We wanted to use this as an opportunity to make sure that our people knew how to give customers that unmatched customer experience. 03/ The Solution Vodafone ran an RFP process to find an appropriate partner to deliver the learning and development part of this transformation project and rogensi was one of three companies shortlisted, based on great results the company s stores in New Zealand had had after working with rogensi previously. After the companies presented their pitches, rogensi was engaged as the partner for this project. The ability to deliver things globally was important to us and to focus not just on training people on a process but helping alter mindset and shift behaviours, says Tait. Vodafone is quite a dynamic company and very brand led so for cultural fit we wanted a company that had worked with superior brands that we respected and who were specialists in retail rather than just general training providers. rogensi ticked all of those boxes. rogensi worked with Vodafone to create two programmes, both of which focused on the customer service, sales and mindset components critical to helping deliver an exceptional customer experience in-store. Both programmes were developed to be run
You can t ever change someone who doesn t want to connect with customers and who isn t motivated to give service to customers. in the downtime while each store was being refitted to the new global design. The first was a one-day course for Store Managers, designed to get them engaged and excited before their staff came and experienced the new store, and the content centred on managing change and coaching people to deliver their highest level of performance. The second was a 3 day Sales Adviser programme, focused on mindset and how to get the most from every customer interaction within the new-look store environment. It looked at each stage of a sales or service opportunity and gave participants the skills, tools and processes for each of those stages to get a quick commitment from the customer. The mindset part of the programme concentrated on self-management: participants learned how to put themselves in the right state to consistently deliver exceptional results, even when dealing with high pressure situations. Vodafone decided to run the initial pilot programme in Italy. They were one of the early markets to launch the new store design and were committed to making it a whole transformation journey rather than just rolling out a new design, says Tait. They had high standards about how they wanted to deliver training, and because more than 90% of Italian Vodafone stores are franchised, they needed to convince their franchisees that it was worth them spending time training, so they were a good group for rogensi to cut their teeth on. Vodafone embedded an assessment process before the training programme took place, to identify each staff member s skill gaps and to check that they would be a suitable person for the organisation in this new environment. The added requirement for attitude trained skills is something we want to embed and it s more about how you keep your attitude and keep your energy up, says Tait. You can t ever change someone who doesn t want to connect with customers and who isn t motivated to give service to customers. The pilot programme focused on why the store transformation was happening and the positive aspects of the change as well as how advisers could manage their own mindset and behaviours to build a greater rapport with customers and adopt a service-oriented approach to customer interactions. The pilot was a great success: some staff in the franchised stores had never previously had this type of training, so they felt really valued and invested in, and over 85% of participants said they would recommend the course to a colleague. Vodafone also got fantastic feedback from the store owners and franchisees saying they had seen a real change in people s behaviour and in the vast majority of stores where the staff were trained there was an increase in customer satisfaction and sales or sales-related KPIs. We were delighted with those results. The pilot proved that the programme worked, says Tait. What rogensi did really well was they had a very good local delivery coach that spoke Italian and spent time in the Italian offices. It was really important for Italy to have the feeling that although it was a global programme there was a local understanding. In fact, on the pilot programme the training was so well received that even the stores that were not being refurbished
asked if they could benefit from the training and without even changing the physical store environment, those stores saw a similar impact on customer satisfaction and sales just by doing the training. Following the success of the Italian pilot, the programme has been rolled out to around 5,000 employees in over 17 countries. As each country has some different needs, this required rogensi to work with Vodafone to tailor the material to fit the local culture. In order to deliver the training to so many people, rogensi ensured that Vodafone s internal trainers from these countries participated in the programmes and then took them through a train the trainer process for five days to practise the modules so they were equipped to roll out the training themselves. 04/ The Achievement Vodafone has gained a number of significant benefits as a result of implementing this development programme: One of the key metrics Vodafone uses is store Net Promoter Score, which indicates the number of customers that come into the store and then actively promote that experience to other people once they have left. After the pilot in Italy, Vodafone measured store NPS for three months, and saw a significant increase of 22%. Vodafone has seen an improvement in customer satisfaction scores and an increase in revenue. As the roll out continued we have seen an increase in customer satisfaction as people come out of the store and an increase in net store revenues where we have rolled out this transformation, says Tait. Staff engagement and motivation also appears to have increased as a result of this programme. In a retail environment that tends to have significant staff turnover, there is anecdotal evidence that staff are more engaged since they have received this mindset training. In countries where we franchise our stores, we re seeing really great feedback from the store owners saying this is a great example of Vodafone investing in us and our people, says Tait. As well as recognising a consistent brand image in the refurbished stores, customers are now able to experience a consistently high level of service which focuses on their needs and preferences. It s difficult to quantify the impact of the training compared with all the other elements, such as the assessment, getting better people into the store roles and the physical layout of the store, says Tait. We can t separate those out now because they are all integrated, but the net effect is that this programme is going in exactly the direction we want it to.
05/ The Legacy As a result of the rogensi programme Vodafone now has thousands of retail staff and managers in its stores across Europe who are equipped with the mindset and customer engagement skills to deliver consistently exceptional levels of service. Customers are receiving the kind of service they want and are recommending the company to others. Vodafone is working with rogensi to continue to rollout the training and sustain this learning by building an online tool and other collateral that will ensure that staff maintain these mindsets and behaviours. rogensi has also developed an additional two-day course designed specifically for the greeters in some of the larger stores, which has recently been piloted in Romania. 06/ The Verdict The benefit of the partnership with rogensi is that they already had an approach that they had tested many times with other big brands and it really worked. So we could use them as a partner to challenge us to be a little bit more ambitious for our people, which was really great. I don t think we would have got as far as we have without working with a partner like that. They ve been very flexible to work with, but clear about what good retail development looks like. I would say they have a good combination of experience, challenge to our thinking but also listening, adapting and having enough flexibility to cope with delivering to different markets. We want to continue to work with rogensi as for the retail transformation. We expect them to tell us now what s wrong: they know our people and have more exposure to our retail people than other partners. Jamie Tait, Head of Learning & Development, Vodafone Group.
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