A resonating topic within The Why Axis we found to be interesting was the notion of cost. From TiER1’s perspective, they just naturally assumed providing thank you gestures were something they should do to gain insight from customers. Gneezy and List make the claim that these experiments do not have to be costly in order to gain pertinent information. Therefore, we’ve provided a simple break down of costs for this mini experiment below:
• Cost for 30 baskets (TG-1, and TG-2) @ $50.00 a piece = $1500.00
• Delivery of 15 baskets assuming they are purchased with delivery in mind is 15 x $10.00 = $150.00
• Assuming an hour of time for the sales associates to drive and visit clients = 15 x $125.00 = $1875.00
• Total Cost = $3525.00
For an overall
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Gift giving, taking the teams out for dinner and drinks, events such as baseball games, football games, have always been a part of “consulting”. The TiER1 team has consulted around the world and firmly believes that gift giving is the more traditional approach businesses utilize for gratuitous measures. However, in other countries graft and bribery are considered appropriate norms, TiER1 understandably refuses to go there. In other respects, this experiment is about the sales person and their expectations and current beliefs of the impact of gift giving. Clearly there is an incentive for the sales person to be able to send gifts like this without any personal costs. This clearly is a coordination problem of how best to coordinate the sales person’s actions to best achieve the goals of the firm.
The Mini Experiment
Given our short time constraint we conducted a smaller scale, mini experiment of similar nature to the proposed experiment above. For our mini experiment we had TiER1 purchased four gift baskets and had one of the sales people deliver two of the baskets to clients in the Cincinnati region and deliver the other two baskets to the Pittsburgh region. After delivery was confirmed we had Kevin Moore call all clients as he has personal relationships with them and ask the following questions:
1) What did you think about the gift
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Every one of these clients took Kevin’s call immediately or called back within an hour. One of the clients got their team together while Kevin was on the phone and put everyone on speaker phone so that they could each say thank you. Clearly this was worth the money spent for all of the clients.
The two calls to the clients who did not receive anything also greatly appreciated the calls. Kroger IT stated, “Kevin this is just how TiER1 is, to have one of the founders of the company call the project lead to wish them and their team a great holiday season and that they appreciate the work is amazing, it is the personal touch we get from TiER1”.
Overall it was not clear if any one group appreciated the gift or how it was delivered more than the other. In addition, what was clear is that each client appreciated the call. As a result, we suggested that TiER1’s research team explore the sales persons experience in delivering the baskets. What we found was that the sales staff was overwhelmed with gratitude that TiER1 would allow them to pick a few clients to provide gift baskets to, furthermore they had fantastic conversations as a result of the gift exchange. While our experiment showed the gift might not matter, it is abundantly clear that the attention does
The commonly used practice of tipping has been receiving backlash, nothing new there. Do we really know what a tip truly mean? What effects it has? Brian Palmer explains to his audience that tipping has become a moral obligation rather than what it is perceived to be: gratitude. In Brain Palmer’s “Tipping is an Abomination”, he argues that while tipping has grown into a common habit for many, tipping is a bad habit because no one knows what tipping actually means. Brian Palmer begins shows his credibility with personal inputs and reliable sources, using convincing facts and statistics, all while using some emotional appeal to help his argument.
TQL can put a single sales supervisor into place and divide teams and appoint team leaders immediately. Due to the lack of managerial experience among the account executives the Executive Sales Managers may wish to hold the sales supervisor position until a manager can be placed and properly trained. During this time, non-montary methods of rewards should be discussed for the team leaders duties. TQL should start low and move up with rewards based on performance as a team leader. Some may currently act as an unofficial team leader and may not expect significant reimbursement and TQL should take advantage of these persons.
As the salespeople’s immediate supervisor, it is the primary responsibility of the manager to provide proper training to enhance the salespersons’ effectiveness and improve their skills. Given the importance of having a productive and enthusiastic sales team, the manager needs to develop and manage effective reward and compensation packages to ensure a highly motivated and satisfied sales force. Sales managers also ensure that the company 's standards of professionalism, image, and branding are consistent with the sales team’s interaction with company customers. The manager 's presence also makes customers feel valued as well as provide credibility on behalf of the company (Pilling, Donthu, & Henson,
Being employed as a purchasing clerk and a sales support at the Furniture Outlet has given me the opportunity to fully understand how the presence of certain reward compromise or programs helps to form a viable workplace for both an employer and an employee and also the organization as a whole. Given the tasks and expectations that are to be achieved as a purchasing clerk, I often find myself thinking about how the work is to be done and in what ways can it be done suffic...
Having prior knowledge of a customers needs, habits, and questions before or during every interaction and transaction can boost customer satisfaction. (Zueschner, Raymond. (1997). Communicating Today. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
The Cold Stone Creamery focuses its energies towards customer service satisfaction goals through a line that starts with the customer and flows back through the store location’s crew and franchisee (owner), to the area developer and members of the creamery head office, and finally to their marketing team members. They call this line to customer service satisfaction the “customer pyramid.”
Sales and delivery personnel have a unique system and they work well together. Large sales force of over 10,000 individuals.
The product team kept in very close contact with the customers through phones, email, blogs, surveys, polls and supporting feedback from the users.
First, when shopping, a big factor that will impact a customer 's experience is the customer service. Whether it’s from a simple “hello”, or an employee going out
Happy Hat, a U.S. national chain of frozen yogurt stores with about 500 stores in 40 states is asking for assistance with its business processes. The average number of visitors per store has held constant over the past several years, but revenues per store are down by an average of 10%, and many stores are no longer profitable. The client suspects that a large amount of inventory is being thrown away unused at the end of each day. At the same time, customer polling suggests that the yogurt flavor customers want is often not available, even when the flavor is posted on the menu. People also complain about stores being closed when they visit. Now, the chain is facing increased competition from frozen yogurt sold in 24-hour grocery stores. Happy
The class syllabus touched on how "International Management Group is considered the prototype sports marketing and management agency." After reading this book, understanding how Mark McCormack came to be the recipient of such praise was not hard grasp. The business lessons laid out in stories are practical, serving as excellent way to teach the reader and at the same time entertaining, keeping the pages turning. What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School touches on a broad spectrum of subjects creating diversity and leaving something for everyone.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was pioneered in the 1980s by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva. (TCFAI, 2014) Cooperrider was doing doctorial research under Srivastva at Case Westen Reserve University, using the Cleveland Clinic Foundation as the subject. The organization impressed him because of the cooperative way it functioned. When the Clinic Cooperrider was asked to help turn the hotel around. Instead of changing staff or sending them to training. He sent them to a hotel that was an excellent example of the way a hotel should operate. They then were to list all of the positive things they found, only the positives, no negatives. The staff returned energized and with many ideas. Thus AI was born. AI operates on the assumption that ...
... (2001) showed that grateful individuals were especially appreciative of the contribution of others to their happiness. Expressing gratitude and reviewing three good things highlighted this, and reminded me to show my loved ones my gratitude.
The club culture achieves its speed through empathy. This in turn leads to very little documentation within the organization and face to face meetings between Zeus and his subordinates or contacts. Furthermore, this culture is dependent upon networks of “friendships, old boys, and comrades” (Hardy p.16). Because of the high level of trust, the author asserts that this type of organization is cheap to operate. The only costs incurred in this type of organization are those of phone and travel expenses. In essence, these types of organizations value the individual, give him or her free rein, and reward their efforts.
Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D. & Stavros, J.M. (2008) Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (2nd Ed.) Brunswick, OH: Crown Custom Publishing.