– The battle is about customer service

Each month, 15,000 customers visit Power Colosseum at Majorstua in Oslo. The customers are served by 40 employees. In terms of area, the store is not particularly large, unlike their turnover, which per square metre is the highest in the entire Power chain.

Their current ambassador grade is 77, the highest among Power's warehouses in Oslo. However, warehouse manager Raheel Yousaf Khan still wants to get this even higher.

– The battle in this industry is about customer service, he stresses.

The deciding factors are price, product availability and that the customer is met by friendly, knowledgeable staff throughout the customer journey.

Khan states that Customer service will always be a deciding factor.

The customer is always the focus

Khan began as a warehouse manager 18 months ago. He came from a direct competitor where he had worked since 2005. He has eight years of management experience.

– The customer has always been the focus, that's how it's been in all fifteen years of my time in the industry, he explains.

The customer's shopping experience is affected by many factors, such as their encounter with the salesperson, their conclusion at checkout and the extent to which the customer feels taken care of and valued overall.

The salesperson also needs to have good product knowledge.

In the electronics industry, new technologies and products are launched constantly.

For new launches, it may be a challenge to keep up, because the customers also bring their own knowledge, such as with the launch of the iPhone 12.

Raheel Khan emphasises that Employees therefore need continuous updates, both from the head office and from suppliers.

– Equally, the salesperson can’t get too technical. They must speak the customer's language and explain why they recommend a given product to the customer.

Power is a longstanding Maze customer but has really intensified their usage of their platform in the past two years, with customer surveys conducted through the Maze App.

All paying customers – those who have consented to receive inquiries – receive emails with questions about the customer experience.

– Now we get continuous updates on what to work on. We receive both positive and negative feedback from customers, most of it is positive. It is useful to learn how the customers experience the salespeople in our store, he says.

Occasionally negative feedback is received however it is useful to get this feedback in those rare instances.

Feedback from the customers is discussed both at the morning meeting in store and also in management meetings.

Four measuring parameters

Earlier in Khan's professional career, experiences with customer feedback were limited to a fairly simple Happy or Not Happy.

But a distribution of ‘happy’ and ‘not happy red faces’ do not provide much of a foundation for figuring out how to improve the customer experience.

With Maze, Power has gained excellent insight into how the customers experience their encounter with the salesperson and the store, not to mention the factors customers feel Power can improve on. Store managers and employees receive specific, individual insight and learnings.

Power Colosseum measures four factors:

1. Whether the customer is met in a friendly manner

2. Whether the salesperson presents a product that is interesting to the customer

3. Whether the customer is given an offer in a timely manner

4. Whether the salesperson had good product knowledge

Based on the customer responses, feedback is divided into green, yellow and red.

– The goal is to have as long a time as possible between each red feedback. The red ones give us something to work with. We work in a targeted manner to plug the gaps where the customers feel things aren't good, says Khan.

Overall, warehouse manager Raheel Khan is very satisfied with the way they are now working to keep their customer service excellent.

All employees have access to feedback through the Maze App.

– A number of employees log on to look at the feedback first thing in the morning’, Raheel Khan concludes with a smile.

– Has helped bring our ambassador grade up

Operations manager Jon Lyngra at Power states that the ambassador grade has gone up since they started working with continuous customer feedback responses through Maze. Photo: Power

In cooperation with Maze, Power operates continuous customer surveys on how employees behave in the store. – A few years ago, our numbers weren’t too good, but now they've improved considerably, says Operations Manager Jon Lyngra.

Operations manager Jon Lyngra at Power states that the ambassador grade has

The customer survey is operated in all of Power's stores.

Power has cooperated with Maze in different forms for five-six years, and customer surveys in the modern form – with customer involvement – the past two years.

Power measures the ambassador grade as an expression of how competitive the store is and how valued the customers feel.

– A few years ago, our numbers weren’t too good, but now they've improved considerably. There's no doubt that Maze has helped us raise our ambassador grade. Our attitude towards the customers has changed since we started getting customer feedback, Operations Manager Jon Lyngra tells Retailmagasinet.

– Questions are sent out to all paying customers who have what’s called “e-aksept”, that is, customers who have consented to receiving inquiries from Power. ‘We get continuous responses, and the feedback is implemented in the stores, he explains.

Through the questionnaire, Power finds out how the customer experiences their encounter with the store, and whether the salespeople are supporting with the customer's needs.

A series of questions are formulated to get answers to the main questions. The shops choose their own areas of focus (KPIs).

– The two main questions are about whether we are competitive and whether the customer was valued. We must behave properly with the customers. In the morning meetings, the feedback is discussed, and the store manager and salespeople come up with measures, Lyngra says.

They ran into some surprises

Before Power put the tool to use, things were based on assumptions.

– We often thought we were good. But when we started with Maze, we ran into some surprises. The key is given by the customers, says Jon Lyngra.

He emphasises that one must not forget to look at the positive feedback too.

– We have to keep doing what we're doing well, he says.

The store manager at each store can control which employees have access to customer feedback. In general, this means everyone who works at the store with a certain position percentage.

Competition in the electronics business is tough. The prices are quite similar regardless of which chain you visit, or if you shop online.

The margins are narrow, making the customer experience even more important.

– If we can't contribute knowledge to the customer, they won’t have any reason to come to us. Then they might as well order online from their living room. The survey also gives us answers on whether we’re good enough in this area. We have taken the temperature on our training, Jon Lyngra concludes.