Everything Everywhere
Company: Everything Everywhere - Customer Operations (T-Mobile and Orange)
Company Description: Everything Everywhere is the leading company of two network brands - Orange and T-Mobile.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Online Sales Team of the Year
Nomination Title: Online Sales Team, T-Mobile
Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Our Online Sales Team (60 people) is responsible for all pay monthly,
pay as you go and upgrade orders received via www.t-mobile.co.uk.
The two key success measures are activation rate (conversion % of orders into
active accounts) and new joiner customer satisfaction scores.
Their target was to improve activation rate by 10% by the end of 2009 and
maintain this through 2010. To achieve this, the team came together with
representation from all levels to develop an action plan which focussed on
three main areas:
1. It was clear that our opening hours meant the team were unavailable
when customers needed us most so the team revolutionised shifts to work later
in the evening and open on Sundays. This meant we had a much better chance of
exceeding customer needs. The team were extremely receptive to the change - a
sign of everyone’s determination to succeed.
2. The team reviewed current skill sets to understand what specific
training and coaching was required to improve sales, quality and efficiency.
The team went back to basics to ensure everyone had a solid foundation for
success. They worked with our training team to quickly develop tool kits on
building rapport, effective questioning, listening skills and commercial
awareness. These were delivered in pre-shift brief sessions by Team Leaders
and followed up in regular coaching sessions.
3. They also worked closely with our Telesales department to share best
practice as Telesales had seen significant improvements as a result of working
with an external training agency to enhance their skills. Some of our Team
Leaders attended a Telesales train the trainer sessions, which resulted in one
of them rolling out the entire course themselves to the entire Online Sales
Team to further enhance everyone’s skills.
4. Focussed on customer and employee advocacy, the team launched a fun
engagement programme which linked back to their vision – to be the best online
sales through service provider. With a theme based on the movie ‘The Matrix’,
an online world where anything is possible, it consisted of various activities
from dressing up to winning prizes.
As everyone got in to the spirit of it, it succeeded in raising the energy
levels on the floor and increasing everyone’s ambition to hit our target. The
home-grown incentive was such a success it continued for 6months when most
fizzle out after a month.
Communication was key to the success of all these innovative changes, and
every step of the way managers ensured the team understood the rationale, what
it meant to them as an individual, a team and the overall business. As a
result employee satisfaction increased 100%.
By the end of 2009, the team achieved their 10% uplift in activations and in
March 2010 increased this by a further 4%. The team have maintained this
throughout 2010, during a tough economic climate, which has generated
additional revenue of £1.4 million. Our customers have rated the team ‘the
best new joiner experience’ across all T-Mobile direct channels with customer
satisfaction increasing by 30%.
List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:
Gary Benjamin’s career demonstrates a solid sales background which began in
door to door sales for Atlantic Telecom, moving on to gain Retail experience
as an Assistant Store Manager for DX Communications and then additional
telecommunications experience as a Business Development Manager for Thus
PLC/Demon Internet.
Gary joined T-Mobile in 2001 and quickly progressed from a Business 2 Business
Sales Advisor to Team Manager. In April 2009 he became Online Team Operations
Manager where he delivered a 14% activation rate uplift which he maintained
until he moved on to a new challenge in July 2010 as B2B Operations Manager.