eKourier Jan 2014

FEATURES

Momentum 2012 - One Year On...

O ur strategic directions confer- ence “Momentum 12” was held just over 12 months ago. Since that time, our Champions have been working on the evolution and implementation of our four- pillared strategy to:

value between different unit types giving customers more economical alternatives when needed. Skill builder emphasised building sales skills with key focus on recording enquiries, understanding “Their” story, effective follow ups and looking at your centre as a “business”. The energy that all Teams have devoted to customer service and the increased learning through the walk in Mystery Shopper results, care ratings in phone reviews, emphasis on better listening and more widespread use of the PTC card. Importantly the ever increasing number of specific, positive, even glowing comments flooding in from web feedback. It’s inspiring to see through these comments the Surprise and Delight in particular hasn’t been anything too technical but simply the exceptional care that you have shown. The work still to do includes finalising the “Customer Life Cycle”. This will highlight where all our current “customer touch points” are, which ones we do well and which ones provide opportunities for us. With that we can build upon the best of your habits and processes to make changes for roll out across the board. Grow and Strengthen Our Brand Profile Over the last year we have focussed on building and strengthening our Brand through Radio Advertising, Banners, Social Media, the 40th Birthday Promotion, our Website and SEO. We are also working on building awareness around our niche markets, with the focus being on Gun Storage. Continuously Innovate To date “continues innovation” has largely been technology focused. Our efforts have been both focused on rapid “quick wins” via updates to our website bringing improvements for Teams, customers and marketing initiatives. Our mobile site is not far off and there are plans for rental and customer portal functionality in 2014. Longer term has been largely strategic planning, focusing on infrastructure that will deliver better services/systems by being able to support newer technologies.

Additionally we are looking at ways that will see our time invested more so on business value rather than keeping things running that can be otherwise externalised. In between we are consciously working hard to improve turnaround times on updates though more frequent StorMan and KOSMO updates rather than major releases per annum. Another focus is around the idea of capturing ideas and how to better embrace them, this continues to be a work in progress evaluating different options available to KSS. FREEDOM In addition to our four-pillared strategy, we crystallised our company values under the acronym ‘FREEDOM’. The Freedom values have penetrated the fabric of our business; our memorable Freedom video is now shown during New Employee Training and each value is explained in detail to ensure every new Team member embeds ours values in their DNA. Development Action Plans) for discus- sion, to encourage reflection of how are we living the values in our daily activities. Our screen saver and mouse pads also constantly remind us of the Freedom Values. We will continue to source and implement ideas to further embed the values into every part of our business. Any ideas you may have would be welcomed GOAL Our goal for 2013 was to achieve 40K units rented by June 30 and we achieved and celebrated hitting our target well in advance. It is great to note, that momentum hasn’t stopped, as we are continuing to achieve positive occupancy growth each month. Our 40 days free storage offer in October contributed enormously to our growing number of rented units, with us achieving a record 1,100 new units during October. Darren Marshall General Manager This year we added our Freedom values to the MDAP (Management

1. Find and Retain the Best People

2. Exceptional Customer Experience

3. Grow and Strengthen Our brand Profile

4. Continuously Innovate

Each month our four champions get together and discuss the opportunities, initiatives and development of their partic- ular strategic area. You can read below from our champions, on what’s been happening in their area. Find and Retain the Best People Our main focus at the moment is with our recruitment practices and software. We started by researching which companies excel in this area and Lionco stood out. Lionco is known as a sought after place to work within their industry. Like KSS they focus on building a constructive culture, with a high level of engagement. They have a fantastic interactive online recruitment page, listing all vacancies and explaining why you should join them. Their HR Manager Chris Morris took the time to meet with us to walk through everything they do, from their online presence to their recruitment process. We are also starting to move towards a more robust online recruitment portal in the near future. In November we met with Expr3ss, to find out what their recruit- ment software has to offer. It’s exciting to see there are so many options within the market, which can add value, save time and help us recruit the best of the best! Exceptional Customer Experience Since Momentum12 the growth and changes have continued to tick along. Each in its own way has built upon and improved the “Store With People Who Care” experience.

Dynamic pricing has better defined the

Kennards Kourier January 2014

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