The account development function is the most important service function and has the total account responsibility. In other words this is the selling function responsible for making the look-of-success standard a reality; brands and products assortment, the best location in the outlet, appropriate equipment, racks and shelves. Moreover, to secure the right communication and activation messages at the point-of-purchase. Furthermore, to guarantee ongoing execution and maintaining of the look-of-success standards at all times by leveraging the other services functions capabilities.

The successful companies have the consumer in center of everything they do and they put investments, resources and structure behind innovations that constantly add more values to their consumer experiences. Leveraging shopping habits is fostered in building of proactive company culture where innovations are part of the employee’s day-to-day disciplines focusing on continuous improvements of the shopping experiences to increase the consumer satisfaction levels.

The look-of-success standard plays a major role in the service system design. The standards are the guidelines for the sales team to; execute and maintain them in every outlet.

Different Approaches

Designing of the service systems for a sales and production company, wholesaler or a third party distributors that sell and distribute to retail is generally a dynamic task. The route to market would include designing of the sales and services systems for all processes, activities and information flow from order generation to the point of order picking in the warehouse and continuing to the point of when the product is consumed or used by the consumers. After sales services and customer care are as well a part of the service systems design.

Furthermore, prior to the services systems can be designed, strategic decisions on a top management level are required which clearly illustrate the fundamentals for how the company wants to go to market!

It is important to define the role-sort and responsibility of each service activity which is a part of the service systems solution. The objective is to design and implement effective and efficient sales and services systems which have the responsibility to sell-in, maintain and execute the look-of-success standard in every outlet channel serviced. After defining and understanding the sales and service requirements by channel, people with the appropriate skills levels can be assigned to each job positions. Understanding the skills levels required to sell-in and execute each of the activities by channel can help appraise the staff positions and help with the employee selection process.

The service functions are initially defined and structured for the reason there will be different skills levels required based on the outlet channel characteristics and operational profiles. In retail we sometimes talk about upper end of the trade being more modern and lower end of the trade being more traditional. The account development function servicing the modern trade for example, the hypermarkets and supermarkets channels require high skills levels. This includes skills to develop annual customer plans, professional presentation skills as well as strong negotiations skills. On the other hand, outlets assigned to the traditional trade channels such as convenience stores and individual kiosks generally would require a sales person that professionally can present the look-of-success to assure sell-in, execution and maintaining of the channel standards in every worthy outlet.