Project Initiator:
Kevin Wardle, National Account & Capability Manager
Assignment Period:
December 2011 – February 2013
GWA business need:
- The commercial projects segment is a fast paced and highly competitive segment that required a systematic tracking process in order to prioritise and communicate the opportunities.
- Merchant territory call cycles had no prioritisation or structure; this affected our Account Managers’ productivity and workloads.
The Next Level Business Solution:
The Next Level team assessed our current situation and reported back the opportunities for improvement via conducting a time allocation survey. They unpacked the complexity of our sales structure across both channel and segment before recommending and implementing a Victorian (pilot) sales team optimisation program. All work undertaken was ‘in run real time’ and ‘on the job’ without distraction.
The Sales Team Optimisation priorities for the Account Managers included:
- Increased efficiency via refocus of office tasks leading to an increase in time spent on their territory
- Increased productivity via improved geographic distribution of territories and journey planning leading to shorter drive times
- Improved visit targeting via classification & tiering of current and potential accounts based on current and potential sales and cost to serve.
- Increased effectiveness of sales visits via a refocus of the value proposition and rehandling of reactive tasks to enable sales visits of greater value to our accounts.
The Results So Far:
The Next Level successfully drove improvements in each StO priority. Our Vic Merchant team were better equipped with the capacity and tools to retain and grow their accounts within better planned and targeted territories.
The outcomes of the StO process for the Merchant team were very positive, with
- increase in customer face to face time
- increase in revenue/ profit
- improved customer satisfaction through call cycle adherence and professional approach
- balanced workload between Account Managers
- improved employee retention and satisfaction
Looking Ahead:
While our work together has ceased due to restructuring of our organisation, we appreciate the quality and impact of sales team optimisation & the work TNL did for us and would recommend them as experts in this field.