Server: Netscape-Enterprise/2.01 Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 17:48:57 GMT Accept-ranges: bytes Last-modified: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 15:49:34 GMT Content-length: 11598 Content-type: text/html Food & Fun


How 7-Eleven Is Making Convenience Shopping a More Friendly and Fun Experience for Everyone

7-Eleven is undergoing an exciting, major revitalization in every facet of its business to better meet the needs of its customers and make every shopping experience more enjoyable than ever.

The goal for the "New” 7-Eleven is to respond better and faster to the rapidly changing needs and wants of its customers. Towards that end, 7-Eleven has adopted a new business concept and several new initiatives. These include everyday fair pricing; the most extensive remodeling program in the company's history for U.S. and Canadian stores; a new merchandising process; new production and delivery systems for fresh food; a retail automation system designed solely for 7-Eleven; improved communications systems that prioritize the needs of the customers and the stores; a restructured corporate-giving program, and updated programs to meet the needs of a changing workforce.

NEW BUSINESS CONCEPT
7-Eleven is continuously looking at ways to better serve its customers. To improve customer service, the company developed a new business concept with five criteria by which every decision is evaluated -- selection, quality, speed, price and environment. 7-Eleven's company-wide commitment is: "to provide 7-Eleven customers in each store a broad selection of high-quality products and services that they can purchase with speed, at a fair price, in a clean, safe and friendly store environment."

7-Eleven is achieving these goals through a productive, motivated and efficient organization of franchisees, licensees and employees and with the support of its suppliers and manufacturers.

NEW "LOOK" AT 7-ELEVEN
7-Eleven stores are undergoing interior and exterior transformations to be more appealing to customers and potential customers. As of the end of 1995, more than 4,100 stores have been remodeled. The remodeling program continues in 1996 with the remaining 1,000 stores expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The new store look includes increased interior and exterior lighting, a standard three-stripe facade, appealing open-air, fresh-food display cases, a more convenient and less-cluttered product layout, improved signage, wider aisles with more customer-friendly aisle markers, and upgraded gasoline equipment at most locations that sell gasoline. In addition to the remodeling program, new closed-circuit TV camera systems are being installed in stores across the country as part of 7-Eleven's ongoing crime-deterrence program.

NEW STRATEGY: "EVERY DAY FAIR PRICE"
As part of the new 7-Eleven business concept, the company is implementing an "Every Day Fair Price" strategy nationwide. Some retailers feature deeply discounted prices on some “loss-leader” items to “lure” customers into their stores, then make up for these so-called bargain losses by pricing everything else in the store at very high prices.

7-Eleven has a better idea. Instead of deeply discounting and promoting some items while "insult-pricing" others, 7-Eleven strives to give customers a consistent, fair price on all products, everyday.

With this pricing strategy, store operators can better predict product demand, allowing them to more accurately forecast sales and reduce out-of-stock situations. Each store can now focus on meeting the needs of the true convenience customer, rather than the bargain-shopper.

NEW MERCHANDISING PROCESS
To customize each store to meet the needs of the neighborhood it serves, 7-Eleven has put merchandising and ordering decisions in the hands of each store's manager or franchisee. The individual store operators select new merchandise to replace slow sellers, introduce new products based on customer preferences and continually refine the product mix to better meet the needs of the 7-Eleven customers in their particular neighborhood.

Store operators choose from up to 25 new products a week and customers are beginning to look to 7-Eleven for the new, "hot" products.

DELI CENTRAL
7-Eleven is introducing its proprietary line of fresh-made sandwiches, salads and other food items under its new Deli Central™ brand. The company is also offering customers proprietary baked goods under the World Ovens™ name. Both Deli Central and World Ovens products are prepared off-premises exclusively for 7-Eleven by companies specializing in food preparation and are delivered daily to the stores through a Combined Distribution Center. This new food-service program is in 850 stores and will be expanded this year.

Visit our Deli Central page to see what’s new.

COORDINATED DAILY DELIVERIES AT STORES
7-Eleven has begun introducing daily deliveries of dairy products, packaged pastries, fresh-baked goods, fresh fruit and fresh-made sandwiches to its stores through local Combined Distribution Centers. This centralized delivery system will help reduce product costs, while ensuring maximum freshness by facilitating one delivery of perishable products to each store, every day in precisely the quantities ordered by the individual store operator. Consolidating deliveries is not only more cost-efficient, it also reduces store parking lot congestion and frees store operators from numerous inventory checks, allowing them to focus more time on their customers.

NEW CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS
Customer service is a top priority for 7-Eleven, and a strong customer communication program is essential to respond to customers' interests and concerns. A key component of 7-Eleven's dedication to customer service is its toll-free, customer hot-line. The company uses trained specialists to take customer calls 24-hours a day, seven days a week, on everything from comments about employee service to questions on franchising opportunities to the number of calories in a Slurpee. Customer calls are recorded and forwarded by the next business day to their local 7-Eleven market management, as well as the corporate management department that oversees the area of concern. This immediate notification to management allows 7-Eleven to effectively respond to customer comments in a matter of days.

The 7-Eleven customer hot line number is 1-800-255-0711.

NEW DIRECTION FOR DONATIONS
7-Eleven is committed to responding to the diverse and changing needs of its communities and, as a vital part of local neighborhoods, wants to give back to the communities that support its stores.

The company's corporate-giving program focuses on three specific areas: education, specifically in the area of literacy; multi-cultural understanding, especially organizations that promote or educate others on multi-cultural diversity or voter education and programs that serve ethnic and urban constituents; and community challenges as identified by local management and store operators.

As part of its overall corporate-giving strategy, 7-Eleven devotes the majority of its contributions to 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations that support specific projects, programs or events, which meet the above criteria (rather than general operating support, capital or endowment campaigns), in communities where 7-Eleven does business.

TRAINING AND RETAINING A CUSTOMER-ORIENTED WORKFORCE
For more than three generations 7-Eleven has served its neighborhood customers with fast, friendly convenience. The company got where it is today by valuing people.

7-Eleven recognizes that its employees and franchisees are the vital link to customers and is committed to attracting, training and retaining a workforce as diverse as the communities it serves.

7-Eleven's commitment to building a diverse workforce begins by recruiting customer-service oriented employees and franchisees from the communities in which stores are located. In addition, the company has programs to increase minority participation as franchisees and provide business opportunities for minority contractors and suppliers.

7-Eleven’s corporate-store employees and franchisees are provided with extensive training to encourage quality customer service. The In-Store Development Path for store personnel defines specific goals for advancement, all of which are focused on providing a better shopping experience for customers. Specialized training, such as Come of Age that teaches the importance of the safe and legal sales of restricted products, and the Robbery-Deterrence and Violence-Avoidance programs, supplement the In-Store Development Path.

From the beginner corporate-store sales associate to management, 7-Eleven rewards outstanding performance through merit pay increases, incentives and promotion-from-within to retain those who excel. Corporate-store employees can advance through four levels in the store by following the specific steps of the In-Store Development Path, and can move on to store manager and into other management positions. Training is provided at every level on topics from basic customer-service techniques to equipment maintenance, merchandising and management.

All of these measures are designed to train, develop, reward and retain employees and franchisees in order to better serve 7-Eleven’s convenience-oriented customers.

THE "NEW" 7-ELEVEN
All of these programs are putting into action the renewed commitment of America’s neighborhood convenience stores -- not to rest on the successes of the past, but to build on those successes to continue to meet the changing needs of today’s convenience-oriented customers.

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