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Gladstone Newsletters

New Year New Members

In this tough economic climate the need to maximise sales is more vital to the leisure industry than ever before. To get a potential customer to walk through your door is a challenge in itself, but once they are there the work really begins.

First we must motivate our staff to deliver a sales pitch with a warmth and charm that makes the customer feel part of the family. But then what? Customers have choices and will spend time reviewing the local area. How confident can we be that traditional paper-based prospect notes are not ‘mislaid’ and that all staff are equally persistent in their follow-up attempts?

Whilst conversion bonuses can work, wise staff will concentrate on the low hanging fruit, converting the easy pickings rather than the hesitant prospect, which involves more effort. But it’s these important customers that make the difference to the bottom line as the others would have joined anyway.

Technology can change this, providing a tool that allows managers to supervise the sales process, drive the team’s focus and measure more efficiently by highlighting gaps in the process, whether customers are contacted in a desired and timely fashion or even a staff weakness.

Gladstone’s Contact Manager enables staff to capture preferences such as customer interests and data protection, as well as schedule reminders for tasks and appointments, follow-up calls, emails, SMS and letters.

The software encourages best practice by allowing managers to monitor staff interaction with prospects and report on conversion ratios by site and staff, and can also analyse rates of return from a marketing campaign to help target future marketing more effectively.

Unlike technology of old - confusing to the untrained user and seen as a hindrance to operational processes - Contact Manager was developed alongside leisure professionals to engage with staff in a user friendly way, so it doesn’t create a barrier to inputting prospect information. Think Apple - my three year old confidently opens my iPhone and uses applications, whereas just five years ago I doubt he could have used a Nokia interface.

By creating a great user experience for your staff they can help you increase return on investment through a greater prospect conversion.

Tom Withers
Head of Sales

Categories: General

Published in: Gladstone Newsletter - January 2012

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