Phoenix Advertising Roanoke Branch 333

Phoenix Advertising

Roanoke Branch

333 Dale Avenue

President

Phoenix Advertising

555 Ridge Point Road

Dear Mr. Forest:

Roanoke Branch Customer Satisfaction Proposal

As you are well aware, Phoenix Advertising thrives because of its very high levels of customer satisfaction. As a relatively smaller agency in the advertising industry, we have historically competed on quality rather than price. Unfortunately, customers of our Roanoke branch are increasingly price sensitive in these challenging economic times. Roanoke has responded to demands from customers for lower-priced services and has tried to make up for the discounts by taking on a larger client load.

While Roanoke sales management has the best interests of the company in mind, the results of moving from our premium-price, high quality service strategy has not been successful. I've confronted this issue at many companies in the past and have written this proposal based on my years of experience with developing techniques that help to better align sales management with business objectives and that facilitate compliance with company policies.

Background

In an attempt to increase revenues, the Roanoke branch is accepting new projects that fall well below our guidelines for acceptable profit margins and without first evaluating the effects of the new accounts on the current project workload.

This situation is cause for concern because it is negatively impacting our brand image as a quality advertising provider and the satisfaction of our valued clients. Just in the past month, four out of eight active clients have complained that our work is failing to meet their expectations. Specifically, clients have stated that our advertising lacks creativity and feel that it could actually do their brands more harm than good. They have also expressed criticisms regarding their interactions with our advertising staff who they believe are not really trying to understand the unique needs of their projects. Therefore, even though they have received discounted services, they feel like they are wasting their money.

Further, our employees are not happy with the Roanoke branch's change in direction. Many have joined Phoenix Advertising because they wanted to get away from mass production approaches to advertising used at many of our larger competitors. They wanted to work with a smaller client base and focus on producing truly innovative work highly tailored to the needs of individual clients. After the Roanoke branch began taking on more work, an art director has resigned and our designers and copywriters state that they are unhappy that they creative efforts are being stifled. They are also resentful of the longer hours that they have to work which, in turn, is causing morale issues and negatively impacting work quality.

Therefore, this proposal seeks to identify what the corporate executive can do to ensure that the Roanoke branch applies sales practices that are consistent with corporate-level strategy and objectives. The goals of this proposal are to:

Discontinue discounting - Introduce consistent pricing guidelines for phoenix advertising services

Ensure quality services - Introduce acceptable client-to-staff ratios for client projects

Improve brand image and sales - Provide additional training to the sales team for selling the Phoenix value proposition and the new pricing policy

Increase brand awareness -- Conduct Roanoke brand awareness marketing campaign

Determine customer satisfaction - Survey clients after implementation of pricing and client-to-staff ratios

Determine Phoenix Advertising brand perception - Survey prospects and clients to determine their perception of Phoenix's brand image.

Proposal

The purpose of this proposal is to identify the schedule, staffing requirements, budget, and time for approval required to execute the goals of ensuring premium-priced, quality services that can be sold effectively and executed in a way that promotes positive customer perceptions and a highly respected brand image.

This proposal focuses on addressing the immediate needs of the Roanoke branch. Based on lessons learned there and success as well as the needs of other branches, an expanded proposal may consider rollout to additional branches.

Schedule

Delivery Due Date

Deliverables

November 15, 2009

Deliver pricing guidelines to Roanoke sales management team

November 15, 2009

Deliver project staffing guidelines to Roanoke project management team

December 1, 2009

Conduct sales training on Phoenix Advertising value proposition and new pricing policy

December 2, 2009

Conduct project management training on new project staffing requirements

December 15, 2009

Design Roanoke brand awareness marketing campaign

January 1, 2009

Develop customer satisfaction survey and implementation strategy

January 12, 2009

Execute Roanoke brand awareness marketing campaign

February 1, 2009

Implement customer satisfaction survey

March 1, 2009

Develop brand perception survey and implementation strategy

April 1, 2009

Implement brand perception survey

April 30, 2009

Review proposal success

Staffing

Deliverable

Manager

Deliver pricing guidelines to Roanoke sales management

Moe Frands, Managing Director in charge of making sure that new accounts comply with business policies for taking on new work

Deliver project staffing guidelines to Roanoke project management team

Jane Dresser, Creative Director in charge of the policies for collaborative work among account executives, art directors, graphic designers, and copywriters

Conduct sales training on Phoenix Advertising value proposition and new pricing policy

Moe Frands, Managing Director in charge of sales training

Conduct project management training on new project staffing requirements

Jane Dresser, Creative Director in charge of project training

Design Roanoke brand awareness marketing campaign

Max Krauss, Vice President of Marketing in charge of brand awareness programs

Develop customer satisfaction survey and implementation strategy

Max Krauss, Vice President of Marketing in charge of customer loyalty programs

Execute Roanoke brand awareness marketing campaign

Max Krauss, Vice President of Marketing in charge of brand awareness programs

Implement customer satisfaction survey

Max Krauss, Vice President of Marketing in charge of brand awareness programs