eKourier July 2015

FEATURES Momentum 12 Exceptional Customer Service W e have come to the end of the Financial Year for 2014/ 2015 and its now three years since we laid out the plans for Momentum 12. at each step in their journey. It’s resulted in us rewriting messages or communication and taking steps to smooth out their storage experience.

“Competent and friendly staff at Gladesville, storage space of variable sizes, trolley available to move my furniture and automatic interest payment option all made it very easy to venture into this new experience of moving out of my comfort zone! Thank you” “I’d like to make a special comment in relation to Amy’s service at Kennards Warana. I called Amy through the week and she was helpful on the phone. She sent a quote immediately and conducted a friendly follow up to see if I had any questions. She called around and scored the Maroochydore trailer for us to hire and move our stuff in. When we arrived she was so helpful and professional and took so much time to explain everything in detail to us. I usually hate attention to detail and am not interested yet I found it so helpful. It’s people like Amy that add so much to a business that is simply a storage area that could have no customer service to it. I can assure you she adds a great deal to your business and should be rewarded accordingly. I never leave feedback and prior to receiving this survey already decided I would write to Kennards to provide feedback on her service. Value her as an employee it is so rare to find people who provide such great customer service.” “I was impressed with the service from the initial enquiry and tour your staff gave me, through to the friendly reply when I asked about the move out process. The Camperdown facility I used was exceptional and I think the Manager of this site has got the model right from every angle. I especially liked the extra space for moving things in and out with a trailer - this was one of the major selling points over your competitors when I was looking around (along with price). I had never used storage before but this facility would be my first point of call if required again in the same area and would certainly be the standard I would compare against if I had to go elsewhere.” Customer Feedback

‘ With all this we start to see occupancy climbing to record levels. - Tasks and habits that use to be “nice to have” are now more embedded into the regular Kennards experience. Even after all of this there are always new things to do develop or improve upon. - We’ve upgraded surveys in order to gather more quality feedback on how we can improve. The latest roll out of StorMan now gives us the opportunity to finish the online sign up process. You Tube will also play a greater role in sales, marketing and customer experi- ence for the future. Bringing Team Members career training together and taking the never say no, we care experience to the next level will also be key. Evidence for these changes is all around. Returning customers continue to be a large part of the business. Brand awareness is growing, this is reflected in survey feedback and the dominance of “Kennards” in Google search results. Follow up practices continue to improve and are reflected in each month’s improving Mystery Shopping scores. With all of this we start to see occupancy climbing to record levels. Darryl Hodgson NSW Operations Manager Greater emphasis will continue to be given to the web experience.

Many of you have read Jim Collins book; “Good to Great”. One of the important lessons for me in that story was how subtle, little changes go together to grow the whole experi- ence. There’s no silver bullet. With that in mind it’s a good time to sit back and review where we are at. A wide range of little things are now happening through your efforts. All contributing to make the customer experience better. It’s not until you sit back and look at what’s changed do you realise how far we’ve come. These changes have come through NET, New Employee Manager training, Skill-builder and include; - More effective follow up practices and measurement. - Using the Plan To Close techniques more widely for walk-in and web customers. - Significantly increased recognition and communication of your raving fan customers through better publishing of reviews and feedback. - Constantly challenging existing systems and processes – do they fit our FREEDOM values? Do they demonstrate a “Store With People Who Care“ experience? - We’ve made a concerted effort to maintain the properties to an even higher standard – investing in new retail spaces and higher quality maintenance of the buildings with insurance claims and complaints continuing to decline. - Behind the scenes there has been a steady review of the Customer Life Cycle. Looking at how we interact with the customer in person or on the web

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6 Kennards Kourier July 2015