TECHNOPHOBIA Alyssia Perri had always been considered a top-notch…

AmbassadorRainWolf29 TECHNOPHOBIA Alyssia Perri had always been considered a top-notch…TECHNOPHOBIA Alyssia Perri had always been considered a top-notch sales rep and had been a top performer in her company for many years. She had a wonderful personality and was a terrific conversationalist. She always went out of her way to provide outstanding service to her many customers in the office furniture industry. She was thought of as a typical old-style sales rep. Her kids were all grown now and Alyssia planned to retire in about 10 years. She was ready to put in 10 solid years of selling to build her retirement nest-egg. Alyssia made it her job to keep up-to-date on all of her company’s product lines. She was often seen at her desk flipping through furniture catalogues. As good as she was, her sales numbers had been pretty steady over the last few years. It was strange, though, that many of the newer salespeople, with much less product knowledge, were able to sell more product than Alyssia was able to. She was becoming a little worried about this so she approached Jim, her sales manager, to seek some advice. After a good discussion, Jim suggested that he shadow Alyssia for a day and observe her in action—she agreed and they decided that Tuesday would be the best day. Tuesday 8:00 a.m. Alyssia arrived a little early to go over her appointments for the day. 8:30 a.m. Alyssia and her manager departed for her 9:00 appointment, which was in the neighbouring town. This was a first-time meeting. She had checked the address on her map before she left but then ran into a detour just outside of town. It meant a short delay but then Alyssia got disoriented and had trouble finding her destination. Luckily, Jim had brought his BlackBerry and was able to use the GPS feature to help navigate her to her customer’s business. However, they still arrived about 10 minutes late. She apologized, then continued with the presentation. 9:45 a.m. Off to the next appointment. She had to backtrack back to near her office, then head off in a different direction to arrive at her 10:30 appointment. This one seemed to go a little better. Alyssia was showing her prospect some catalogues to gain an understanding of what he might be interested in. The customer mentioned that he had seen some pictures of some very nice furniture on one of Alyssia’s competitors’ Facebook pages, and wondered if Alyssia had anything like it. She didn’t have that information with her so promised the prospect that she would get back to him as soon as possible. 10:45 a.m. Alyssia flipped through her appointment book to check on the address of her next customer. She then pored over her city map to get an idea of just where it was. They headed off, hoping to arrive on time for her 11:30 appointment. They just made it on time but upon check- in, the secretary informed Alyssia that the meeting had had to be cancelled and that they hadn’t been able to contact her before she arrived. 11:00 a.m. Jim and Alyssia were sitting in the car and decided that they should take an early lunch, given that the appointment had been cancelled. They weren’t familiar with the area and didn’t know what was good there, so they simply went to a local fast food establishment. 1:00 p.m. After a long lunch, they headed off to Alyssia’s last appointment of the day. This one had promise. Near the end of her conversation with the buyer, the buyer simply said, “Alyssia, if you can have 100 desks and chairs delivered by Friday, we’ve got a deal.” Alyssia wasn’t sure of her inventory status so promised the customer that she would call him as soon as she returned to head office later in the day, Her sales manager said, “Hold on there, Alyssia, give me a moment.” He pulled out his BlackBerry, logged into the company’s intranet, found 147 desk and office sets in inventory, then assigned them to this particular account. He simply stated that “The deal is done—they’ll be here.” Alyssia looked dumbfounded and appreciative at the same time. On the way back to the office, Jim had the following conversation with Alyssia: Jim: “Alyssia, do you have a cell phone?” Alyssia: “Yes I do, but I don’t use it that much—it seems too impersonal.” Jim: “What about a GPS unit?” Alyssia: “Well I’ve heard of them but didn’t think I’d be able to figure out how to use one.” Jim was sensing a pattern here so decided that he’d like to meet with her the following day regarding some tips he could give her to help her increase her sales. She agreed. Questions 1. What do you think Jim is going to tell Alyssia? 2. Can you recommend some technologies that would help Alyssia to increase her sales? List as many ideas as you can. How would she use them? 3. Do you think she’ll “buy in” to using this technology? Why or why notBusinessBusiness – Other