National Electronics Retailer Realizes $6 Million in Smart Home Product Sales During Challenging Holiday Season 

INDUSTRY
Consumer Electronics Retailer

SOLUTION
Brand Advocacy

Situation
Anticipating a challenging holiday selling season, a national electronics retailer wanted to ensure consumers shopping for smart home (loT) products, both in store and online, had a positive experience in a brand-agnostic atmosphere. They also wanted to augment their smart home e-commerce site with online chat services. Faced with pandemic-limiting store access for many shoppers, the tightening of in-store labor hours, and a need to remain agile and evolve at pace with fluid market conditions, they partnered with MarketSource to ensure their desired customer experience and drive sales. The client was also hindered by a complicated technology line-up, intense product training, and a new customer-focused selling approach that—for the first time—included third-party vendors tendering transactions.

CHALLENGES

Pandemic restrictions

Complex technology lineup

Intense product training needs

KEYS TO SUCCESS

Dedicated smart home experts

Online chat team

REPfirst™ workforce management

Solution
MarketSource deployed the “Smart Home Expert”, a dedicated assisted sales team, to key national selling locations. We also provided an online chat team, who were able to absorb customer overflow that the client’s online associates didn’t have the capacity to serve.

MarketSource hired, trained, and deployed the team, including navigating the relationships between the vendor partners and the retailer, in just six weeks. Using the MarketSource RepFirst™ workforce management and employee experience platform, we were able to provide the client with store traffic feedback directly from the team, identify inventory issues, and measure consumer reactions to promotional offerings in real-time.

Results
During an 18-week holiday program, full- and part-time Smart Home Experts, along with experienced remote sales management, tripled holiday sales compared to other 3PL companies the client had engaged, while maintaining the client’s desired customer experience. The retailer realized over $6 million in smart home sales in covered locations. MarketSource delivered higher average sales revenue and items per transaction, while consistently delivering high customer satisfaction ratings.

$6M

in smart home product sales

3X

holiday sales compared to other 3PL companies