Field Agent Launches Revolutionary ‘Find & Fix’ Service to Improve In-Store Execution

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Mobile research firm Field Agent has launched its FIND & FIX initiative, which is a revolutionary new service that drastically cuts the cost and time required to identify and resolve in-store execution issues for retailers and their suppliers.

“Think of it as the ‘uber-ization’ of retail blitz coverage,” said Jeff Doucette, general manager for Field Agent Canada, a company that uses crowdsourcing as a platform to collect various data for retail operations.

“Despite resounding agreement that there is an issue, the execution problems most-often go unresolved due to the high costs of traditional merchandising coverage and the amount of time that it takes to cover the retail network in a country as large as Canada. The net result is lost sales and lower return-on-investment for retailers and brands.”

Doucette said FIND & FIX allows Field Agent to quickly deploy to all stores to find execution issues with 80 per cent of stores covered in 72 hours starting at just $10 per location.

“Once stores with execution issues are identified, Field Agent deploys a team of high-quality, trained merchandisers to quickly get to the stores and resolve the issue,” he said.

“Budgets are maximized by avoiding high-cost traditional merchandisers being deployed to stores that do not have execution issues, saving $30 or more per store. We think that this is a huge leap forward in retail capabilities.”

Doucette said FIND & FIX is a way of making in-store marketing budgets more efficient and effective.

“With traditional merchandising approaches, you have an army of people that are spread out across the country. They’re on a four-to-six-week call cycle and they’re a relatively high-cost investment. They’re marching around the countryside and they’ll get things done but it takes them a long time to cover the whole country. They are also already busy with other priorities and may not have the capacity to conduct a blitz to correct an issue quickly.

“By comparison, the first wave of FIND & FIX involves deploying a Field Agent, one of almost 100,000 people across the country who have downloaded our smartphone app, to go into each store and check on execution, usually covering 80% of the retail universe in the first 72 hours. The Field Agent takes a picture and reports what the situation looks like in-store. This allows us to triage the stores and identify the ones that have an actual execution problem that needs to be fixed. This initial “blitz” costs as little as $10 a store versus traditional call cycles that might cost you $40, $50, $60 a visit.”

Doucette said the system allows its clients to quickly cover a large number of stores and identify which ones have execution issues for a fraction of the price of a normal merchandising call. Once those stores with execution issues are identified, a second wave of professional merchandisers can be quickly deployed just to the stores that need coverage and they ensure that the execution problem is resolved.

“With FIND & FIX you save money on stores that are already executing well and do not need a merchandiser to visit them, and you’re also getting issues fixed much quicker compared to a traditional merchandising model” he said.

“It really reduces the time an execution problem exists in-store and that means more sales and better ROI at the end of the day.”

How It Works:

1)   Client contacts Field Agent and provides a simple brief of the desired execution in-store.

2)   FIND: Field Agent deploys its 100,000 Field Agents to stores right away to start identifying stores with execution issues.

3)   FIX: Once stores with execution issues are identified, professional merchandisers are deployed to “blitz” problem stores and get them fixed.

4)   Results are reported back to client via an on-line dashboard in real-time providing confirmation that each store is executing correctly.

For more information on Field Agent FIND & FIX, visit: fieldagentcanada.com/findandfix

*Partner content. To work with Retail Insider, contact: craig@retail-insider.com

Article Author

Mario Toneguzzi
Mario Toneguzzi
Mario Toneguzzi, based in Calgary, has more than 40 years experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He is the Senior News Editor with Retail Insider in addition to working as a freelance writer and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024.

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