Hot News re Advisor Feedback Seminars

[hereticus]

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST TO THIS FORUM BUT PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT, PERHAPS PRINT IT OFF, THINK ABOUT IT, READ IT AGAIN, MAKE SOME NOTES, AND THEN POST YOUR RESPONSES.

Motters has alluded to a forthcoming meeting with the ‘top brass’, and I can now give you full details of this and need your input please.

WHAT / WHEN – The company have organised two Advisor Feedback Seminars to take place this month – one in Reading on 17/18 January for southern agents and one in Leeds on 24/25 January for Northern agents.

WHY – for many reasons, but in large part as a result of Advisor Online, Hillarys realise that they have lost touch with their front line troops. I get the feeling that many managers are seriously and genuinely bemused by the breakdown in communications, the demotivation of agents, and the us/them culture that has developed. We can enlighten them to the reasons (lack of consultation, arrogant and patronising communications, forced change, cheapening brand image, and the cavalier attitudes of some – not all – FSM’s) but all this could soon be water under the bridge. They want to meet with us, identify the major problems, and open a dialogue towards a new start for 2006. We should grasp this opportunity, voice our concerns and criticisms in a positive and constructive way, and start to work together to the mutual benefit of the company and its advisors. Hillarys don’t have a business without us, but we don’t have a livelihood without them, so let’s move towards some win/win solutions. The very nature of these seminars is that we will do most of the talking and management will be listening – what a turn round ?

WHO – each of the seminars will be attended by four members of senior management :

Mellisa Bunyan Director of Sales
Ross Kenney Regional Sales Manager, UK Sales
Rose Haines Brand Communications Manager, Marketing
Rudie Stewart Head of Contact Centre, Customer Services Centre

plus the ‘host’ FSM, being he/she in whose area the meeting is being held, so Tony Boyd in the South and Louisa Thorne in the North.

Eleven advisors have been invited to the southern meeting, and twelve in the north. I have a list of who these agents are and would like to post this list to the forum for you all to see – does anybody object to being ‘outed’ in this way ? Many of the 23 will in any case already be members of Advisor Online so please let us know who you are and please help to co-ordinate the feedback that I hope this posting will provoke.

OUR STATUS – the 23 agents have been invited in an individual capacity based on our experience, time with the company, and business history. We are NOT going to become a select quorum – other agents, invited against different criteria, will attend future seminars depending on the specific focus / agenda at the time. We will be speaking our piece in an individual capacity. We will not be acting as ‘official spokesmen’ for advisoronline or for advisors at large because we have not been elected or given a mandate to act in that role. Nevertheless I for one would like to ensure that our priorities and comments are as representative as possible, based on a general concensus of all your input.

AGENDA – the seminars will have a six point agenda as follows :


1. Top 10 frustrations – feedback from the advisor feedback team and from the advisorsonline website.

2. Top 10 ideas from the field – feedback from the advisor feedback team and from the advisorsonline website.

3. Advertising – how we obtain feedback from the field – competitor activity, adverts appearing, promotion changes.

4. Communications – mechanics, frequency, subjects, advisor website/chatroom.

5. Product gaps – colours, styles, competitor product developments.

6. Day to day advisor support - Sales Support, Diary Maintenance, Outbound Centre – current methods review, communications and teamwork.

INPUT – we (the 23 advisors) need your input and feedback on the above agenda points so please start posting now and keep on posting until the eve of the second meeting. If some of you would like to help by trawling through the threads on this forum site and listing / summarising issues then that would be great. We need all your ammunition but please keep each topic short, to the point, and as constructive as possible.

SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS – every one of the agenda items is a meaty topic but I can’t help feeling that item 1 – our frustrations – will dominate the meeting so let me offer a personal view to set the scene.

It would be a shame if our top ten were dominated by petty whinging. Each one should be a fundamental and long term issue that involves clear policy matters and requires quantum change in the culture behind company / advisor communications – not just ‘topical’ issues which may be serious but which are largely administrative and which can/will be sorted out anyway. For example, recent concerns about delayed commission payments were serious but are already being resolved, the 28 day DOR scare seems to have been nothing more than poor communications, and there have been other problems which have gone away.

As a starter to get you thinking I offer six thoughts of my own for this part of the agenda :

- Job security / tenure. It would be nice to be able to go on holiday without feeling that our businesses will be undermined in our absence. It would be nice to know that new advisors won’t be introduced into the areas we have built up and nurtured without some specific criteria being met and procedures followed.

- Penalties. Why does the agent always get hit in the pocket for Hillarys errors. One small mistake and we get fined for mismeasures. We incur the time and travel costs to correct Hillarys errors (DOR’s), and we lose commission if Customer Services offer discounts or if the customer’s cheque bounces.

- Lead Allocation. How are leads allocated and how are advisors prioritised ? Why is there no effective procedure to ensure that a returning customer gets the same advisor. Why is an advisor who lives fifteen miles away selling blinds to my next door neighbour ?

- Brand Image. We have always been proud to represent Hillarys, being market leaders and offering top quality, choice, and service. Recently we have been subjected to cheap promotions which have changed customer perceptions of Hillarys standing in the market, undermining our existing customer base in return for a quick buck. Where is this going.

- Product Quality. This will inevitably come up for discussion but lets be realistic. When did you last have a problem with a metal venetian blind ? Haven’t roller blinds improved dramatically over the last couple of years ? Romans and Pleateds are generally pretty good. So surely the focus must be on Wood Venetians, plus some gripes about Verticals and, in particular, general discussions about quality standards and quality procedures.

- Web Blinds. It is galling to have to leave SAM quotes with customers, knowing that the quote contains the dimensions and that the Hillarys website will refer the customer direct to Web Blinds where they can buy the same thing at half price.

Please add your comments, agree with me, disagree with me, propose other issues, speak out, but try to be constructive.

Similarly with agenda item 2 – our top ten ideas – our chance to influence the way Hillarys works. Lets generate some real input on this, something that will make the company realise that there is a wealth of talent and business acumen that they can tap into. At this stage of the game ideas like more commission please, sack all fsm’s, bring back Tony Hillary, etc may be understandable but are also trite and unhelpful. Lets demonstrate that we can think on a bigger scale, be original, and think outside the box. Again, I offer a couple of my own thoughts as your starter :

- Order Tracking online. Through our PC’s, or maybe even SAM, we should be able to tap into the internal tracking system to check the status of any order at any time, so that we can keep customers informed, be aware of any problems or hold ups, and change our fitting schedules as appropriate.

- Improve spares ordering. Every spare part should have a unique ‘part number’ so that it can be easily and correctly identified, and we should be able to order spares, order pads, etc online. Every such request should then be allocated a system number so that we can track it through the system and ensure that our requests for spares are noot iignored.

Items 3, 4, + 5 on the agenda are all self explanatory but please don’t ignore them – contribute your thoughts.

Item 6 is a real can of worms – everything to do with CLG, Diary Maintenance, Asdvisor Support, Customer Services, etc – so lets have all your comments but, as there will be many, please try to make them pithy one liners.

SUMMARY – Motters did us all a big favour in setting up this forum. Nearly 400 of us have joined up, mainly to end our isolation and share our frustrations. Now Hillarys have taken note and are doing the decent thing – we have a chance to present our vies direct to senior management, and perhaps begin to make a real difference. If 25% of the members of this forum respond with two comments against each of the six agenda items then – on, boy – we have substance and we have concensus. This is our big chance – get it right and we open a meaningful dialogue, get it wrong and we lose the initiative. We started this so let’s live up to the challenge. Every one of you has something to contribute – if you are one of the silent majority its time to stand up and be counted, and if you are one of the 23 advisors attended the seminars please reveal yourself.

Many thanks for your time in reading this, Mike

[JoY]

Mike....

Your posting says everything..... I agree with it all 100%, and am so glad you will be at the meeting to express all the points you mention.

I will certainly add my concerns in a seperate posting. Can I suggest we all do this, (keeping it reasonably short and to the point), and that you print them off as they appear and actually hand them in at the meeting.

I now actually believe that Hillarys DO want to hear what we have to say, and that they WILL listen. ;D

[hereticus]

Thanks to JoYnMiK and to Owl for your immediate responses to my posting. I hope to receive responses from all of the 370 advisors out there.

To Joy's suggestion that I print off all the postings and hand them in at the seminar - I take your point but feel that perhaps a summary / precis version of overall feelings might have more impact than a large batch of handouts. Certainly I don't want to miss any issues and, for example, if we end up with fifty common frustratrations then maybe only the top ten are on the agenda but I will make sure that the other forty are also communicated.

I will need help with this, both from the other advisors attending the seminars and from the moderators on this site. There are six agenda points for the meetings so it would be helpful if six people would undertake to monitor this forum daily and collect / summarise all the points and suggestions made against one agenda item each and produce a summary to post back on this site on, say, Sunday 15 January for final comments. Following the Reading Meeting we can then add some post meeting comments as a pre meeting briefing for the Leeds Meeting.

I would be happy to monitor any one of them but let me take first pick with 'top ten frustrations' - volunteers please come forward for the others. It might be even better if we can double up and mirror this action, so if somebody attending the northern meeting wants to work alongside me on this topic, that would be great. Same for the other topics. Also, could a few of you volunteer to trawl back through previous postings on this forum to identify and summarise issues already highlighted. Come on please - we all need to pull together to make the most of this oppurtunity.

In response to Owl, thanks very much - your point is noted and is relevant but I don't want to be tempted into offering a personal opinion at this stage as I think it is important to gather everybody's comments without being judgemental or selective. Everything will be noted and summarised.

[Blind Scout]

To make this easier to collate, can the moderators set up a seperate thread where we can add 1 liners, then each of the nominated collators can keep track as all responses will be under that heading.

[ricko]

Hi Heriticus

The following are my thoughts on your excellent posting re forthcoming seminars. First off I hope the ones attending are not just hand picked yes men, you excluded of course. I do believe that Hillary's have at last realized that there is a real problem out there and that they feel threatened. It is just a pity that they didn't react sooner.

AGENDA

1.Top 10 frustrations

1. The devaluation of the Hillary's name.

I believe the higher end of the market now perceive Hillary's to be cheap and nasty caused by the £99 fiasco that has been going on for months now.
I could go on for ages about this one topic but will try and keep it short and sweet.

2. The inefficiency of running an agency.

With the central booking system one appt in the am then one late pm then another eve etc. Day after day after day. Totally inefficient use of my time. Never happened prior to diary booking.

3. Pricing

Pricing is all over the place. I can't understand it so how are the public supposed too. There is just no parity or transparency in any of our product pricing. Example Quote £280 for one roller to customer she says what!! I can get them for £33 each in your 3 for offer. Yes we can explain our way out of it but we loose all credibility.

4. Product quality

Wood vens and Verts mainly. Difficult to sell something when you don't have confidence in it.

5. Marketing ( type of people we are targeting. )

This is similar to No1 but not the same. Call me a snob but I don't like the places that I am visiting now, some of the estates I am going to for cheap blinds are positively scary. Where are all the middle and upper income bracket customers that I used to see and average £350 + order value.

6. Contacting H/O

Relates to item 6 on the agenda but is one of my frustrations. Not only is it very difficult for us to get through at any time of day but it is also hard for customers. People hate call center's.

7. Performance measurement

I agree with the concept, no point in investing money in someone that gives no return but measure it against figures that are accurate. The MPA's that we are getting at the moment are just a joke. The measuring stick of the day is lead effect ( fair enough ), but what about the 8 no shows, 2 double bookings, 2 service calls out of areas etc that happen every month.

8. DOR's

Related to No4 but different again. I know we fix the vast majority of these ourselves on site but it is the ones where we can't that i don't like because they cost me money. There never used to be this many years ago.

9. Penalties claw backs etc

It costs us if we mis measure it costs us if Hillary's make it wrong it costs us if the customer complains etc etc. I understand if we do something wrong there needs to be a disincentive to do it again, but why should we SHARE in the loss if it is through no fault of our own. This also relates to no monetary recompense for sorting out DOR's and other problems etc.

10. Thought I would save this one I know I have forgotten something. He He.

Please remember that the above are in priority order hence my biggest concern is Hillary's looking like a cheap company.

AGENDA

2. Top 10 ideas from the field

1-10.

Fix 1-10 above. I know this sounds like a cop out but fixing the above should be priority over any new ideas.

AGENDA

3. Advertising - How we obtain feedback from the field.

This used to be done on a monthly basis by ourselves where when we answered the phone we would find out how they got our number etc. This had to be done because my advertising expenditure was directly related to my turnover. This was changed when we went to diary booking and was to be done by central leads. Why do they want us to do it as well? Because the advertising spend has gone through the roof and they are no longer getting value for money, so are looking for ways to cut costs?

AGENDA

4. Communications.

Not including day to day EG agenda item 6. I find in general communications very good, sales talk out of stock items etc. prefer email.

AGENDA

5. Product gaps

I find our product range to be very good.

AGENDA

6. Day to day advisor support.

When you eventually get through I find most of the "associates" to be as helpful as they can be. There does seem to be some training issues but I presume this is because of the high staff turnover. The problem I do encounter is if you have something slightly out of the ordinary the standard reply is oh we don't do that or that is another department etc. A general pass the buck mentality seems to pervade.



Good luck at the meeting. I hope you get enough information and ideas to make it worthwhile, but more importantly I hope they are listened to and acted upon.

[filo]

Hi Heriticus
One question who picked the 23 advisors for this seminar.

[RED]

Heritecus
I wish you all the luck and hope this is a future way forward for all concerned.

My three main concerns would be.

1/ Security of the customers and areas built up by long standing advisor's. It goes without saying that these advisor's have built up a reputation for the service they have provided and that is why they are successful, and it is unfair that at the drop of a hat other part time advisor's are brought in and effectively given as many leads as they want from the original advisor's database. Thereby reducing the income overnight of the original adviser.
It may well be that the original adviser can no longer cope with the amount of work coming in and that would be understandable, but consultation first and foremost with them to try and solve the shortfall first would be beneficial to all parties concerned. Only then if a solution can not be found should other advisers be brought in and then should only be passed new customers, we all had to start off somewhere so this should be where they start. This would ensure no drop off in recommendations or returning customers to the original adviser. Also with this in mind, after consultation I am sure that most advisor's in this position would not mind helping out the newer one as they would be more understanding of why they have been brought in.

2/ Quality, Quality, Quality. I do not really need to say much on this as we all know what has happened of late. Xmas always has been a bad time for dor,s and wooden can be forgiven as being a new baby with teething problems but generally overall standards have dropped. We need to nip it in the bud.

3/ CLG
Please forgive me Bezbozny but I have to say it and don't take it personally.
I know that the people in CLG do a great job and it must be a thankless task sometimes, but you are the people in charge of where we go, our business and Hillary's business and ultimately everybody's job.
95% of the time they do a great job but there are the niggly things that some of them do or say to customers. For instance, sending you out to a conservatory that isn't built yet or like a previous posting, wooden verticals, or not putting notes on your e mail that the customer is on a school run and will not be home till 3.45pm. All small things, I know but the trouble it causes is unbelievable.
Hope this is of help.
Red

[hereticus]

In answer to filo, Hillarys picked the 23 agents so we are there by invitation, but I have a list of the 23, I have met some of them before, and I can assure you that they are not 'yes men'. Even from Hillarys point of view what would be the merit in selecting yes men ? Why pretend to listen if its only a whitewash.

I believe the agents were selected to represent good geographical cover, agents with some years with the company, full time, running effective businesses and achieving high lead effect. I also believe that they have selected agents who they know will speak their minds but who can be positive and constructive in outlook.

I've had a couple of long telephone conversations with Ross Kenney over recent weeks and I can assure you that there is genuine concern and a real wish to understand and address the issues.

[hereticus]

A couple more thoughts from me towards the discussion :

Agenda item 1 – frustrations – Quotes Department ! Potentially Quotes can do a good job in converting business but I never trust them because they simply take our quote and offer further discount, without first checking the extent to which we have already discounted during the sales call. I suggest that Quotes Dept should always check the correct list price / promotional price and compare with the quotation before discounting further.

Agenda item 5 – product gaps – one major frustration to me is the lack of decent fire retardant fabrics (vertical and roller). A school, for example, must have fire retardant fabrics by law but usually their reason for wanting blinds is to keep glare off computer screens and to provide security at night. None of our FR fabrics do this. We need a fire retardant version of Acacia in just a few contract colours i.e white, beige, grey, light blue.

Please keep the posts coming – apart from myself, Motters, and Kev, I haven’t yet seen anyone else owning up to being invited to these seminars, and I haven’t seen anyone volunteering to help with co-ordinating the input or researching past postings. We need everybody on board on this one.

[hereticus]

Open message to Motters !

This matter of the forthcoming seminars is important.

Would you consider sending an email to all the members of this forum who do not log on regularly, prompting them to take a look and submit their comments - you could perhaps even give them the 'url' address line to take them staright to the thread.

What do you think ? Is this practical ?

[RED]

Hereticus
I would have loved to have been invited and would have done my best to have gone to it but sadly I was not.
If there is anything I can do to help out with admin I will be only to happy to help, just let me know.
I would also like to ask all the advisor's of the silent majority to
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE. give some input. If you don't feel comfortable using the forum then send it direct to Heriticus via personal message.
This is probably the dawning of a new era for the Hillary's flag and it must not be lost through complacency.

Red

[nonails]

One small point to note folks is this,....
As Hillarys are hosting/paying for this get together North & South I would bet my bottom dollar that all Head Office types come with Agendas for the meeting.

They need these as they are unable to think on the hoof--its part of being a salaried suit......

Each meeting could fall into the trap of following the Agenda of the "Suit". DO NOT LET IT.

We as Agents have brought this meeting about by using this forum and posting our thoughts , good, bad, and libelous(?). DO NOT BE HIJACKED and get tricked into being led up an Agenda driven alley way by the suits, because if they do, the swine will mug you!!

They are very good at mugging , and surely they won't allow this "Group Mugging opportunity" to pass without trying to score a few points down the left wing, so to speak.

Just my thoughts---I was in a not dissimilar situation 5 years back with another employer when a situation arose, and at the Meeting which was arranged to " Clear the air, and let everyone voice their opinions with a view to progress" --We got well and truly stuffed by the MD, a bod from legals, and a couple of prats in suits who never wanted to give their names"

Going expected to be treated fairly and listened to , and expecting to get frank exchange of views will I promise you be sorely disappointing.

These folk might be nice on a one-2-one basis, but in a herd they are programmed b*****ds.

You have been warned.

Why would they want to change any single thing?
They have even got us paying for the cost of clearing clients credit/debit card payments and getting it into their account----or hadn't you realised that. AND you do it twice on each deal if both the deposit and balance are paid on plastic.
Most of you know WE now pay for the order forms.
So from a management point of view we are skewered left right and centre.

If they want co-operation and respect and a positive workforce on whom they depend, then STOP shafting us with clever accountant type moves because that way you will end up with all your door-locks superglued.

Try being human for a change--its wonderful

Nonails

[filo]

Hi Hereticus
Thanks for that, but tell me if I got this wrong, by what you said the criteria
Is that if you are doing well, full-time and long term you were qualified for an invite
And suppose it was the FSM’s who got the task of choosing, well I just wondered
Best of luck, I’ll wait and see.

[hereticus]

In response to the last three postings :

filo - lets not worry about who was invited or why. Lets just go in a positive frame of mind and try to make the most of this opportunity. Hope you will be posting your own comments on the agenda subjects over the next few days.

nonails - you're a blatant cynic with a serious chip on your shoulder. You may well be right but if we go in expecting to be mugged then sure as **** we will be. We have to take this opportunity at face value, prepare as best we can, and be assertive in putting our views across - or would you prefer that we all pull out because we don't trust their motivation. It's always easy to be negative. I will apologise for calling you a cycnic when I see your posting with your contributions towards the meeting,

red - many thanks for your very positive and supportive comments. You have volunteered yourself to help but not picked out a task for yourself, so can I make a suggestion. If you can find an hour during the next week can you run a search through all past postings on the subject of SAM - ignore the postings about whether we should accept it, what it costs to run, etc., because these are already well known - but pick up and summarise all the positive suggestions about what SAM could / should be able to do for us i.e a possible wish list for future SAM development. We can then present that as one of the 'ten best ideas'. Is that a reasonable suggestion - what do you think ?

Also, anybody else out there who would like to do a similar search on any other subect, your help would be fantastic. Pick a subject you have strong feelings about or a special interest in, but make a brief post to let us know what you are doing so that nobody else duplicates the same exercise.

Many thanks to everybody who is being supportive.

[russell]

my lead effects £650 per lead turnover 30k month and im not invited so its not just big agents going its hand picked ones !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D