Consultants Put Retail Service to the Test on 10,000 Mile Road Trip

(PRWEB) August 18, 2005

It started as a joke. After all, who would be willing to drive 10,000 miles across America to do nothing but shop? Well, the two people willing to do just that are sales and service consultants Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. Of course, this is no ordinary shopping trip.

As professional speakers and trainers specializing in the retail industry, Fenton and Waltz are on a mission; to measure the service level of America’s retailers and report the results to their clients. And what exactly do they intend to learn?

From his office on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, Fenton explains, “We’ll be looking at 30+ sales and service behaviors that influence a retailer’s success from the moment a customer enters a store until they exit.” For example; how long does it take the average retailer to greet and approach a customer? What is the ideal customer-to-associate ratio? How many questions do sales associates typically ask before showing merchandise? How proactive are retailers when it comes to showing “add-on” merchandise? How many times does a customer typically say no to a salesperson before finally saying yes? Fenton and Waltz intend to find out.

Over the course of the one month cross-country marathon, Fenton and Waltz expect to visit 750 stores using an observational data-gathering approach they’ve developed and fine-tuned during thousands of store visits over the past decade. In all, over 3,000 salesperson/customer interactions will be analyzed to measure the effectiveness of what the pair refer to as “magical metric moments” (specific moments in a shopping interaction where sales are made or lost).

Starting in late October and concluding before Thanksgiving, their tour will pass through 30 major cities, including Seattle, Denver, Chicago, New York, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. At the tour’s conclusion the numbers will be crunched and the results – along with specific shop feedback and recommendations for improvement – will be provided to tour “sponsors” who have paid a fee for the research.

Having consulted for many of the nation’s top retail organizations (including CompUSA, JC Penney, Coldwater Creek, and Frederick’s of Hollywood to name a few) Fenton and Waltz promise the data and feedback will be both valuable and enlightening.

For more information on the Retail Service Across America tour, call 800-290-5028 or visit: http://www.fentonwaltz.com. Sponsorship is strictly limited to 20 retail organizations.

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