Report to Programs and Services Committee

Shop CNIB

Report to Programs and Services Committee June 2011

Efficiency

CNIB Helpline: The Helpline team has successfully transitioned from three customer service teams to one integrated support group servicing CNIB callers across Canada. We are pleased to say that 50 per cent of the employees on the Helpline team are clients of CNIB. Collectively, the team has over 40 years of employment with CNIB, providing an extensive knowledge base of experience to offer callers.

The Helpline team continues to enhance their skills and have accepted the Hadley Challenge: All members of the team are enrolled in skills training courses with the Hadley School for the Blind.

The service team is working closely with the Helpline team to enhance effectiveness in handling service-related calls. Once the Hadley Challenge is completed, the team will embark on sensitivity training, telephone effectiveness (presented from the perspective of intake counsellors), and knowledge of services training (presented by service staff).

These training enhancements will allow even greater flexibility in handling diverse calls and being able to deliver first call resolution to our customers.

Operational review: We continue to work on the initiatives identified in the operational review. Key initiatives we have been focusing on and will continue to push forward over the next two months are:  Electronic Sales Order Processing (eSOP) – The February launch of the sales order processing technology has been completed for all locations across Canada. The enhancement has reduced the time needed to fulfill customer sales orders and ensure customers are not ordering products that are out of stock. The order fulfillment cycle was reduced by three to four weeks due to the removal of retail processing, handling and mailing time from the cycle, as well as the enhanced efficiency of the Toronto help desk and warehouse teams.  The success of eSOP has provided Shop CNIB with a consistent and reliable method of tracking product orders through the system. We are now working to eliminate several other manual order processes (demo bag orders, replenishments, service day and promotional event) by incorporating them into the same process. This will ensure all product flow is acknowledged in our accounting system. It creates invoices for tracking and audit purposes, and ensures a more accurate inventory count.

Product and store review: We recently undertook a review of the store sales and foot traffic. In doing so it became clear that there are two categories of stores; regional stores and community stores. The community stores will offer the consistent 75 products as well as an additional 10 products for seasonal and new product introductions. The regional stores will offer a minimum of 200 products and will work with the national Shop CNIB team to determine the right products for each location.

The regional stores are: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg. Shop CNIB store foot traffic:

As requested in an earlier meeting, we have obtained foot traffic counts for each store location on an average weekly basis for the previous quarter. Below is a chart that outlines each store location.

Visitors Store Location per Week Calgary 100 Edmonton 120 Regina 40 Saskatoon 30 Barrie 6 Charlottetown 10 Fredericton 6 Halifax 25 Hamilton 14 Kingston 8 London 15 Ottawa 33 St. John's 15 Sudbury 8 Thunder Bay 8 Toronto 200 Vancouver 100 Victoria 50 Winnipeg 108 Total 896

Effectiveness

Branded products: We have branded our sheet magnifier line with our logo, toll-free phone number and website address. This includes our 4x page, 2x bookmark and 4X wallet magnifiers. The 4X page magnifier was purchased by several provincial elections offices, so we sent a sample and a letter from Mr. Rafferty’s desk introducing them to the product and informing them that their counterparts in other provinces had already made a purchase. We have now sold this product to Elections Ottawa, Elections Alberta and Elections NWT. Inquiries from other provinces have also been fielded.

Shop CNIB volunteers: Along with the national manager of volunteer services, we have initiated volunteer opportunities at Shop CNIB store locations. We have identified volunteer opportunities, job profiles and training opportunities and will be sharing this information with the executive directors for their input in June.

Shop-in-a-Box concept: Shop-in-a-Box is a point-of-sale kiosk that small, community-based offices will use to display and store the consistent 75-product offering, in lieu of 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 three pilot units are ready for delivery. We are documenting the consistent plan-o-gram in Hamilton so that the Sudbury and Moncton Offices may set up their units in a consistent manner.

We will share results with you after the units have been operational for three months.

Immediate Objectives

Shop-in-a Box: Develop the plan-o-gram for the offices so units are set up consistently. This will include pictures and documentation of the items and their placement. Branded products: Develop product list and work with suppliers to have the products branded. Work with industry experts to ensure we have the right products, presentation and pricing to initiate pitch meetings to major retailers like Shoppers Home Health Care.

Store volunteers: Continue to work with the national manager of volunteer services to present volunteer profiles to executive directors and start the recruitment process where capacity allows.

Call centre consolidation Live Voice project: The Live Voice project’s goal is to have every call to CNIB be answered by a live person. If there isn’t an answer in a local office, the call is automatically transferred to the HelpLine where a live representative will answer the call. If they are able to assist the caller they will do so, if not they will refer the call to the appropriate person or ensure that someone gets back to them.

After the success of the Live Voice test rollout to the London region last fall, work has begun on launching the initiative in other areas.  Telephone upgrades: working closely with the Service Team to upgrade the Avaya phone system to support Live Voice, and integrate seamlessly with the Helpline team  Regional phone switch-over: Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick regions are being switched over in phases. Key leads have been identified in each area to participate on the project team and are working in collaboration with the executive sponsors to identify best practices to ensure a consistent, effective and rewarding caller experience.