Consumer Products and Assistive Technologies (CPAT)

Report to Programs and Services Committee

November 2010

Programs & Services Committee
Consumer Products Key Performance Indicators
FY'11
April-September / FY'10
April-September
Cumulative Gross Direct Order Sales
(Web & 1-800) / $756,589 / $802,655
Cumulative Gross Retail Sales / $777,293 / $657,806
Cumulative Gross Sales* / $1,533,882 / $1,460,461
Both Direct Order and Retail Sales
Net Sales Amount / $1,430,667 / $1,299,514
Net Quantity Sold / 43,811 / 31,178
Number of Invoices / 16,792 / 13,877
Average Net Sale Per Transaction / $85.20 / $93.65
Units Per Transaction / 2.61 / 2.25
Return Amount / $103,215 / $160,947
% Product Returns / 6.73% / 11.02%
Retail Sales
# Retail Stores / 19 / 12
Total Operating Hours / 11,402 / 6,686
Retail Sales Per Hour / $68.17 / $98.39
Avg. Retail Sales Per Store / $40,910 / $54,817
Avg. Volunteer Hours / 3,766 / 1,374
Avg. Volunteer Hours Per Store / 198 / 115
# Re-Seller Agreements / 7 / 3
Cumulative Gross Sales / $51,898 / $11,723

* Inventory sales only. AT Resale, Veterans programs, DAISYPlayers are not included.

List of Resellers

1.Comfort Keepers

2.Creation Confort (Skye’s the Limit)

3.Frontier Computing

4.Glencade Pharmacy

5.Independent Needs Centre

6.Vision Aids

7.Vision Australia

Efficiency:

CNIB Helpline: Training is the focus for October and November. We are creating materials that will help both new and existing employees to understand our commitment to customer service excellence and strengthen their skills in managing interpersonal and customer relationships.

Alongside the soft skills and product training, we are also conducting cross-training across the CPAT, Donor Services and Gift Management areas. This initiative will help build flexibility across Customer Operations so that we can better handle fluctuations in work volumes and address all queries in a timely fashion.

Operational review: We continue to work on the initiatives identified in the operational review. Key initiatives that we have been focusing on and will continue to push forward over the nexttwo months are :

  • Customer Charter – The first draft of the Customer Charter will be circulated for internal feedback on November 1. Once comments and feedback have been incorporated, we will communicate the charter to our customers before the end of the calendar year.
  • Store Purchasing Process - We will be implementing a pilot within the Ottawa store whereby staff directly enter purchases into the AccPac system. If this is successful in reducing product delivery and restocking times by up to two weeks, without creating issues around errors and staff skill sets, we will move towards implementing the process across all regional stores.

Product review: We undertook a full review of the CPAT product assortment in order to understand the key drivers of the business, assessthe extent of product duplication in our assortment, improve the customer experience and improve the product replenishment process. This review will put us in a much better position to consider product range extensions, prices and margins.

  • To date, the review process has involved extensive work with CNIB Professional Practice Leaders to identify duplicate products in the magnifier, cane and sunglass product lines. The final product line we are in the process of reviewing is the spectacle product line.
  • We are finalizing the list of 70 recommended products for our retail outlets. This will allow us to offer a consistent line of products in our stores, resulting in an increased customer experience.

Effectiveness:

Promotional posters: English and French posters are in the final stages of development. The posters will be disseminated to CNIB offices and targeted eye care professionals to promote the overall product assortment and various purchasing options. We will share samples of the posters at the next meeting.

“Shop-in-a-box” concept: The “shop-in-a-box” will provide a point-of-sale kiosk that smaller community-based offices can use to display and store our best-selling products, as opposed to having a full retail store. It will allow us to have a consistent product range and “plan-o-gram” (i.e. merchandising plan) in CNIB offices across Canada.The “shop- in-a-box” and plan-o-gram will be finalized by the end of November.

A conscious decision has been made to delay the test in a community store until the new calendar year. The holiday shopping season is a very busy one for the stores and implementation involves inventory changes and a store closure which is not desirable during busiest season.

Immediate Objectives:

Purchaser/product review: We will continue to work with Professional Practice Leaders to reviewand reduce duplication within the Spectacle category.

CNIB Helpline: The new Call Quality Monitoring program that went live in September is being modified and improved in November. The program involves the recording, monitoring and scoring of a set number of calls per agent per month. It is being enhanced by focusing more on professionalism, understanding and providing 1st call and 1st point of contact resolution.

Store promotions: After the holiday shopping season, we will roll out consistent product offerings in all of the community stores. This will allow us to better manage our inventory, purchasing strategy, delivery costs thus enhancing the customer experience.

Client Referrals: We will be partnering with the PPLs to create a sustainable training module that will assist store staff/volunteers and customer service representatives in referring customers to our client service department. Initial discussions have taken place and next steps involve the creation of the module and the train-the-trainer plan.