Hello and welcome to my new blog format. I have been working on the new format this morning. The old posts are all still here the title has changed from "Mike's open letter to Best Buy" to "this is my opinion". I am currently in the process of writing a few new posts, and will strive to publish at least once a week. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions (I promise to read all of them).
Lets see where this rabbit hole takes us!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
5000 words for improvement
Hello - Goodbye
This will be the last of my Open letter to Best Buy series. I plan on changing the subject matter of my blog to talk about other things that I care deeply about, this does not mean that I care about Best Buy any less, but I feel that by only writing about Best Buy limits the audience that can enjoy my blog, and by opening the subject matter I can write more regularly. No promises, just like when I started this blog, but I want to get on a regular weekly schedule of updates, let’s see what happens. By the way, in case it hasn’t been said enough: Although I am a Best Buy employee, I am a non-exempt worker who is not “on the clock” while writing this thus any opinions, facts, or musings that I post in this forum are mine and have no connection to the company for which I work (and love).
Due to this being the last of the series I figured I would go out with a bang, we’ll see how close I get to the 5000 word marker, so without further adieu…
Advertising
This is something that I have been talking about to anyone who will listen for a long time, no matter the department or store that I have worked in I have always felt that Best Buy could improve awareness of the awesome things that it does. That is why this is the first category of improvements that I will be talking about. I think we can all agree that the company that does the best job of advertising has to be Apple, so I think it is through that lens that most of the improvements in this category can be viewed.
1. Message – Perhaps I am a bit pessimistic when it comes to what people get out of commercials, but I think that the message should be simple. Whether it is a TV commercial, Radio, internet spot, skywriting, etc. I think that we have come to an age where advertisements are trying to be entertaining or viral (perhaps we have always been in the age where ads are supposed to be entertaining). What if they were just simple – perhaps one my favorite pieces that we never aired anywhere other than in store was the Geek Squad Black Tie spot where a lady spills her “big gulp” style drink on her camera – the agent uses “the force” or a power similar to it, to put the drink back in the cup and save her camera. This is a simple and effective message that would help people realize one of the greatest kept secrets at Best Buy (GSBTP).
2. Increase the Budget – I understand that there is a finite amount of money in the budget for advertising and at the same time the audience is becoming more fragmented. With this in mind there is a seemingly endless stream of Apple commercials on the TV (showing off their very simple message). They are a smaller company than we are, but yet have the budget for this. (I would assume that it is because they are creating instead of just selling – this list of improvements isn’t just an ala carte menu it is more of a manifest of changes that complement each other, I will get to improvements that help Best Buy be more profitable as this document goes on).
3. A matter of focus – A lot of the problem comes down to the fact that Best Buy is doing a million things (I talk about this more in my Encyclopedia Best Buy article). It becomes difficult to assign who is going to get the focus (advertising budget) and who is not (who will be the Geek Squad and who will be the Magnolia). I have two schools of thought on this first is that the most profitable portions of our business should be the ones we advertise most (I guess it is business 101 if you have two products that both sell for $100 and you make 10% margin on one and 70% margin on the other – which would you rather sell?) The other is which is going to benefit the most from advertising – this one is more difficult because it comes down to many other factors. Let’s talk major appliances for a minute – this is a category where you can advertise for a few weeks at a time and not see any movement vs a TV or a computer – why is this? Part of the reason is how you do it, you have to get the message to where people can see it, part of the reason is that if the customer thinks that you are new at major appliances (not realizing that you have been selling them 30+ years) they may go to an old standby (Sears/Lowes), and the last part is that appliances aren’t an impulse buy (you can always have an extra TV, it isn’t as practical to have a second oven.) My personal choice would be to implement a heavy rotation of commercials that talk about the Value Propositions that we have created for our customers that no one else can match when we look at the entire package. This includes GSBTP, Geek Squad Services, Buy Back, Accessories, Knowledgeable Experts, Trade-in program, Pitch-in Card, our Exclusive Brands, Best Buy Mobile, and Reward Zone. Obviously these can’t all fit into one 30 second commercial you couldn’t even explain them as such, but if we had a series of commercials that explained each of these (and if the commercials could tie together so that customers would want to find all of the pieces) I think we would see a serious increase in traffic (and not just generic traffic numbers of extra people walking in, customers who are excited to be at Best Buy).
4. Product placement – With the diminishing number of people watching cable television commercials (due to DVRs, torrents, and streaming video) it would be wise to have shows base some of the plot around visiting a Best Buy. We can showcase many of the things that make us a world class company, such as having interactions with associates, fixing problems with products, installing TVs, etc.
5. App advertisement – As most people know a large percentage of the apps on the Android market are free and many of the companies that make apps accomplish this by using advertising revenue from banner ads and splash screens in the app. This could be a great area for Best Buy to start advertising, especially for Best Buy Mobile considering that the device that you are viewing it on is probably sold at BBYM (with the exception of US Cellular).
6. Delivery Trucks – Brand our delivery trucks with a large Best Buy Logo. This way everyone in the neighborhood knows where you just got that amazing TV, major appliance, or whatever else you are getting delivered.
7. Exclusive Brands – Advertise our exclusive brands. I know that part of the savings that customers receive on our brands is that we don’t pay for advertising, but I think that if we took our premium private labels like Insignia and Rocketfish, we could drive more awareness of these amazing products and have more people coming in specifically for our brands.
8. Portable Best Buy – One of the ways that we could have a greater impact with community events (like county fairs and major sport teams’ training) is to create a portable Best Buy store from a tractor trailer similar to the madden challenge or The Game Truck. There would be a few different styles of the truck to support different departments/inventory selections – with inventory either coming from a store, district, or territory level (depending on the event) and the revenues hitting the P&L of the source of the inventory/labor. The entire point of these would be to provide solutions for customers that may have forgotten to bring a piece of technology to the event, or found their equipment lacking once they were at the event. A great example of this would be at a training camp, learning that your kit lens on a DSLR isn’t enough to get the type of zoom that you wanted – we would have the better lenses at the camp, so no need to leave, 5 minutes later you are taking the type of pictures you thought you would be able to.
Reward Zone
This is one of my favorite things that Best Buy does. It is amazing to me how many people don’t know that we offer this program, and even more amazing that Panera Bread does a better job of utilizing the available technology than we do. With that said let’s make it better.
9. Automated – One of the coolest things that Panera has done to our Reward Zone program is to make it part of their register system. When I go in, they tell me what rewards I have unlocked and ask me if I want to apply them today. It would be amazing if you could do the same thing for a customer without having to print it out in store or at home – this saves ink/paper and time. This would make the entire process so much easier for what feels like the majority of our customers.
10. Tiered RZ – Reward Zone Silver is a really cool club, but I think there should be multiple levels to the program, perhaps a gold and platinum club as well – with the coolest rewards going to those on top. I would recommend having a place in the store that shows off some of the cool rewards that you can earn when you climb the ladder – driving some more customer loyalty. I would also not just use total amount of dollars spend, but perhaps add a certain number of transactions, or a stipulation where a purchase needs to be made once every three months, to prevent people from just making one giant purchase and jumping high into the ranks of loyal customers.
11. More after hours shopping events – “Look, it’s a party at Best Buy”. Having our store open after hours does two things. It helps our most loyal customers feel even more appreciated and it creates advertisement for our stores. We can take the time during these events to educate our customers on more of the awesome things we do as a company, or even the amazing things they can do with the technology we sell. Imagine not only doing the events, but before allowing the customers to shop freely we had a demonstration (or series of demonstrations) that they had to watch first (like going to a vendor road show, where you have to visit booths and watch demonstrations before you can enter drawings).
12. New Product preference – Special inventory allocation for our Silver level customers. On select new products (depending on the vendor) we should allow these customers to purchase products before the street date or perhaps just an hour before the store opens for the rest of the customers. When inventory is constricted because of high demand, they would be on a call back list ahead of any other customers. This would give more benefit to being a loyal customer. It is also more likely that these customers already understand all of the amazing things they can only get at Best Buy (GSBTP, Buy Back, Financing, etc).
Best Buy Dotcom
This website has been a growing and changing and evolving thing for a long time. We have made many improvements since I started with the company, but there are more that can be made.
13. Buy Amazon.com – They are arguably the best dotcom retailer in the business, we could just buy them and let them continue to do business as usual (while learning lessons that we can apply to our own website).
14. User’s Manuals – If we had a direct link to the manufacturers’ websites for products manuals our website would be a much more effective research tool for products (even after we have sold the product).
15. Twelpforce integration – What if there was an “Ask Twelpforce” button on each product where customers could send a question to Twelpforce and get some assistance with questions they had about the product?
16. Facebook integration – what if there was a like button for each product on BestBuy.com like on the levi.com website.
17. IdeaX integration – There should be more mention of BestBuyIdeax.com on our BestBuy.com website, perhaps a banner or other ad that explains that we are gathering feedback through this website.
18. Product Videos/content – Products should have links to videos that show off their benefits (how people are actually using the product), links to reviews from partners like Cnet, and to the content that they can create (for products with cameras and microphones embedded in them).
Services
The world is changing at an incredible pace, and our services do a great job of mirroring those changes – here are a few that I would suggest.
19. PC Building – What if Best Buy carried all of the pieces to build a computer in the store (we have them on the website so it isn’t really that much of a stretch), but in addition to having the pieces we offered a service where we could build the computer for the customer (we could then start selling OEM versions of the OS that could be sold with the motherboard).
20. Photoshop – What if we could take customer pictures and alter them. There are many Best Buy employees that already have the requisite skills to do many of the basic edits that customers would want – we could even optimize the process by having developing proprietary actions that can be applied to photos.
21. Slideshows/videos – Similar to the above idea, if we could create slide shows and videos for customers and burn them to a DVD (or just save them to a flash drive in a movie format). We could be heroes for the customers that want to show off their vacations, or other life events.
22. MMO Leveling – A leveling service for players of MMORPGS (World of Warcraft), where our Agents (or Blue Shirt game enthusiasts)would level characters for customers with a standard charge for total number of levels (this would be contingent on the store having someone with the requisite knowledge to do this). With the sheer number of gamers that we have on our staff, this would not be hard to implement – we can use best practices and higher level characters to make this even more efficient over time.
Alternative Business
Here are a few ideas that can bring in different revenue streams.
23. Green energy – What if we sold alternative energy systems and the services to go with them. Solar panels and wind generators. We could jump in ahead of the rest of the country and make a name for ourselves – and make it easy for people to become early adopters.
24. Gaming network – I have thrown this idea out there before, and I still think that it is a valid idea to bring in a new revenue stream (this idea could just as easily be in the traffic driver category). The idea is simple; we create a LAN in store and allow people to play games against each other for a fee. I have done this very thing at a Best Buy store without charging the fee to set up a Call of Duty tournament for the midnight release that we did there – it took us 30 minutes to setup 12 TVs on three different networks. The excitement that those players had to be able to do it was amazing and most said they would have paid to do this more often.
25. App development – This is also another idea that I posted a year ago on IdeaX. It is also a pretty simple idea, with huge benefits. If Best Buy were involved in App development (especially for the rapidly growing Android os) we could not only draw revenue from the apps, but position ourselves for the sweeping changes that are coming in technology (brining us to be similar to Apple as a creator of content as opposed to just being a retail store).
26. Venture capital – Invest in startup companies with a hope to fund the next big thing. And advertise that Best Buy is doing this. Perhaps even a social component where our customers could vote on what we should fund next (similar to what we do with @15 community).
Employee improvement
Before I start talking about this I think that at Best Buy we have some of the greatest employees of any “retail” company (it is still my firm belief that we should not classify ourselves as retail, but we should be known as something else, but that doesn’t change the fact that people look at us like a retail company).
27. More training – It seems like we do a huge amount of training in our stores, and we do, but I would liken this suggestion to a professional athlete. Athletes train all the time, because if you don’t work out you lose muscle tissue, and you can always improve on one skill or another. I would say that an employee should spend 10-25% of their time at work training (depending on the day). By this logic I understand that it means that an entire day out of the week could be spend training, but the benefit can far exceed the cost of giving up ground in the field of knowledge to competitors like HH Gregg.
28. Best Buy Reps – Many of our vendors have reps that come into the stores and educate our employees around products and reasons why a customer should pick their brand, what if we had a group of Best Buy reps that travelled around and did the same thing, validating employee training, spreading best buy news (I know we have programs for news, but not everyone reads, or remembers what they have read). This team would travel from store to store to ensure that everyone is on par – not just what a leadership team in one particular store believes, but to our high standards as a company.
29. On call – To better manage labor, what if we scheduled employees as on call, that way if we have a huge rush come in we can better adjust our labor and call in these employees – we could pay a premium for their labor during these hours, and still come out ahead of those times when we over staff and have to cut labor (only to get slammed by customers directly after the cut).
30. Remote Store employees – What if we used technologies like Skype to spread the labor around the country. Imagine if we had a terminal that a customer could access that was loaded with a video chat software – when all of the other employees in the store were busy, they could use this terminal to talk to an employee from another store where they may not be as over run. They could ask their questions (face to face with a live person), and get answers directly. Perhaps the customer wouldn’t even need to be in the store and could just an OMS transaction for a store pickup at their convenience.
31. Re-org – This isn’t the place to talk in depth about the past re-org or the structure that I would recommend – I would love to write about it in detail and I will if anyone from Best Buy wants to have a conversation about this we can do it on a more private basis.
32. Higher employee wages – Better employees come at a higher cost. I think that if we could increase the average wage of our line level employees we could have better employees (and retain them longer). Perhaps it isn’t just the wage per hour, but the amount of hours that we can give them. Again I can’t go into as much detail on this one in public as I can in private so I apologize for the brief, but to talk about this subject in depth I feel that it would again have to be an internal conversation.
Accessories
Our accessory selection was great for our older business model, but as consumer electronics have changed, the accessories have stayed the same.
33. Cheap ones – Although we know better, and try to advise people to stay away from them, there are some people out there that think that their cheap cables are going to be as good as the premium ones. The problem that I see is that we don’t really carry an off brand – we have premium brands and private labels, but not super cheap accessories. Many customers will go to Wal-mart or Amazon to pick up a cable that is a few dollars less. Some stores price match (against the policy) with unlike brands – If we carried the extremely cheap accessories we could still capture those customers and present a cheap, good, better, best strategy.
34. More – One of the things that is disheartening is that we have a very limited amount of accessories depending on the department that you go into (especially Best Buy Mobile). Again I understand the finite amount of space and dollars that can be spend on maintaining an inventory, but there has to be a better way. Perhaps for phone cases (and this can be applied to other accessory categories). If we had several styles on display, but had the inventory in the warehouse (or backroom for SAS). Where we could maximize the total amount of styles of cases we could show, but just had to retrieve the correct one for the customer from “the back”.
35. Demo – We have lots of product displayed through the stores, but how many displays do we have that show off the abilities and versatility that accessories add to the main functions of products? Being able to have a demo of how an accessory performs helps drive sales (showing the difference between an HDMI and Composite cables for instance shows a much better picture quality).
Competition crushing
With more and more companies getting into consumer electronics (and mobile phones as well). It is possible that our message can get confused or missed with all of the other out there treading on our toes. Let’s crush them.
36. Ad Blitz - When a new store from any of our competitors opens we should saturate every type of media that we can make it known why customers should only shop with us. If we can tailor these towards strengths we have vs their opportunities (in the case of HH Gregg emphasize that we do not have commission, because it wasn’t right for the customers in the 90s, and it isn’t right now…)
37. Better service – Customer service is one of the things that we want to be best at, and if we follow our company policies, training, and standard operating platform we can do this – it is in those stores that have slid away from these basics of foundational excellence and they may need to be brought back into the fold. To do this we should increase the amount of “secret shops” that we do, but instead of using a third party to do this, it should be Best Buy employees from outside of the market that conduct these visits (preferably a mix of engaged employees –ranging throughout the company structure a good example would be council members). My feeling is that these employees are likely to have the best grasp on what is going on and what is missing in a store.
38. Steal the thunder – On the day of the Grand Opening for other stores, we should have large events with amazing giveaways and sales that are significantly better than what the competitor can/will offer. This runs the potential of reducing the amount of initial traffic that that store will draw, along with keeping them from leeching customers from us.
Traffic drivers
One of the issues the things that drives me absolutely crazy is when I am working in a store and there are no customers around (or just a handful of customers). Traffic is our life blood, those customers in our store represent our survival as a company, which is pretty obvious. There is another phenomena that I notice when the store is slow, the employee energy levels go down, meaning the next round of customers may not get the level of service that they should.
39. Road Show – One of my favorite things in the world are trade shows, I wish I could go to them more often. There are always new things to see, people talking very passionately about the product, brand, or whatever they are standing in front of. The possibilities of what these new things can do are always mind boggling. The idea is to transform some portion of the big box stores into a “road show” area, where every month there is a new thing that we are showing off to our customers. This could literally be anything, and the best part is that we could probably have a vendor pay for the labor and the materials to build it each month.
40. Traveling Best Buy show – Obviously we are making a bigger presence in malls across America with our Best Buy Mobile Stand Alone Stores. What if we had a traveling Best Buy event where we could show off many of the products that people would see in a big box Best Buy, along with Geek Squad to answer tech questions, and Best Buy Mobile employees to do things like phone cleanings, and invis-shield installations? These could be something we set up for a week (or weekend) in malls where we have Best Buy Mobile stores, or even the malls where we are trying to figure out if we want to put a Best Buy Mobile (or big box Best Buy in the area outside of the mall). This would be an amazing way to get the word out about a Grand Opening, but also a way to draw more attention to our brand and get people excited about shopping at our stores.
41. Location based Contests – Have a drawing for a free product – it could be anything from a $20-$15,000 prize for a random customer in the store at 1pm on Tuesday, as a for instance. We could do this for any store, or all the stores at the same time. Basing the time to be at the store on a time when traffic is typically light. This will drive sheer numbers of customers into our stores; depending on how well we advertise it – and how often we run the promo. If we do it every Tuesday at 1pm at a store for a year, customers will come to expect it and numbers will increase over time – but we must make sure that we are capitalizing on the customers that come into the store during this promotion – thus a $20 price is probably better, also if we give away a gift card instead of a product then the customer is likely to return to the store at a later time to redeem it.
42. Car Shows – To promote our installation bays and the amazing work of our Autotechs we should host car shows where people can bring in their cars and show off the work they have done themselves or had us do (either during the summer, or year round climate/weather permitting). We could invite vendors to show off their new products, and this could give us more credibility in the community along with requests for more services that we can offer in this area.
GSBTP improvements
43. Instant – What if GSBTP had an instant plan? This would be similar to the way that Blackberry phones are currently traded in, where customer could pay a premium. They could choose to pay it up front, (or an additional fee per month on phone plans), or pay extra (like a deductible) when they bring it in.
44. Chargers and Batteries instore – It would be great if a customer could get a replacement charger or battery in the store instead of having to call 1800GeekSquad or 1888BestBuy as these lines can take 15-20 minutes just to talk to someone (which can be aggravating for the customer).
45. Find my phone app – Sprint’s TEP plan comes with an application that allows for customers to find their lost/stolen phones. There are android apps that already to this on the market, but if we could have one branded with GSBTP and download it for customers that purchase this plan, they would see a lot of value in it, and we would gain more respect from our customers.
Credit Cards
One of the coolest things we can do for a customer is to give them “Free” money to shop at Best Buy, obviously they have to pay it back, by “Free” I am just talking about the fact that you can use a Best Buy credit card for an extended amount of time without paying for the use of the money (No Interest).
46. Secured – What if a customer with unfavorable credit could get a “secured” Best Buy credit card in store, where they could create their balance by paying up front. This would be great for customers who are looking to build credit, but even better for those who want to pay for a deposit on a cell carrier, especially for those where we can’t take cash.
47. Gift cards – One of the more common things people are starting to ask for is to be able to use their gift cards to make payments on their Best Buy cards. If we get out in front of this movement and become on the first retailers to do this, we could create a great deal of customer loyalty.
48. New Promotions – If we gave away free accessories, delivery, or installations with use of one of the cards, we could influence more new applications for the card, along with promoting the use of the card and building more value for customers who have it already.
Well it looks like I have exceeded the 5000 word mark, so I am going to end at this point – in my original notes I was going to go from department to department to make suggestions and while I was at it I would probably come up with a few more categories, but I think that if I don’t stop here this could quickly become the length of a novel. I hope that you have enjoyed the Open letter to Best Buy series – I will attempt to be more brief in my next series of blog, with a goal of least one article a week. Thank you for reading.
-Mike
This will be the last of my Open letter to Best Buy series. I plan on changing the subject matter of my blog to talk about other things that I care deeply about, this does not mean that I care about Best Buy any less, but I feel that by only writing about Best Buy limits the audience that can enjoy my blog, and by opening the subject matter I can write more regularly. No promises, just like when I started this blog, but I want to get on a regular weekly schedule of updates, let’s see what happens. By the way, in case it hasn’t been said enough: Although I am a Best Buy employee, I am a non-exempt worker who is not “on the clock” while writing this thus any opinions, facts, or musings that I post in this forum are mine and have no connection to the company for which I work (and love).
Due to this being the last of the series I figured I would go out with a bang, we’ll see how close I get to the 5000 word marker, so without further adieu…
Advertising
This is something that I have been talking about to anyone who will listen for a long time, no matter the department or store that I have worked in I have always felt that Best Buy could improve awareness of the awesome things that it does. That is why this is the first category of improvements that I will be talking about. I think we can all agree that the company that does the best job of advertising has to be Apple, so I think it is through that lens that most of the improvements in this category can be viewed.
1. Message – Perhaps I am a bit pessimistic when it comes to what people get out of commercials, but I think that the message should be simple. Whether it is a TV commercial, Radio, internet spot, skywriting, etc. I think that we have come to an age where advertisements are trying to be entertaining or viral (perhaps we have always been in the age where ads are supposed to be entertaining). What if they were just simple – perhaps one my favorite pieces that we never aired anywhere other than in store was the Geek Squad Black Tie spot where a lady spills her “big gulp” style drink on her camera – the agent uses “the force” or a power similar to it, to put the drink back in the cup and save her camera. This is a simple and effective message that would help people realize one of the greatest kept secrets at Best Buy (GSBTP).
2. Increase the Budget – I understand that there is a finite amount of money in the budget for advertising and at the same time the audience is becoming more fragmented. With this in mind there is a seemingly endless stream of Apple commercials on the TV (showing off their very simple message). They are a smaller company than we are, but yet have the budget for this. (I would assume that it is because they are creating instead of just selling – this list of improvements isn’t just an ala carte menu it is more of a manifest of changes that complement each other, I will get to improvements that help Best Buy be more profitable as this document goes on).
3. A matter of focus – A lot of the problem comes down to the fact that Best Buy is doing a million things (I talk about this more in my Encyclopedia Best Buy article). It becomes difficult to assign who is going to get the focus (advertising budget) and who is not (who will be the Geek Squad and who will be the Magnolia). I have two schools of thought on this first is that the most profitable portions of our business should be the ones we advertise most (I guess it is business 101 if you have two products that both sell for $100 and you make 10% margin on one and 70% margin on the other – which would you rather sell?) The other is which is going to benefit the most from advertising – this one is more difficult because it comes down to many other factors. Let’s talk major appliances for a minute – this is a category where you can advertise for a few weeks at a time and not see any movement vs a TV or a computer – why is this? Part of the reason is how you do it, you have to get the message to where people can see it, part of the reason is that if the customer thinks that you are new at major appliances (not realizing that you have been selling them 30+ years) they may go to an old standby (Sears/Lowes), and the last part is that appliances aren’t an impulse buy (you can always have an extra TV, it isn’t as practical to have a second oven.) My personal choice would be to implement a heavy rotation of commercials that talk about the Value Propositions that we have created for our customers that no one else can match when we look at the entire package. This includes GSBTP, Geek Squad Services, Buy Back, Accessories, Knowledgeable Experts, Trade-in program, Pitch-in Card, our Exclusive Brands, Best Buy Mobile, and Reward Zone. Obviously these can’t all fit into one 30 second commercial you couldn’t even explain them as such, but if we had a series of commercials that explained each of these (and if the commercials could tie together so that customers would want to find all of the pieces) I think we would see a serious increase in traffic (and not just generic traffic numbers of extra people walking in, customers who are excited to be at Best Buy).
4. Product placement – With the diminishing number of people watching cable television commercials (due to DVRs, torrents, and streaming video) it would be wise to have shows base some of the plot around visiting a Best Buy. We can showcase many of the things that make us a world class company, such as having interactions with associates, fixing problems with products, installing TVs, etc.
5. App advertisement – As most people know a large percentage of the apps on the Android market are free and many of the companies that make apps accomplish this by using advertising revenue from banner ads and splash screens in the app. This could be a great area for Best Buy to start advertising, especially for Best Buy Mobile considering that the device that you are viewing it on is probably sold at BBYM (with the exception of US Cellular).
6. Delivery Trucks – Brand our delivery trucks with a large Best Buy Logo. This way everyone in the neighborhood knows where you just got that amazing TV, major appliance, or whatever else you are getting delivered.
7. Exclusive Brands – Advertise our exclusive brands. I know that part of the savings that customers receive on our brands is that we don’t pay for advertising, but I think that if we took our premium private labels like Insignia and Rocketfish, we could drive more awareness of these amazing products and have more people coming in specifically for our brands.
8. Portable Best Buy – One of the ways that we could have a greater impact with community events (like county fairs and major sport teams’ training) is to create a portable Best Buy store from a tractor trailer similar to the madden challenge or The Game Truck. There would be a few different styles of the truck to support different departments/inventory selections – with inventory either coming from a store, district, or territory level (depending on the event) and the revenues hitting the P&L of the source of the inventory/labor. The entire point of these would be to provide solutions for customers that may have forgotten to bring a piece of technology to the event, or found their equipment lacking once they were at the event. A great example of this would be at a training camp, learning that your kit lens on a DSLR isn’t enough to get the type of zoom that you wanted – we would have the better lenses at the camp, so no need to leave, 5 minutes later you are taking the type of pictures you thought you would be able to.
Reward Zone
This is one of my favorite things that Best Buy does. It is amazing to me how many people don’t know that we offer this program, and even more amazing that Panera Bread does a better job of utilizing the available technology than we do. With that said let’s make it better.
9. Automated – One of the coolest things that Panera has done to our Reward Zone program is to make it part of their register system. When I go in, they tell me what rewards I have unlocked and ask me if I want to apply them today. It would be amazing if you could do the same thing for a customer without having to print it out in store or at home – this saves ink/paper and time. This would make the entire process so much easier for what feels like the majority of our customers.
10. Tiered RZ – Reward Zone Silver is a really cool club, but I think there should be multiple levels to the program, perhaps a gold and platinum club as well – with the coolest rewards going to those on top. I would recommend having a place in the store that shows off some of the cool rewards that you can earn when you climb the ladder – driving some more customer loyalty. I would also not just use total amount of dollars spend, but perhaps add a certain number of transactions, or a stipulation where a purchase needs to be made once every three months, to prevent people from just making one giant purchase and jumping high into the ranks of loyal customers.
11. More after hours shopping events – “Look, it’s a party at Best Buy”. Having our store open after hours does two things. It helps our most loyal customers feel even more appreciated and it creates advertisement for our stores. We can take the time during these events to educate our customers on more of the awesome things we do as a company, or even the amazing things they can do with the technology we sell. Imagine not only doing the events, but before allowing the customers to shop freely we had a demonstration (or series of demonstrations) that they had to watch first (like going to a vendor road show, where you have to visit booths and watch demonstrations before you can enter drawings).
12. New Product preference – Special inventory allocation for our Silver level customers. On select new products (depending on the vendor) we should allow these customers to purchase products before the street date or perhaps just an hour before the store opens for the rest of the customers. When inventory is constricted because of high demand, they would be on a call back list ahead of any other customers. This would give more benefit to being a loyal customer. It is also more likely that these customers already understand all of the amazing things they can only get at Best Buy (GSBTP, Buy Back, Financing, etc).
Best Buy Dotcom
This website has been a growing and changing and evolving thing for a long time. We have made many improvements since I started with the company, but there are more that can be made.
13. Buy Amazon.com – They are arguably the best dotcom retailer in the business, we could just buy them and let them continue to do business as usual (while learning lessons that we can apply to our own website).
14. User’s Manuals – If we had a direct link to the manufacturers’ websites for products manuals our website would be a much more effective research tool for products (even after we have sold the product).
15. Twelpforce integration – What if there was an “Ask Twelpforce” button on each product where customers could send a question to Twelpforce and get some assistance with questions they had about the product?
16. Facebook integration – what if there was a like button for each product on BestBuy.com like on the levi.com website.
17. IdeaX integration – There should be more mention of BestBuyIdeax.com on our BestBuy.com website, perhaps a banner or other ad that explains that we are gathering feedback through this website.
18. Product Videos/content – Products should have links to videos that show off their benefits (how people are actually using the product), links to reviews from partners like Cnet, and to the content that they can create (for products with cameras and microphones embedded in them).
Services
The world is changing at an incredible pace, and our services do a great job of mirroring those changes – here are a few that I would suggest.
19. PC Building – What if Best Buy carried all of the pieces to build a computer in the store (we have them on the website so it isn’t really that much of a stretch), but in addition to having the pieces we offered a service where we could build the computer for the customer (we could then start selling OEM versions of the OS that could be sold with the motherboard).
20. Photoshop – What if we could take customer pictures and alter them. There are many Best Buy employees that already have the requisite skills to do many of the basic edits that customers would want – we could even optimize the process by having developing proprietary actions that can be applied to photos.
21. Slideshows/videos – Similar to the above idea, if we could create slide shows and videos for customers and burn them to a DVD (or just save them to a flash drive in a movie format). We could be heroes for the customers that want to show off their vacations, or other life events.
22. MMO Leveling – A leveling service for players of MMORPGS (World of Warcraft), where our Agents (or Blue Shirt game enthusiasts)would level characters for customers with a standard charge for total number of levels (this would be contingent on the store having someone with the requisite knowledge to do this). With the sheer number of gamers that we have on our staff, this would not be hard to implement – we can use best practices and higher level characters to make this even more efficient over time.
Alternative Business
Here are a few ideas that can bring in different revenue streams.
23. Green energy – What if we sold alternative energy systems and the services to go with them. Solar panels and wind generators. We could jump in ahead of the rest of the country and make a name for ourselves – and make it easy for people to become early adopters.
24. Gaming network – I have thrown this idea out there before, and I still think that it is a valid idea to bring in a new revenue stream (this idea could just as easily be in the traffic driver category). The idea is simple; we create a LAN in store and allow people to play games against each other for a fee. I have done this very thing at a Best Buy store without charging the fee to set up a Call of Duty tournament for the midnight release that we did there – it took us 30 minutes to setup 12 TVs on three different networks. The excitement that those players had to be able to do it was amazing and most said they would have paid to do this more often.
25. App development – This is also another idea that I posted a year ago on IdeaX. It is also a pretty simple idea, with huge benefits. If Best Buy were involved in App development (especially for the rapidly growing Android os) we could not only draw revenue from the apps, but position ourselves for the sweeping changes that are coming in technology (brining us to be similar to Apple as a creator of content as opposed to just being a retail store).
26. Venture capital – Invest in startup companies with a hope to fund the next big thing. And advertise that Best Buy is doing this. Perhaps even a social component where our customers could vote on what we should fund next (similar to what we do with @15 community).
Employee improvement
Before I start talking about this I think that at Best Buy we have some of the greatest employees of any “retail” company (it is still my firm belief that we should not classify ourselves as retail, but we should be known as something else, but that doesn’t change the fact that people look at us like a retail company).
27. More training – It seems like we do a huge amount of training in our stores, and we do, but I would liken this suggestion to a professional athlete. Athletes train all the time, because if you don’t work out you lose muscle tissue, and you can always improve on one skill or another. I would say that an employee should spend 10-25% of their time at work training (depending on the day). By this logic I understand that it means that an entire day out of the week could be spend training, but the benefit can far exceed the cost of giving up ground in the field of knowledge to competitors like HH Gregg.
28. Best Buy Reps – Many of our vendors have reps that come into the stores and educate our employees around products and reasons why a customer should pick their brand, what if we had a group of Best Buy reps that travelled around and did the same thing, validating employee training, spreading best buy news (I know we have programs for news, but not everyone reads, or remembers what they have read). This team would travel from store to store to ensure that everyone is on par – not just what a leadership team in one particular store believes, but to our high standards as a company.
29. On call – To better manage labor, what if we scheduled employees as on call, that way if we have a huge rush come in we can better adjust our labor and call in these employees – we could pay a premium for their labor during these hours, and still come out ahead of those times when we over staff and have to cut labor (only to get slammed by customers directly after the cut).
30. Remote Store employees – What if we used technologies like Skype to spread the labor around the country. Imagine if we had a terminal that a customer could access that was loaded with a video chat software – when all of the other employees in the store were busy, they could use this terminal to talk to an employee from another store where they may not be as over run. They could ask their questions (face to face with a live person), and get answers directly. Perhaps the customer wouldn’t even need to be in the store and could just an OMS transaction for a store pickup at their convenience.
31. Re-org – This isn’t the place to talk in depth about the past re-org or the structure that I would recommend – I would love to write about it in detail and I will if anyone from Best Buy wants to have a conversation about this we can do it on a more private basis.
32. Higher employee wages – Better employees come at a higher cost. I think that if we could increase the average wage of our line level employees we could have better employees (and retain them longer). Perhaps it isn’t just the wage per hour, but the amount of hours that we can give them. Again I can’t go into as much detail on this one in public as I can in private so I apologize for the brief, but to talk about this subject in depth I feel that it would again have to be an internal conversation.
Accessories
Our accessory selection was great for our older business model, but as consumer electronics have changed, the accessories have stayed the same.
33. Cheap ones – Although we know better, and try to advise people to stay away from them, there are some people out there that think that their cheap cables are going to be as good as the premium ones. The problem that I see is that we don’t really carry an off brand – we have premium brands and private labels, but not super cheap accessories. Many customers will go to Wal-mart or Amazon to pick up a cable that is a few dollars less. Some stores price match (against the policy) with unlike brands – If we carried the extremely cheap accessories we could still capture those customers and present a cheap, good, better, best strategy.
34. More – One of the things that is disheartening is that we have a very limited amount of accessories depending on the department that you go into (especially Best Buy Mobile). Again I understand the finite amount of space and dollars that can be spend on maintaining an inventory, but there has to be a better way. Perhaps for phone cases (and this can be applied to other accessory categories). If we had several styles on display, but had the inventory in the warehouse (or backroom for SAS). Where we could maximize the total amount of styles of cases we could show, but just had to retrieve the correct one for the customer from “the back”.
35. Demo – We have lots of product displayed through the stores, but how many displays do we have that show off the abilities and versatility that accessories add to the main functions of products? Being able to have a demo of how an accessory performs helps drive sales (showing the difference between an HDMI and Composite cables for instance shows a much better picture quality).
Competition crushing
With more and more companies getting into consumer electronics (and mobile phones as well). It is possible that our message can get confused or missed with all of the other out there treading on our toes. Let’s crush them.
36. Ad Blitz - When a new store from any of our competitors opens we should saturate every type of media that we can make it known why customers should only shop with us. If we can tailor these towards strengths we have vs their opportunities (in the case of HH Gregg emphasize that we do not have commission, because it wasn’t right for the customers in the 90s, and it isn’t right now…)
37. Better service – Customer service is one of the things that we want to be best at, and if we follow our company policies, training, and standard operating platform we can do this – it is in those stores that have slid away from these basics of foundational excellence and they may need to be brought back into the fold. To do this we should increase the amount of “secret shops” that we do, but instead of using a third party to do this, it should be Best Buy employees from outside of the market that conduct these visits (preferably a mix of engaged employees –ranging throughout the company structure a good example would be council members). My feeling is that these employees are likely to have the best grasp on what is going on and what is missing in a store.
38. Steal the thunder – On the day of the Grand Opening for other stores, we should have large events with amazing giveaways and sales that are significantly better than what the competitor can/will offer. This runs the potential of reducing the amount of initial traffic that that store will draw, along with keeping them from leeching customers from us.
Traffic drivers
One of the issues the things that drives me absolutely crazy is when I am working in a store and there are no customers around (or just a handful of customers). Traffic is our life blood, those customers in our store represent our survival as a company, which is pretty obvious. There is another phenomena that I notice when the store is slow, the employee energy levels go down, meaning the next round of customers may not get the level of service that they should.
39. Road Show – One of my favorite things in the world are trade shows, I wish I could go to them more often. There are always new things to see, people talking very passionately about the product, brand, or whatever they are standing in front of. The possibilities of what these new things can do are always mind boggling. The idea is to transform some portion of the big box stores into a “road show” area, where every month there is a new thing that we are showing off to our customers. This could literally be anything, and the best part is that we could probably have a vendor pay for the labor and the materials to build it each month.
40. Traveling Best Buy show – Obviously we are making a bigger presence in malls across America with our Best Buy Mobile Stand Alone Stores. What if we had a traveling Best Buy event where we could show off many of the products that people would see in a big box Best Buy, along with Geek Squad to answer tech questions, and Best Buy Mobile employees to do things like phone cleanings, and invis-shield installations? These could be something we set up for a week (or weekend) in malls where we have Best Buy Mobile stores, or even the malls where we are trying to figure out if we want to put a Best Buy Mobile (or big box Best Buy in the area outside of the mall). This would be an amazing way to get the word out about a Grand Opening, but also a way to draw more attention to our brand and get people excited about shopping at our stores.
41. Location based Contests – Have a drawing for a free product – it could be anything from a $20-$15,000 prize for a random customer in the store at 1pm on Tuesday, as a for instance. We could do this for any store, or all the stores at the same time. Basing the time to be at the store on a time when traffic is typically light. This will drive sheer numbers of customers into our stores; depending on how well we advertise it – and how often we run the promo. If we do it every Tuesday at 1pm at a store for a year, customers will come to expect it and numbers will increase over time – but we must make sure that we are capitalizing on the customers that come into the store during this promotion – thus a $20 price is probably better, also if we give away a gift card instead of a product then the customer is likely to return to the store at a later time to redeem it.
42. Car Shows – To promote our installation bays and the amazing work of our Autotechs we should host car shows where people can bring in their cars and show off the work they have done themselves or had us do (either during the summer, or year round climate/weather permitting). We could invite vendors to show off their new products, and this could give us more credibility in the community along with requests for more services that we can offer in this area.
GSBTP improvements
43. Instant – What if GSBTP had an instant plan? This would be similar to the way that Blackberry phones are currently traded in, where customer could pay a premium. They could choose to pay it up front, (or an additional fee per month on phone plans), or pay extra (like a deductible) when they bring it in.
44. Chargers and Batteries instore – It would be great if a customer could get a replacement charger or battery in the store instead of having to call 1800GeekSquad or 1888BestBuy as these lines can take 15-20 minutes just to talk to someone (which can be aggravating for the customer).
45. Find my phone app – Sprint’s TEP plan comes with an application that allows for customers to find their lost/stolen phones. There are android apps that already to this on the market, but if we could have one branded with GSBTP and download it for customers that purchase this plan, they would see a lot of value in it, and we would gain more respect from our customers.
Credit Cards
One of the coolest things we can do for a customer is to give them “Free” money to shop at Best Buy, obviously they have to pay it back, by “Free” I am just talking about the fact that you can use a Best Buy credit card for an extended amount of time without paying for the use of the money (No Interest).
46. Secured – What if a customer with unfavorable credit could get a “secured” Best Buy credit card in store, where they could create their balance by paying up front. This would be great for customers who are looking to build credit, but even better for those who want to pay for a deposit on a cell carrier, especially for those where we can’t take cash.
47. Gift cards – One of the more common things people are starting to ask for is to be able to use their gift cards to make payments on their Best Buy cards. If we get out in front of this movement and become on the first retailers to do this, we could create a great deal of customer loyalty.
48. New Promotions – If we gave away free accessories, delivery, or installations with use of one of the cards, we could influence more new applications for the card, along with promoting the use of the card and building more value for customers who have it already.
Well it looks like I have exceeded the 5000 word mark, so I am going to end at this point – in my original notes I was going to go from department to department to make suggestions and while I was at it I would probably come up with a few more categories, but I think that if I don’t stop here this could quickly become the length of a novel. I hope that you have enjoyed the Open letter to Best Buy series – I will attempt to be more brief in my next series of blog, with a goal of least one article a week. Thank you for reading.
-Mike
Monday, December 6, 2010
Who will win the mobile OS war?
The other day I saw that Joshua Kahn had posted the following:
Where Should Mobile Developers Focus? - A VC http://goo.gl/fb/b25Gu
I think about this subject more often as customers seem to be bringing this up more often. I believe that we have many parallels out there to look at that will help determine who will win and why.
Lets start with why I think Apple is on a course to lose:
Apple has been in this position before: lots of great advertising, exciting new technological advancements happening every six months, large base of potential customers. What I am referring to is the point at which they were fighting against IBM with products like the Apple IIe and the Lisa. Part of the reason that Apple has never been able to win the OS war in PC v. Mac is because of the resistance to allow the Apple OS to run on other companies' hardware.
This is the issue that they are running into now, with one carrier and 4 versions of the iPhone vs the multitude of Android devices. (Let's not forget the RIM has manufactured more Blackberries that I wish to count).
Why is RIM (Blackberry) on a course to fail?
Blackberry devices were the dominate smartphone for business for so long that I think that RIM has forgotten that business users are just a niche market. This company has lost sight of the mainstream as many companies do throughout the history of personal computing there have been companies like Iomega and Alienware that have come out with great products, but have fallen short due to not being able to appeal to the mainstream.
Blackberry phones are amazing for Blackberry users, but they are primarily for work first and entertainment second. The current mainstream population wants it in the opposite order, but all is not lost. The Blackberry Playbook looks like it will be the most integrated tablet on the market - more on integration later.
Why Android hasn't crushed the competition:
The Android operating system has a great foothold on this war. With the ability to place it on any product for free, this is very attractive for manufactures, thus we have explosion of Android devices. The problem that this OS faces is that it doesn't play well enough with others yet. For the most part the Android phones are islands to themselves with little interaction outside of the phone.
Also, this OS is like Linux in more ways than being open source. The Android OS isn't as flashy as the iOS, it is getting more and more like it, but the strengths of only having one current version of the iPhone at a time are the same strengths Apple has in their computers. These strengths include stability and performance.
So if they are all destined for failure who will win?
The first part is integration. The first company to provide a way for a person to move their current project from one "screen" to another the same way that a person running dual-monitors can drag an application from one monitor to another, will be the front runner of integration. Imaging being able to start viewing a website on your phone and with a flick of a finger view it on your TV or on your computer monitor. What if you could do that in reverse as well, for when you are about to commute? It doesn't just have to be a website, it could be a text document, a slide show, a video game. That will be the winner. The Blackberry Playbook does a bit of this in their teaser video, but who knows how much will actually happen. Also, it isn't the first company to make one happen, it is the first company to make it happen well.
The next part is carrier selection. Currently Blackberry and Android phones are available on multiple carriers, the iPhone isn't. If any of these rumors about the iPhone moving to another carrier actually happen this will be a big shot in the arm for iOS, but the question then becomes is it too late? Will Android users move to the iPhone just because it has come to their carrier? Only time will tell.
Software development is a big part of this as well, and I am surprised to see that the big video game companies are not jumping in on this as much as they should. I will make this prediction, the OS that gets the biggest support from established video game producers will win this war. (Lets see what happens, if that PSP phone ever gets released).
The last thing that is holding people back on jumping into a smart phone is the carrier data plans. After large 4g pentration I predict that carriers will start bundling their hotspot and data package to a price that is competitive with home internet providers. Once this happens the true smart phone explosion will happen.
Where Should Mobile Developers Focus? - A VC http://goo.gl/fb/b25Gu
I think about this subject more often as customers seem to be bringing this up more often. I believe that we have many parallels out there to look at that will help determine who will win and why.
Lets start with why I think Apple is on a course to lose:
Apple has been in this position before: lots of great advertising, exciting new technological advancements happening every six months, large base of potential customers. What I am referring to is the point at which they were fighting against IBM with products like the Apple IIe and the Lisa. Part of the reason that Apple has never been able to win the OS war in PC v. Mac is because of the resistance to allow the Apple OS to run on other companies' hardware.
This is the issue that they are running into now, with one carrier and 4 versions of the iPhone vs the multitude of Android devices. (Let's not forget the RIM has manufactured more Blackberries that I wish to count).
Why is RIM (Blackberry) on a course to fail?
Blackberry devices were the dominate smartphone for business for so long that I think that RIM has forgotten that business users are just a niche market. This company has lost sight of the mainstream as many companies do throughout the history of personal computing there have been companies like Iomega and Alienware that have come out with great products, but have fallen short due to not being able to appeal to the mainstream.
Blackberry phones are amazing for Blackberry users, but they are primarily for work first and entertainment second. The current mainstream population wants it in the opposite order, but all is not lost. The Blackberry Playbook looks like it will be the most integrated tablet on the market - more on integration later.
Why Android hasn't crushed the competition:
The Android operating system has a great foothold on this war. With the ability to place it on any product for free, this is very attractive for manufactures, thus we have explosion of Android devices. The problem that this OS faces is that it doesn't play well enough with others yet. For the most part the Android phones are islands to themselves with little interaction outside of the phone.
Also, this OS is like Linux in more ways than being open source. The Android OS isn't as flashy as the iOS, it is getting more and more like it, but the strengths of only having one current version of the iPhone at a time are the same strengths Apple has in their computers. These strengths include stability and performance.
So if they are all destined for failure who will win?
The first part is integration. The first company to provide a way for a person to move their current project from one "screen" to another the same way that a person running dual-monitors can drag an application from one monitor to another, will be the front runner of integration. Imaging being able to start viewing a website on your phone and with a flick of a finger view it on your TV or on your computer monitor. What if you could do that in reverse as well, for when you are about to commute? It doesn't just have to be a website, it could be a text document, a slide show, a video game. That will be the winner. The Blackberry Playbook does a bit of this in their teaser video, but who knows how much will actually happen. Also, it isn't the first company to make one happen, it is the first company to make it happen well.
The next part is carrier selection. Currently Blackberry and Android phones are available on multiple carriers, the iPhone isn't. If any of these rumors about the iPhone moving to another carrier actually happen this will be a big shot in the arm for iOS, but the question then becomes is it too late? Will Android users move to the iPhone just because it has come to their carrier? Only time will tell.
Software development is a big part of this as well, and I am surprised to see that the big video game companies are not jumping in on this as much as they should. I will make this prediction, the OS that gets the biggest support from established video game producers will win this war. (Lets see what happens, if that PSP phone ever gets released).
The last thing that is holding people back on jumping into a smart phone is the carrier data plans. After large 4g pentration I predict that carriers will start bundling their hotspot and data package to a price that is competitive with home internet providers. Once this happens the true smart phone explosion will happen.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Future of Gaming
Let's talk about two of my favorite subjects gaming and the future. In this post I will talk about Motion based gaming, Mobile Gaming, and 3D gaming.
Motion based gaming
So, Microsoft has launched the Kinect and Sony with the Move. Although I am happy to see motion gaming getting some attention from these companies I think they are about 2 years too late. Nintendo already did this and dominated the market doing it by exploiting a time where social gaming was on the rise with Guitar Hero and it's clones. Nintendo was actually pretty content to be number 3 in the industry making a gaming system instead of an entertainment system.
I want to go on record and say that these two copies of the Wii are very likely to fail. Let me explain why, and hopefully someone makes the right moves to correct some of these missteps.
First and likely most important, the content. I have been a gamer since the Intellivision and I haven't seen a single console/accessory that was successful without having amazing games. Check the end of this post for an appendix of those failures. If Microsoft and Sony want their add-ons to be successful they will need to get a strong game that their core audience wants. My Fix: Court a franchise like Call of Duty, Madden, or Street Fighter to build a motion version of one of their games; the most important thing about getting one of these is to avoid gimmicks and to build something that is native to the system and flows well - gimmicks get old quickly as I am sure many dusty Wii owners can tell you.
Second, they should have waited until their next generation of consoles. As stated before it is an accessory - which means that each company has several million consoles out there already. Even if 60% of the customers who own a system were to upgrade to this accessory that means you have a much smaller market to sell games meaning less developers want to make a game for it - which leads back to the first point. It is for the same reason that the Apple operating system has a lack of viruses. My fix #1: Give the accessory away - make sure everyone that has a system gets one. Not a great option because these things are expensive. My Fix #2: Come up with something that makes people want to have it, perhaps an awesome new game...
Third, its been done. The Wii has been out for four years (as of 11/19). That is 4 years of motion based gaming. Nintendo has been very successful with 100s of non-essential accessories for the Wii. Nintendo took the market by storm by going where the gaming business was headed. Sony and Microsoft are playing catch up to something that happened 4 years ago, which ever company can see what is coming next is going to have the upper hand for the future. My Fix: Obviously this is done, but make sure you are focused on what is coming next.
Mobile Gaming
Two words make me excited about the future viability of Mobile Gaming, "Angry Birds". This has quickly become one of the most downloaded games on a smart phone. Mobile gaming helps bridge the gap between hardcore gamers and the mainstream audience, this is important for keeping gaming alive and to keep thriving it gaming has to have mainstream appeal.
Let's not forget about the gamers though. Touch screen gaming is fun, but it is more of a vacation from gaming than a fulfillment for a hardcore gamer. Most gamers want to have the control that you will currently only find in a hardware based peripheral (i.e. a controller). If someone wants to dominate the market right now someone would develop a universal controller for smartphones. (I hope those involved with Rocketfish/Insignia are reading this part) The idea is simple, it would connect to Android/iOS based phones via either a data cable or Bluetooth. It would have a universal mount on the top so that you could place your phone inside, and it would have an extra battery inside (like the Zagg Sparq) so that you could charge your phone while playing. It would be awesome if there was some sort of phone storage on the device as well, so that it could all fold up and turn into a hip pouch.
The other big thing that is missing from smartphone gaming is the social element. The iOS based phones have some games that allow for this, but what I am looking for is a first person shooter (e.g. Doom, Call of Duty, CounterStike) that is able to be played on a smart phone against other people playing the game. Eventually as these phones become more powerful - why not allow them on existing gaming networks like Xbox Live (like Shadowrun for the where PC and Xbox 360 users played against each other).
When these things happen I would imagine we will have to look at combining Best Buy Mobile with our gaming department. Look at the rumors on the PSP - a reminder of the NGage; which is a device that was unfortunately ahead of its time.
When the big console gaming companies start releasing their content on smartphones we will see an explosion and a game changer. I hope we are modeling our business for these eventual future when games are no longer purchased in a physical form (will it be the death of GameStop?)
3D gaming
When I first sat down in front of a current version of a 3D Tv, I was excited by the possibilities that are offered for gaming. Immersion is the quality of a good game, if the game is good enough the outside world melts away and you become a part of the game. 3D is a tool, like anything else, and if used properly I feel that there are going to be a slew of amazing games using this technology. Kudos to Nintendo for bringing a 3D experience without glasses to E3, and hopefully soon to the general public. As more and more people experience the medium the greater the likelihood for good games to be generated in the future.
I personally believe that we will see a huge push for first person shooters and sports games done in 3D coupled with motion gaming. Not only are you performing the action, shooting, passing, running, dodging, etc, but it is happening in 3D - which should be doing a pretty good job of tricking your brain into thinking you are in the game - which leads me back to the immersion that I was talking about earlier.
My advice is to watch people play a games they are really in to. Whether it is Madden, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft. If they get really into the zone, sometimes they reach a Zen state where they can find their calm center and the rest of the world doesn't matter. Immersion is an awesome thing to experience, it is the thing that many gamers are chasing out there.
A brief Appendix of failed accessories:
The Multitap - This device was created to allow for additional players on various consoles, in fact it was tried several times for systems like: Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Genesis, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Sony PlayStation 2. Eventually console manufacturers created consoles that were capable of 4 players, making a Multitap unneeded and increasing the percentage of games that allow for 4 players.
Light guns - These guns were able to be pointed at the screen and register where they were shooting. An amazing idea, but with the exception of the Zapper these were not bundled with the original system. The shooting games requiring light guns flopped, most of the games were terrible for one reason or another, the guns weren't as accurate as people wanted them to be either. Other notable mentions in the light gun category: The Menacer and the Super Scope.
The Powerglove - This alternative controller for the NES was an amazing piece of technology, but a huge failure. One of the biggest reasons for the failure was that it release in the US with two games (only 1 game in Japan). It was so technically advanced that it wasn't matched in ability until the Wii controller 15 year later. This device helps prove the point that no matter how awesome an accessory - without games it will fail.
XBand and Sega Channel - These services were ahead of their time as well but likely paved the way for a better Xbox Live and Playstation network. These were early attempts at online gaming and providing online content, the problems were that the technology was too slow to support gaming and that there weren't enough people interested in adding to their existing console.
The Sega Activator - This was an amazing idea based off of the light harp. It was an octagon that was laid on the floor, players would break the plane above the octagon to do different in game moves. One of the problems were that it was too expensive $80 (which close to the cost of the Sega Genesis console which was either $99 or $149 when the activator came out). Another problem was that it was inaccurate, being thrown off by all sorts of things, like the ceiling/floor not being 100% parallel.
Others that I am not going to describe are: The Atari Mindlink, R.O.B., Playstaion Eye, Xbox Vision, the Game Cube(not an accessory, but a failure just the same), Nintendo Powerpad, Trance Vibrator, Roll&Rocker, 32x, SegaCd, and lets do our best to forget the Virtual Boy.
Motion based gaming
So, Microsoft has launched the Kinect and Sony with the Move. Although I am happy to see motion gaming getting some attention from these companies I think they are about 2 years too late. Nintendo already did this and dominated the market doing it by exploiting a time where social gaming was on the rise with Guitar Hero and it's clones. Nintendo was actually pretty content to be number 3 in the industry making a gaming system instead of an entertainment system.
I want to go on record and say that these two copies of the Wii are very likely to fail. Let me explain why, and hopefully someone makes the right moves to correct some of these missteps.
First and likely most important, the content. I have been a gamer since the Intellivision and I haven't seen a single console/accessory that was successful without having amazing games. Check the end of this post for an appendix of those failures. If Microsoft and Sony want their add-ons to be successful they will need to get a strong game that their core audience wants. My Fix: Court a franchise like Call of Duty, Madden, or Street Fighter to build a motion version of one of their games; the most important thing about getting one of these is to avoid gimmicks and to build something that is native to the system and flows well - gimmicks get old quickly as I am sure many dusty Wii owners can tell you.
Second, they should have waited until their next generation of consoles. As stated before it is an accessory - which means that each company has several million consoles out there already. Even if 60% of the customers who own a system were to upgrade to this accessory that means you have a much smaller market to sell games meaning less developers want to make a game for it - which leads back to the first point. It is for the same reason that the Apple operating system has a lack of viruses. My fix #1: Give the accessory away - make sure everyone that has a system gets one. Not a great option because these things are expensive. My Fix #2: Come up with something that makes people want to have it, perhaps an awesome new game...
Third, its been done. The Wii has been out for four years (as of 11/19). That is 4 years of motion based gaming. Nintendo has been very successful with 100s of non-essential accessories for the Wii. Nintendo took the market by storm by going where the gaming business was headed. Sony and Microsoft are playing catch up to something that happened 4 years ago, which ever company can see what is coming next is going to have the upper hand for the future. My Fix: Obviously this is done, but make sure you are focused on what is coming next.
Mobile Gaming
Two words make me excited about the future viability of Mobile Gaming, "Angry Birds". This has quickly become one of the most downloaded games on a smart phone. Mobile gaming helps bridge the gap between hardcore gamers and the mainstream audience, this is important for keeping gaming alive and to keep thriving it gaming has to have mainstream appeal.
Let's not forget about the gamers though. Touch screen gaming is fun, but it is more of a vacation from gaming than a fulfillment for a hardcore gamer. Most gamers want to have the control that you will currently only find in a hardware based peripheral (i.e. a controller). If someone wants to dominate the market right now someone would develop a universal controller for smartphones. (I hope those involved with Rocketfish/Insignia are reading this part) The idea is simple, it would connect to Android/iOS based phones via either a data cable or Bluetooth. It would have a universal mount on the top so that you could place your phone inside, and it would have an extra battery inside (like the Zagg Sparq) so that you could charge your phone while playing. It would be awesome if there was some sort of phone storage on the device as well, so that it could all fold up and turn into a hip pouch.
The other big thing that is missing from smartphone gaming is the social element. The iOS based phones have some games that allow for this, but what I am looking for is a first person shooter (e.g. Doom, Call of Duty, CounterStike) that is able to be played on a smart phone against other people playing the game. Eventually as these phones become more powerful - why not allow them on existing gaming networks like Xbox Live (like Shadowrun for the where PC and Xbox 360 users played against each other).
When these things happen I would imagine we will have to look at combining Best Buy Mobile with our gaming department. Look at the rumors on the PSP - a reminder of the NGage; which is a device that was unfortunately ahead of its time.
When the big console gaming companies start releasing their content on smartphones we will see an explosion and a game changer. I hope we are modeling our business for these eventual future when games are no longer purchased in a physical form (will it be the death of GameStop?)
3D gaming
When I first sat down in front of a current version of a 3D Tv, I was excited by the possibilities that are offered for gaming. Immersion is the quality of a good game, if the game is good enough the outside world melts away and you become a part of the game. 3D is a tool, like anything else, and if used properly I feel that there are going to be a slew of amazing games using this technology. Kudos to Nintendo for bringing a 3D experience without glasses to E3, and hopefully soon to the general public. As more and more people experience the medium the greater the likelihood for good games to be generated in the future.
I personally believe that we will see a huge push for first person shooters and sports games done in 3D coupled with motion gaming. Not only are you performing the action, shooting, passing, running, dodging, etc, but it is happening in 3D - which should be doing a pretty good job of tricking your brain into thinking you are in the game - which leads me back to the immersion that I was talking about earlier.
My advice is to watch people play a games they are really in to. Whether it is Madden, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft. If they get really into the zone, sometimes they reach a Zen state where they can find their calm center and the rest of the world doesn't matter. Immersion is an awesome thing to experience, it is the thing that many gamers are chasing out there.
A brief Appendix of failed accessories:
The Multitap - This device was created to allow for additional players on various consoles, in fact it was tried several times for systems like: Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Genesis, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Sony PlayStation 2. Eventually console manufacturers created consoles that were capable of 4 players, making a Multitap unneeded and increasing the percentage of games that allow for 4 players.
Light guns - These guns were able to be pointed at the screen and register where they were shooting. An amazing idea, but with the exception of the Zapper these were not bundled with the original system. The shooting games requiring light guns flopped, most of the games were terrible for one reason or another, the guns weren't as accurate as people wanted them to be either. Other notable mentions in the light gun category: The Menacer and the Super Scope.
The Powerglove - This alternative controller for the NES was an amazing piece of technology, but a huge failure. One of the biggest reasons for the failure was that it release in the US with two games (only 1 game in Japan). It was so technically advanced that it wasn't matched in ability until the Wii controller 15 year later. This device helps prove the point that no matter how awesome an accessory - without games it will fail.
XBand and Sega Channel - These services were ahead of their time as well but likely paved the way for a better Xbox Live and Playstation network. These were early attempts at online gaming and providing online content, the problems were that the technology was too slow to support gaming and that there weren't enough people interested in adding to their existing console.
The Sega Activator - This was an amazing idea based off of the light harp. It was an octagon that was laid on the floor, players would break the plane above the octagon to do different in game moves. One of the problems were that it was too expensive $80 (which close to the cost of the Sega Genesis console which was either $99 or $149 when the activator came out). Another problem was that it was inaccurate, being thrown off by all sorts of things, like the ceiling/floor not being 100% parallel.
Others that I am not going to describe are: The Atari Mindlink, R.O.B., Playstaion Eye, Xbox Vision, the Game Cube(not an accessory, but a failure just the same), Nintendo Powerpad, Trance Vibrator, Roll&Rocker, 32x, SegaCd, and lets do our best to forget the Virtual Boy.
Best Buy Digital Magazine
Today I read an interesting post by Barry Judge, "We should launch a ipad style magazine with editorial content focused on the connected world. New avenue for Best Buy On as well?"
I thought it was an amazing idea, and I think 140 characters to be too limiting for my honest response so I will post it here.
The idea is great, but to expand on it iPad's and other tablets are going to have a small penetration this year, sure there could be anywhere from 13-30 million sold over the next 12 months, but I think that we should expand the idea to cover all iOS and Android platform devices. This would give Best Buy a huge number of devices that will support our effort.
Beyond that I think that it would provide a great opportunity to educate our customers around the connected world by writing how to guides with links to videos, pointing out new and emerging technologies, and also a platform for explaining some of the value propositions of our brand that will help customers use technology to improve their lives.
As Timothy Young asked about the @Gamer magazine, which brings me to my next point. We have various printed materials all around the store, ranging from @Gamer which is an amazing gaming magazine to First Glimpse to the department guides (Digital Imaging Gaming, Movies, and Home Theater). These are all things that could be rolled into the same magazine or better yet maintained as separate entities that have the ability to link to one another - or at least make mention of the other pieces that are out there.
I thought it was an amazing idea, and I think 140 characters to be too limiting for my honest response so I will post it here.
The idea is great, but to expand on it iPad's and other tablets are going to have a small penetration this year, sure there could be anywhere from 13-30 million sold over the next 12 months, but I think that we should expand the idea to cover all iOS and Android platform devices. This would give Best Buy a huge number of devices that will support our effort.
Beyond that I think that it would provide a great opportunity to educate our customers around the connected world by writing how to guides with links to videos, pointing out new and emerging technologies, and also a platform for explaining some of the value propositions of our brand that will help customers use technology to improve their lives.
As Timothy Young asked about the @Gamer magazine, which brings me to my next point. We have various printed materials all around the store, ranging from @Gamer which is an amazing gaming magazine to First Glimpse to the department guides (Digital Imaging Gaming, Movies, and Home Theater). These are all things that could be rolled into the same magazine or better yet maintained as separate entities that have the ability to link to one another - or at least make mention of the other pieces that are out there.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Social Media Specialist
For those who are interested this update is a presentation of an idea for a new role:
CASE FOR CHANGE
Currently the world is more connected than it ever was in the past. People are using social networks to connect to businesses, talk about their experiences, and to research new product. Best Buy has been pushing into the social sphere with initiatives like Twelpforce and developing relationships with different companies including Google, Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter. Our customers continue to use the telephone to communicate, but they have shown that they are willing to have the conversations with or without us in social media. Our corporate office has given guidelines, but has been very clear that they are looking for the field to develop and innovate in the social space.
THE ROLE
The Social Media Specialist would be responsible for driving growth in our stores through a combination of utilizing social networks along with participation in community and in-store events. Each participating store in the district would select an associate to become a Social Media Specialist. The initial structure will require 20-30 hours a week. The initial test will run for 6 months, while we evaluate the impact of the role.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Twelpforce/BBYFeed.com
Twelpforce is currently a large part of the Best Buy social media strategy. Anyone in this role should be an active member of Twelpforce due to the unique nature of the program. There are many best practices that can be learned from participation in this program. More than 25,000 questions have been answered by the 2,600 associates working with Twelpforce. Now with the new BBYFeed tool, currently in beta testing, there is increased visibility of customer questions.
Twitter/Facebook
By using Twitter and Facebook page at the local level gives us an ability that very few retailers have started utilize, which is an advantage that where can capitalize. These are two of the fastest growing mediums in the world of social networking. We can use both forms for the purpose of marketing, customer contact, and around general awareness. Awareness works in both directions, making our customers more aware of our offers and making us more aware of the needs of our customers.
Other Social Media (YouTube, Flickr, FourSquare, etc...)
Although Facebook and Twitter are among the largest social media networks in existence, they don’t always provide the same opportunities as other tools that are available. The social media specialists need to be cognoscente of all of the tools they have at their disposal. This could include providing demonstrations of cameras through Flickr, PodCasts presented through YouTube, or promotions for checking in through FourSquare.
Blogging
Blogging exists in so many different forms, making this is a very general term. In this context we would leverage a weekly/bi-weekly editorial around various technologies in our store. These could range from “Why should I own a compact camera and a D-SLR?” to “What’s and E-Reader?” These articles would be handed out to customers as a stacking tool in stores, along with being posted the store’s Twitter feed and Facebook page.
Local Marketing and Event Planning
This includes coupon creation, local website management and maintenance, and event planning. This person will be responsible for utilizing RMT for approval. Social media specialists will also be responsible for communicating upcoming events and recaps of those events through the social media networks. Communication around donations and store participation in events also fall into the marketing category as well, the good acts that we do in our communities should be communicated in the name of transparency.
Leadership Meetings
These individuals should present weekly at the leadership meetings to keep the store leadership informed around news in the social media side of the business. This will also give the opportunity for the leadership team to be able to inform around upcoming events or other areas where they may have increased visability.
SELECTING INDIVIDUALS
The ideal individuals will be those who are familiar with and have a passion for social media. A person who can manage multiple tasks at once, is able to establish rapport, and able to speak to the Best Buy brands. If demand warrants more associates may be put in this role, with each taking different portions as a focus, such as dividing social media and community events.
BEGINNING THE EXPERIMENT
After all stores are given the opportunity to select individuals, a meeting at the district office would be organized to explain best practices, exchange contact information, and clearly land the expectations of the role. This meeting will also give the opportunity to discuss any questions the individuals may have. After this meeting the social media specialists would be able to begin their rhythms, with a bi-weekly conference call to ensure that best practices are being exchanged and to establish a rapport between these individuals. Eventually the conference call would move to one a month as these individuals become more comfortable with their roles.
Social Media Specialist
Position Summary
During a test period of 6 months one representative from each participating store will focus on achieving growth through connecting with our local community with social media. This position will utilize various methods of reaching out to our community in order to acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and to emphasize our role in the community.
Key responsibilities (with % of time)
1. Updating and creating social media profiles on a daily/weekly basis, along with communicating with our customers. These sites include Facebook, Twitter, blog sites, local store pages, and email. Utilizing these tools the Social Media Specialist will inform around in store events, community events with store participation, and to answer questions and concerns from customers in our local area. (30%)
2. Coach and train store associates around the use of social networks, Twelpforce, communicating community events, and explaining best practices and proper usage of social media. (20%)
3. Using RMT to maintain the local store page to represent in store events, community events, and provide a contact path for the store. (20%)
4. Attend local events with a goal of creating ongoing relationships with members of the community and to represent and promote the brand in a physical capacity. Develop partnerships with local groups that match the store’s growth plan, targeting various groups such as schools, military, law enforcement, and fire departments. Work with store leadership to create in-store events. (15%)
5. Partner with the various internal groups such as the Viewpoint committee, Local Wolf Pack, and BBFB to work with all aspects of the community. Attend meetings and host conference calls to review growth and impact in each area. Spearhead tag awards, @15, teach awards and assist with local acquisition by utilizing zip code analysis. (15%)
Position Impact
This position will report directly to the GM and DM. It will directly impact and be evaluated by the following key business metrics:
1. True Blue CSI
2. Customer Acquisition and Retention
3. Number of Fans/Followers Facebook/Twitter
4. Hits to local web pages
5. Marketing coupon redemption
6. Number of events scheduled and attendance
7. Comp results
8. Twelpforce questions answered
9. Review of blogs and social media content created
CLOSING STATEMENT
This role will serve as a cog in our social media network. This is a space that changes constantly and to stay relevant we must press ourselves into it. One of the greatest things about Best Buy is the strength of our people and their ability to innovate around the business. Our people perhaps are our greatest asset, and this role is just another example of our company utilizing our people to do things that our customers expect. In some cases our associates are already doing fulfilling parts of this role, through Twelpforce our associates are already making personal connections to our customers. We already seek to educate customers through our Geek Squad blog, which is written primarily by field agents. There are hundreds of stores with Facebook pages, along with hundreds of stores that are using Twitter. This role creates a single person who is responsible for managing this content along with promoting growth in this area. These individuals will help to create a social culture in their store along with connecting the store more deeply to the local community. Furthermore, by creating this position tell the community that we are interested in connecting with them beyond just trying to sell them something, this transparency has been one of the pieces in the success story that Twelpforce has been writing for nearly a year.
CASE FOR CHANGE
Currently the world is more connected than it ever was in the past. People are using social networks to connect to businesses, talk about their experiences, and to research new product. Best Buy has been pushing into the social sphere with initiatives like Twelpforce and developing relationships with different companies including Google, Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter. Our customers continue to use the telephone to communicate, but they have shown that they are willing to have the conversations with or without us in social media. Our corporate office has given guidelines, but has been very clear that they are looking for the field to develop and innovate in the social space.
THE ROLE
The Social Media Specialist would be responsible for driving growth in our stores through a combination of utilizing social networks along with participation in community and in-store events. Each participating store in the district would select an associate to become a Social Media Specialist. The initial structure will require 20-30 hours a week. The initial test will run for 6 months, while we evaluate the impact of the role.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Twelpforce/BBYFeed.com
Twelpforce is currently a large part of the Best Buy social media strategy. Anyone in this role should be an active member of Twelpforce due to the unique nature of the program. There are many best practices that can be learned from participation in this program. More than 25,000 questions have been answered by the 2,600 associates working with Twelpforce. Now with the new BBYFeed tool, currently in beta testing, there is increased visibility of customer questions.
Twitter/Facebook
By using Twitter and Facebook page at the local level gives us an ability that very few retailers have started utilize, which is an advantage that where can capitalize. These are two of the fastest growing mediums in the world of social networking. We can use both forms for the purpose of marketing, customer contact, and around general awareness. Awareness works in both directions, making our customers more aware of our offers and making us more aware of the needs of our customers.
Other Social Media (YouTube, Flickr, FourSquare, etc...)
Although Facebook and Twitter are among the largest social media networks in existence, they don’t always provide the same opportunities as other tools that are available. The social media specialists need to be cognoscente of all of the tools they have at their disposal. This could include providing demonstrations of cameras through Flickr, PodCasts presented through YouTube, or promotions for checking in through FourSquare.
Blogging
Blogging exists in so many different forms, making this is a very general term. In this context we would leverage a weekly/bi-weekly editorial around various technologies in our store. These could range from “Why should I own a compact camera and a D-SLR?” to “What’s and E-Reader?” These articles would be handed out to customers as a stacking tool in stores, along with being posted the store’s Twitter feed and Facebook page.
Local Marketing and Event Planning
This includes coupon creation, local website management and maintenance, and event planning. This person will be responsible for utilizing RMT for approval. Social media specialists will also be responsible for communicating upcoming events and recaps of those events through the social media networks. Communication around donations and store participation in events also fall into the marketing category as well, the good acts that we do in our communities should be communicated in the name of transparency.
Leadership Meetings
These individuals should present weekly at the leadership meetings to keep the store leadership informed around news in the social media side of the business. This will also give the opportunity for the leadership team to be able to inform around upcoming events or other areas where they may have increased visability.
SELECTING INDIVIDUALS
The ideal individuals will be those who are familiar with and have a passion for social media. A person who can manage multiple tasks at once, is able to establish rapport, and able to speak to the Best Buy brands. If demand warrants more associates may be put in this role, with each taking different portions as a focus, such as dividing social media and community events.
BEGINNING THE EXPERIMENT
After all stores are given the opportunity to select individuals, a meeting at the district office would be organized to explain best practices, exchange contact information, and clearly land the expectations of the role. This meeting will also give the opportunity to discuss any questions the individuals may have. After this meeting the social media specialists would be able to begin their rhythms, with a bi-weekly conference call to ensure that best practices are being exchanged and to establish a rapport between these individuals. Eventually the conference call would move to one a month as these individuals become more comfortable with their roles.
Social Media Specialist
Position Summary
During a test period of 6 months one representative from each participating store will focus on achieving growth through connecting with our local community with social media. This position will utilize various methods of reaching out to our community in order to acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and to emphasize our role in the community.
Key responsibilities (with % of time)
1. Updating and creating social media profiles on a daily/weekly basis, along with communicating with our customers. These sites include Facebook, Twitter, blog sites, local store pages, and email. Utilizing these tools the Social Media Specialist will inform around in store events, community events with store participation, and to answer questions and concerns from customers in our local area. (30%)
2. Coach and train store associates around the use of social networks, Twelpforce, communicating community events, and explaining best practices and proper usage of social media. (20%)
3. Using RMT to maintain the local store page to represent in store events, community events, and provide a contact path for the store. (20%)
4. Attend local events with a goal of creating ongoing relationships with members of the community and to represent and promote the brand in a physical capacity. Develop partnerships with local groups that match the store’s growth plan, targeting various groups such as schools, military, law enforcement, and fire departments. Work with store leadership to create in-store events. (15%)
5. Partner with the various internal groups such as the Viewpoint committee, Local Wolf Pack, and BBFB to work with all aspects of the community. Attend meetings and host conference calls to review growth and impact in each area. Spearhead tag awards, @15, teach awards and assist with local acquisition by utilizing zip code analysis. (15%)
Position Impact
This position will report directly to the GM and DM. It will directly impact and be evaluated by the following key business metrics:
1. True Blue CSI
2. Customer Acquisition and Retention
3. Number of Fans/Followers Facebook/Twitter
4. Hits to local web pages
5. Marketing coupon redemption
6. Number of events scheduled and attendance
7. Comp results
8. Twelpforce questions answered
9. Review of blogs and social media content created
CLOSING STATEMENT
This role will serve as a cog in our social media network. This is a space that changes constantly and to stay relevant we must press ourselves into it. One of the greatest things about Best Buy is the strength of our people and their ability to innovate around the business. Our people perhaps are our greatest asset, and this role is just another example of our company utilizing our people to do things that our customers expect. In some cases our associates are already doing fulfilling parts of this role, through Twelpforce our associates are already making personal connections to our customers. We already seek to educate customers through our Geek Squad blog, which is written primarily by field agents. There are hundreds of stores with Facebook pages, along with hundreds of stores that are using Twitter. This role creates a single person who is responsible for managing this content along with promoting growth in this area. These individuals will help to create a social culture in their store along with connecting the store more deeply to the local community. Furthermore, by creating this position tell the community that we are interested in connecting with them beyond just trying to sell them something, this transparency has been one of the pieces in the success story that Twelpforce has been writing for nearly a year.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Salaried (non-exempt) Supervisors and Full Time associates
I have been kicking this idea around for a while and thought it was time to put it on the blog. Essentially when talking about SG&A labor is brought up as the biggest or only controllable expense. Although, I completely disagree with this thought process I will embrace it and see what we can do to make the business more efficient and more profitable.
The Model
Supervisors and Full-Time associates would be moved from hourly to salaried. During most of the year (January 31st– October 1st) these associates would work 32 hours a week. During the holiday rush these associates would work around 50-55 hours a week. Each week associates would be scheduled as normal (based in traffic and other metrics), with a certain number of associates scheduled as on-call. The on-call associates would be expected to report to the store within 1 hour of a call. During the larger part of the year associates would typically be scheduled for 4 – 8 hour shifts and one day of on-call; with the on-call portion being scheduled as well. Associates would typically also have 2 weeks with on-call shifts, and then 2 weeks without, rotating through the months. During the holidays associates would either be scheduled for 5 – 8 hour shifts, with the possibility of being asked to stay up to 4 hours later each shift, or be scheduled for 4 – 10 hour shifts, with 1 on call day. These would alternate every two weeks in a similar manner to the on-call rotation mentioned earlier.
Why?
The customer benefit is that our stores would be constantly staffed, and in the event that the store was understaffed for a large rush we would be able to call in more associates.
The company benefits are that we will be better able to forecast our labor (the full-time associates’ hours would have already been calculated – leaving only the part-time associates’ hours to fluctuate), gives the ability for associates to participate in projects like Twelpforce 24 hours a day, and allows for Supervisors and High potential associates to work on more projects from home in their spare time (this is something that currently happens, but usually with employees off the clock, by making these associates salaried I would assume the company would have less liability around that work.)
The employee benefits are that during most of the year you are getting paid whether you work or not. If everything works the way it should, even these associates could be sent home early if traffic permits – putting them on an on-call status until their normal shift would be over. This could give more associates a better work/life balance.
Notes and cautions:
During the test portion Supervisors and Full-Time associates would have a chance to opt into the program. Also, we can’t abuse the labor, during the holidays, when the highest number of customers are coming in is where the company benefits the most from this plan, during the rest of the year if we take it easy on the associates everyone will be happy. This is partially inspired by the way managers work now, where they give up 90% of their life for 4 months to have a pretty easy scheduling during the rest of the year.
I would also add that currently only a small percentage of the store staff is full-time; this plan still gives the ability to use labor to control SG&A.
As always, if you have any feedback I am willing to listen, post them here, tweet me, or if you know me outside of this blog contact me in any way you see fit.
Have a great day!
The Model
Supervisors and Full-Time associates would be moved from hourly to salaried. During most of the year (January 31st– October 1st) these associates would work 32 hours a week. During the holiday rush these associates would work around 50-55 hours a week. Each week associates would be scheduled as normal (based in traffic and other metrics), with a certain number of associates scheduled as on-call. The on-call associates would be expected to report to the store within 1 hour of a call. During the larger part of the year associates would typically be scheduled for 4 – 8 hour shifts and one day of on-call; with the on-call portion being scheduled as well. Associates would typically also have 2 weeks with on-call shifts, and then 2 weeks without, rotating through the months. During the holidays associates would either be scheduled for 5 – 8 hour shifts, with the possibility of being asked to stay up to 4 hours later each shift, or be scheduled for 4 – 10 hour shifts, with 1 on call day. These would alternate every two weeks in a similar manner to the on-call rotation mentioned earlier.
Why?
The customer benefit is that our stores would be constantly staffed, and in the event that the store was understaffed for a large rush we would be able to call in more associates.
The company benefits are that we will be better able to forecast our labor (the full-time associates’ hours would have already been calculated – leaving only the part-time associates’ hours to fluctuate), gives the ability for associates to participate in projects like Twelpforce 24 hours a day, and allows for Supervisors and High potential associates to work on more projects from home in their spare time (this is something that currently happens, but usually with employees off the clock, by making these associates salaried I would assume the company would have less liability around that work.)
The employee benefits are that during most of the year you are getting paid whether you work or not. If everything works the way it should, even these associates could be sent home early if traffic permits – putting them on an on-call status until their normal shift would be over. This could give more associates a better work/life balance.
Notes and cautions:
During the test portion Supervisors and Full-Time associates would have a chance to opt into the program. Also, we can’t abuse the labor, during the holidays, when the highest number of customers are coming in is where the company benefits the most from this plan, during the rest of the year if we take it easy on the associates everyone will be happy. This is partially inspired by the way managers work now, where they give up 90% of their life for 4 months to have a pretty easy scheduling during the rest of the year.
I would also add that currently only a small percentage of the store staff is full-time; this plan still gives the ability to use labor to control SG&A.
As always, if you have any feedback I am willing to listen, post them here, tweet me, or if you know me outside of this blog contact me in any way you see fit.
Have a great day!
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