New Technology Solves Retail's Holiday Season Customer Service Flaws


Like a Real-Time Customer Service Mind Reader, New Tool Tells Managers What's Wrong and How to Fix it

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 28, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The holiday season is supposed to be a season of joy. But for many folks, gift shopping detracts from holiday cheer. Frustrating store layouts, absurd checkout lines and unknowledgeable seasonal employees plague retailers across the country.

The customer's voice is rapidly gaining power during this slow economy. To build loyalty, retail managers need to please every customer that walks through the door. If only they could read their customers' minds.

Recently developed technology comes close.

Mindshare Technologies, a leading customer feedback management company, has developed a new feature that analyzes customer feedback and key drivers, identifies customer satisfaction problems, then shoots an alert to the local store manager suggesting ways to fix those problems.

The new technology, Mindshare CoachTM, has changed the way unit-level managers stay on top of their customer satisfaction. Some of the top customer service names in the nation use Mindshare Coach, including Papa Murphy's Take 'N' Bake Pizza, which has won several national customer satisfaction awards from Zagat, J.D. Power and Associates and Inc. magazine.

"I've got three stores, so it helps me know how each of my stores is running and what to focus on based on the Key Driver Scores," said Kyle McPhee, a Salt Lake City Papa Murphy's Franchisee/General Manager. "It's immediate feedback from your customers. And they're the people that we need to respond to. If you take care of your customers, then they'll take care of you."

Now that Mindshare Coach is available to retail stores nationwide, we may start seeing fewer frustrated customers and more smiles walking out the door.

Here's how it works: a retail store manager may receive five complaints about long lines, three complaints about unfriendly employees and two complaints from customers unable to locate desired products. Which problem should the manager work on first? Mindshare Coach recognizes which of those problems is hurting satisfaction the most, decreasing sales and driving away loyal customers. So Coach immediately alerts the store manager to help customers locate products.

"How many customers does a retail manager lose between the time a customer has a negative experience and the time the manager identifies and fixes the problem? That could take weeks!" said Richard Hanks, president of Mindshare Technologies. "Coach eliminates that time. Within minutes of a bad experience, a customer takes a phone or online survey, and right away the store manager knows what happened, if the problem is significant, and how to fix it. It works like a football coach correcting a player's key error during a game."

For more information on this new feature designed to improve retailers' customer satisfaction scores, visit www.mshare.net.

About Mindshare Technologies: Mindshare drives operational improvement. Using Mindshare, companies improve operational excellence, foster consumer satisfaction, build customer loyalty and support employee retention. Mindshare's industry experts guide clients in building comprehensive enterprise feedback management (EFM) solutions. Mindshare's proprietary survey technology captures the voice of the customer in real time and immediately transforms it into actionable intelligence through powerful and incisive reporting. Mindshare serves more than 25 different industries including travel, hospitality, restaurant, financial, salon, automotive and retail. For information, visit www.mshare.net.

CONTACT: Zach Zavoral, Public Relations Director

(801) 743-7304

zzavoral@mshare.net

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