Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Update - 23 January 2008

Thanks to everyone that came along to Tuesdays evening training session. I do hope that you found the session to be useful and that you are now aware of the key role that you can all play in driving Quarter 4 activity. The next few months are a key time for the business as we work towards closing a significant income gap. This can only be achieved by you driving sales activity through your branch.

All branches should now have their own sales days planned and target activity set in order to drive sales. Good Luck, but above all else have Fun on the day!. If there is anything that I can do to support you through these sales days, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

HYS - You should by now have received your Have Your Say Questionnaires, please make every effort to complete and return. Your views really are important in driving and shaping the business as part of our forward 4-11 plan.

Future Team Meeting Dates
  • February 19 & 26. I am hoping to have guests from both 1st rate & Parcelforce, so please make very effort to attend.
March 25
April 29
May 22
June 24
July 22
August 28
September 23
October 28
November 25
December 16

As i mentioned I am still on the look out for suitable venues for training events in the Manchester area. Should you know of any please let me know.

If there are any issues or comments / questions you wish to raise with regards to Q4 activity, then why not go to our Yahoo Discussion board and put these to me or your colleagues. You are very much the customer and owner of that forum - so why not give it a go!

Many Thanks & Good Luck
John

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Update - 15 January 2008

Week 42 Results were disappointing with us only achieving Target in Just Travel Money! - Lets hope this was still the quite post Christmas Period.

Over the coming weeks you will hear lots around Quarter 4 activity.In order for the business to achieve its full year Income targets many of the focus products now have had a stretch added to the full year target.

I will be holding January's Team meeting next week at the George Carnall Leisure Centre in Urmston, at which you will hear more around Quarter 4 activity. The key products for Quarter 4 are -

Travel Money
Travel Insurance
Credit Cards
Instant Access
Home Insurance
Travel Insurance
Special Delivery.

To support the drive towards Quarter 4 sales activity many of these products will be receiving additional promotional support including branch incentives - Look out for more information.

I am delighted to say that from February the £50 cash back for anyone taking out Car Insurance will be back. There will also be a further £50 for Home Insurance. For anyone taking out either just Contents or building cover then its £25. We know from past activity that this is incentive is very much liked by our customers. Look out for additional promotional materials and lets get those conversations going. Don't forget to use the customer referral icon on the Horizon system for capturing customers details for policies due for renewal more than 6 weeks.

The Great Rate on Travel Money is also making a comeback in February. This was a great success in October, and with Half-term and Easter within Quarter 4 this really is a great time to be promoting Travel Money through your branch.

Any ideas what Black Monday is? - January 14 is traditionally the day when Credit Card bills start landing on the mat and the realisation of what was spent at Christmas really hits home. The Post Office Credit card offers a very competitive deal for those customers wishing to shop around in order to transfer their balance to a cheaper card, and don't forget that our card also has the added benefit of 0% commission when used abroad - Again, a really great time to be talking to your customers.

I really do need your support to drive sales activity through your branches if we are to have any chance of achieving our Quarter 4 targets - Please support me to show what we can really achieve - Team 4107 Simply the best!

Have Your Say - Questionnaires will be landing shortly, please make every effort to complete and return. Your views really are important.

Finally
I would like to take this opportunity to pass on my best wishes to Mrs Ivy Lingard Subpostmaster of Irlams O'th Height Post Office who will be leaving this week after over 30 years service! - Good Luck Ivy best wishes for the future and Thanks for all your support.

Have a great week, and please make every effort to get along to next weeks meeting.

Thanks
John

Tuesday, 8 January 2008

8 anuary 2008 - Update

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

We are now in the final quarter of this financial year and I would take this opportunity to thank you for all the hard work you and your team have put in so far this year - Your efforts really are making a difference.

We have had some great successes so far and our Financial services, travel and telephony products are going from strength to strength

Did you know!

- One in 50 cars on the UK roads is now insured by the Post Office!
- We have over one million financial services customers
- In the first month following the launch of Broadband we have signed up over 10,000 customers. One of our key competitors took over six months to reach this level!.

This just shows that we have great products that our customers are very interested in. Don't forget that the new remuneration package now means that you can earn more for selling these products.

Our next evening meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 22 January venue to be announced. At this event we will be looking at the key products for the final quarter of the year, and looking at how you can increase the level of key product sales through your branch by deploying simple techniques including how to run an effective sales day. I hope to see as many of you on the night. Please remember to let me know by phone or text if you are able to attend.

Have Your Say
HYS Questionnaires are due to be in branch from the 21 January. I would really appreciate it if you could spend just a few moments to complete the questionnaire. The feedback that we receive from you really is important to the business as helps us to understand how you feel at the business and helps to deliver real change in a way that meets your needs. If you don't complete the questionnaire then we can't improve things for you!. This year there is also a question on the support from your BDM ( That's me!) - Be kind.....


Have a great week and once again many thanks for all your help and support!


John

Monday, 10 December 2007

Weekly Update - 10 December 2007

Branch of the Week!
Top performing branch this week against target was Cheetham Hill - Well Done! - To Mr Khan and his team.

Branch of the Year ( YTD )
Top performing branch Year to date remains Upper Chorlton Road - Well to Ashok and his team!

Can anyone take the Team4107 shield away from Ashok and the Team at Upper Chorlton Road?!

Week 37 was another great week for -
Car Insurance
Special Delivery
Travel Insurance
Travel Money

All were well over 100%

However, performance in -
Banking
Credit Card
in particular was disappointing

This is our key time for Banking in the run up to Christmas. We need to make every effort to close the gap. Year to date we are some 5,929 transactions short of where we need to be and the targets will continue to ramp up over the coming weeks.

Please make every effort to ensure that you and all your team are asking all customers as to whether

- "Did you know that you can pay by Debit Card?"
- "Would you like to pay by Debit Card?"

Only by asking these simple questions are we likely to see more Partner Bank Cards and therefore in a position for a further cross-sell opportunity of offering cash-out to our customers. This is good customer service and is a service that many of customers are still not unaware that they can undertake at your branch.

Credit Card
Looking ahead please make sure that you and all your teams are fully aware of our Credit Card product. The vast majority of credit card applications are submitted in the final quarter of the year. Customers likely to be interested in this great product really fall into two specific groups.

- Those that are going on holiday. For those customers they are likely to be interested and will consider applying for our Credit Card based on our market leading facility of 0% foreign exchange charges

- Those looking to reduce their costs by transferring their balance to a cheaper card. For those customers our card is very well positioned in relation to the competition.

Make sure that you and your staff are familiar with the features of the product. Start practising the types of conversations that you will need to be having with your customers. If you are not familiar with the product or are not confident with the conversations then you will struggle to convince your customers to complete an application

Best Practise Tip of the Week
One of the Top performing Commercial branches for Credit Card sales is Pendlebury which is a Manchester Branch. There is nothing particularly inspiring about the area or the customers. Whats make this branch different is the approach of the Subpostmaster. He targets the two customer groups and highlights the features of the card. The clever "bit" is that he says to customers "Would you like me to order you one ?". Customers seem to like this approach and this shows through in his Credit Cards sales. Year to date he has achieved 304 applications and out of these he has managed 130 sales.This equates to a conversion rate of 42.7%. Well above the business / Industry average.

Why not give this approach a go and let me know how you get on - Good Luck!

Whilst as a business we have an impress conversion rate for Credit Card applications to sales. We are not so good with actual Customer contact. What that means is that many applications fail to reach actual issue as customers are failing to respond to application queries. To over come this it is imperative that we make sure that any applications completed in branch are fully and accurately completed. The two main problem areas seems to Bank & Employment details not being filled in or only partially filled in. Please make sure that all completed application forms are fully completed. In doing so we should start to see an improved conversion rate. It would be a real shame if you fail to receive any payment as an application has been submitted incomplete or incorrect application and the customer then fails to respond to queries from the Bank Ireland.

Start thinking about what Credit Card Sales activity you would like to undertake in your branch post Christmas. I will be happy to discuss this with you and to offer support on specific sales days.

Have a great week I know it will be a busy week but we must keep the focus on sales and good customer Service through product awareness.

Good Luck!
John

Monday, 3 December 2007

Weekly Update - 3 December 2007

Week 36

Performance Update

Banking
Weekly 98% - (675) transactions short of target
YTD - 98% - (5,013) short of target

Special Delivery
Weekly - 99% - (43) transactions short of target
Ytd - 96% - (6,497) transactions short of target

Home Phone
Weekly - 62%- (3) "Live Accounts" short of target
Ytd - 232% - 164 above Target!

Travel Insurance
Weekly - 85% - (3) transactions short of target
Ytd - 89% (406) transactions short of target

Travel Money
117% - £5,831 above required target
151% - £1,123,739 above the required target.

Quarter 4 priorities
The priorities for the final quarter of the year are -
Special Delivery
Credit Card
Travel Insurance
Travel Money

You can see from the above performance levels that there remains a number of key areas where we have to drive peeformance if we are to achieve our year-end targets. The delivery of these targets is imperative if we are to make a positive contribution to achieving our goal of returning POL back into profit by 2011 - Remember forward 4-2011.

The products which we are focusing on for the final quarter are also those products which under the remuneration system now have an attractive remuneration package. So these products are well worth pro-actively promoting to your customers. In doing so you will be providing excellent customer service as well as providing you with increased levels of remuneration.

Mystery Shopper
Mystery Shopper visits are now out and about in our area. They will be posting a package and be looking for good quality conversations particular around the "match" element of the conversational model. To achieve 100% you will need to understand the customers requirements as well as offering product options to the customer i.e 9:00am and 1:00PM delivery options. You should aslo be asking the customer whether they wished to pay by debit Card, in doing so the cross - sell opportunity of offering cash-out today should aslo be asked whenever you see a partner bank card. This approach is simply good customer service - Good Luck!

Roll of Honour!
This weeks Top Branches are -

Home Phone
Upper Chortlon Rd - Ytd - 30 Live Accounts from 63 Applications
Hardy St - Ytd - 30 Live Accounts from 63 Applications.

Both branches are still running neck-&-neck with Hardy St just in front based on conversion rates. These branches have clearly demonstrated what can be achieved by having repeat and good quality conversations. Who will finish the year on Top can either branch be caught in the final quarter?

Travel Insurance
Fallowfield - 104 Sales Ytd
Irlams O'th Height - 82 Sales Ytd
South Levenshulme - 72 Sales Ytd

This has been a tough product for us this year, but in recent months we have started to see some positive signs, with sales increasing steadily. This is yet another positive sign of branches really getting behind a product. Remember this product now has double the remuneration under the new pay deal. Make sure that you are offering a quote to all travel related customers. After Christmas many of customers will be thinking about their next holiday and we must make sure that customers think of the Post Office for Travel Insurance just in the same way they now think Post Office for Travel Money.

Travel Money
Another great week! - What a product this has been for us this year. Many thanks for the way all branches have really got behind and fully supported this product.

Cheetham Hill - 1,155 Sales -
Fallwofield - 1,154 Sales
South Levenshulme - 817 Sales

Who will be top performing branch for sales - It couldn't be any closer!

Remember to offer the higher rate for currency - Customers will be quite happy to take the higher amount as most people always have to take out further amounts whilst they are away, and with our Buy-back service they reall have nothing to loose.

Remember also to mention our Credit Card product. For people going away our 0% excange rate is a really attractive selling feature. Don't forget to aslo mention it to buy-back customers for their next holiday.

How good are our Travel Products - Well at a recent National Travel Industry awards event we smashed the competition and won two prestigious awards for our Travel Insurance and Travel Money Products. This was fantastic news and shows what our customers really think of these products. Our success is due to the service you are providing to your customers around these two great products - Well Done and keep up the good work!

Credit Cards
The largest number of Credit Cards are issued post Christmas as customers look to shop around around for the best product for balance transfers, to ease those Christmas Blues! Are you ready to promote this product. Do you and your staff know the product/ practise the conversations you will be having with your customers - If your'e not confident with the product then customers will not have confidence in you or the product/Think about holding Sales days and dressing your branch up. This really is a key time for Credit Card sales so lets not miss the opprotunity. But above all else lets make Credit Card sales days are Fun! and enjoy the day.

Evening Events
Can you help!

Unfortunately we no longer have access to the meeting rooms at Clippers Quay. If you know of any suitable venues, please let me know. I am hoping to hold an event in Manchester on the 13th or 18th December so time is pressing to find a venue.

Team 4107
This website has now been running for several months now and I would like to hear from you with your feedback.

How do you find it - Is it user friendly?
How often do you go onto it?
Is the content - what you would like to see?
Is there anything else - You would like to see included?
Any other comments?

Please post your comments or contact me direct with any feedback. I very much want to deliver something that meets your needs and requirements as well as keeping you updated with news from around the business as well as our overall perfromance. This is your website so please let me know what you think.

Have a great week and good look with the sales - Look out for that Mystery Shopper !


John