AUGUST 2019 RETAILOBSERVER.COM
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investments" in all areas of the business toward a goal of
improving the customer experience.
Perhaps the biggest focus has been on developing City
Furniture's mobile sales platform. "We partnered with Apple and
IBM to create ASAP, which stands for 'Accelerating Sales
Associate Performance,'" he said.
The iOS app enhances the customer experience by allowing
the sales team to perform just about any task from their iPads,
including finding products, creating invoices, and providing
shoppers with a vast amount of detail faster than ever.
"It means there's no disengagement from the customer,"
Koenig said. "We do everything for them in real time. We build
the cart in the store, just as if they were shopping online, and the
result has been a higher closing rate, higher customer
transactions, higher average comp-store sales, and higher
customer satisfaction. It has been the ultimate win-win."
As a member of AVB/BrandSource affiliate the Home
Furnishings Association (HFA), City Furniture has also invested
in Axonify, a powerful microlearning platform that provides
innovative training to sales associates across its 19 locations.
Among its many features, Axonify "trains our team on new
products, gives them quizzes, and gives our managers a snapshot
to show how each sales associate is doing," Koenig said.
To stay in the passing lane of retail's fast track, City Furniture
styles much of its training after Toyota. "Like Toyota, we have
trainers who train our employees on new programs and processes.
We have to. The technology is changing, and how we prepare to
meet and greet our guests is changing, but the need to give your
customer an amazing shopping experience has not changed."
"The bottom line," Koenig said, "is that retailers who want to
grow do not have a choice. They have to change, they have to
improve, and they have to invest in their sales
leaders not only to stay in the game, but to win
the game."
RO
E. Michael Allen is VP Home Furnishings of the
AVB/BrandSource buying organization. He can be reached
at Mike.Allen@BrandSource.com.
