Testimonials

“You can find Safescan products in all our shops!”

Rob Janssen, T-Mobile Retail Operations director, has every reason to be proud. Proud of the explosive increase of T-Mobile Shops (the company is the second fastest growing retail organisation in the Netherlands), but in particular of the ‘Best Operator Shop’ award, awarded by Connexie Magazine. ‘I look upon that award as a reward for our innovative outlook on shop management.'

Anyone, who has ever visited one of the shops, shall immediately acknowledge that T-Mobile's approach is very different to that of other retailers. You, the customer, are not immediately “pounced upon” by a shop assistant, but you are given the time and space to have a good look at the phones. In order to prevent overzealous sales tactics, the staff works from behind round, inviting counters. Rob: ‘This creates a calm and relaxed atmosphere in the shop. The customers experience a great sense of freedom because of the fact that our people are “confined” behind their counters. In this way we lower the threshold and people tend to enter the shop more easily. But our shops also distinguish themselves thanks to the large degree of interactivity. In our shops you find a lot of digital media that will help you to make a preselection of our large supply.’

Convenience is the key
Therefore T-Mobile opts for an innovative approach. And this also applies to the security and payment policy. Rob: On the whole, not a lot of cash money is used in telecom shops. Most phones often cost – in combination with a subscription – nothing or very little. And customers receive invoices of course. We have, however, made the decision to offer our subscription holder the opportunity to pay in the shop.’ Even though most transactions take place electronically, this possibility to pay in cash is used often, for instance by people who are in arrears with their payments. ‘A solid money verification is therefore very important to us,' says Rob. ‘Telephone bills easily amount to sums of more than 150 or 200 Euros. And then people often pay with 50 or 100 Euro banknotes. We do not wish to limit customers.
Therefore you won’t find stickers with texts like “we do not accept large banknotes” in our shops.’

Safescan 125: Integral part of the safety policy
‘The reason for this is simple: we believe in the Safescan 125. They are not on display on the counter in all our shops for nothing! The policy is that every banknote – from 5 to 200 Euros – is checked with the 125. This is possible, because checking the banknotes goes quickly and smoothly. You feed the banknote into the 125 and you immediately know if it gets the green light or not. Moreover, the machine adds up the banknotes, so that you know how much you’ve received. This is a great advantage: since we introduced the machines we no longer have any discussions with customers about the amount of money they handed over. We tested a number of machines, and the Safescan is by far the most user-friendly. The speed really is an enormous advantage. When you use those old-fashioned holders, that you still see now and then, you have to feed each banknote into the machine in the exact same way. That is an exasperatingly slow process. With the Safescan it doesn’t matter in which way you feed the banknotes. And you always have clarity within a few seconds!'

Coin-counting machines save managers a lot of work
But the Safescan 125 is not the only product from the Safescan line used by T-Mobile. ‘In the bigger shops, where we deal with large amounts of money, we also use Safescan money counting machines. All these shops have at least three cash registers and making up the cash account manually, took too much time. Now the shop managers can pour all the ready cash into the machine and the various coins are neatly collected in separate trays in record time. Moreover, the machine faultlessly counts up the amounts. Our shop managers are wildly enthusiastic about the machine’s user-friendliness. It just saves an enormous amount of work. Work that always had to be done at the end of a long, busy day. We opt more and more for these machines, for the small investment is quickly recovered as so much time is saved.”

Large sums? Store it directly!
‘In addition, we make use of the Safescan POS safes. Banknotes are immediately skimmed by storing them in a secure safe. In case a shop should ever be raided, our staff members can open the cash register without qualms, for banknotes of 50 Euros and are stored in the POS safe, which is attached securely underneath the counter and cannot be opened by the staff members. Knock wood: up to now we’ve never had a robbery.' The recent success of the company means that the course set, will certainly be continued. Rob: ‘The 44th T-Mobile Shop has just been opened and the objective for 2009 is to have approximately 100 shops. And you will find practical Safescan solutions everywhere!’