A leading U.S. retailer (wireless industry) that hires thousands of retail sales associates annually wanted a means to systematically hire only top performers. In short, it would need to funnel more candidates through the system in less time while identifying the top performers within the pool of candidates. Logistically the system needed to process high volumes of candidates through various locations across the country, yet evaluate each candidate equally. The solution also had to be deployed within tight budget constraints. The company’s desire was to grow its sales force with representatives who were knowledgeable, friendly, courteous, and capable of achieving defined sales performance objectives.

The carrier turned to PreVisor®, a leading assessment solution provider with strong experience designing effective and legally-compliant selection solutions. PreVisor first conducted a job analysis to determine the exact competencies essential for success as a sales representative. The PreVisor study identified customer service, self-motivation, and revenue focus to be of particular importance for success in the role and designed a solution that evaluated those competencies. The assessment solution focused on the key behavioral traits determined to be drivers of sales performance, including measures for a candidate’s immediate job readiness as well as future performance potential. The PreVisor solution evaluated competencies such as ability to achieve or exceed sales quotas, ability to persuade a purchase commitment, and the ability to close a transaction. In addition, various soft skills measurements were also included in the assessment, such as responsiveness, patience, empathy, and courtesy.

Several months after implementation, PreVisor conducted a validation study to evaluate how well the assessment solution was predicting candidates’ sales ability. The study compared assessment scores with employees’ performance and sales data. The results confirmed that the retail sales associates that scored well on the candidate assessments were actively creating more new customer accounts each month than those who did not score as well. On average these employees signed up 11 more customers each month, averaging 132 more each year or 1,320,000 company-wide. In addition to this revenue, these sales associates were successfully selling more add-on features. Compared to the employees that were hired without using assessments, the high-scoring employees were selling $434 more in additional features and accessories to complement the original sale. Extending this additional sales volume across twelve months and 10,000 employees, the potential growth in sales over current sales could be could be $52 million annually. The study also revealed that PreVisor-recommended candidates stayed on the job ten percent longer than all the other candidates, reducing replacement and training costs.