4.3 The Sales Process & Customer Service Practice Questions

Text 2 — Cindermoor Stoves Ltd

Cindermoor Stoves Ltd sells wood-burning stoves. It has one showroom in Harrogate where around 30 stoves are on display and two are lit every day. Sales staff are trained to demonstrate how each stove works and to advise customers on the right size of stove for their room. Stoves cost between £900 and £2600 and most customers also pay for installation by the company's own fitters.

In 2022 the business launched a website so that customers anywhere in the UK can order stoves online. The owner, Nadia Forsyth, has spent money on security software and on training two employees to update the site. Delivery is expensive because each stove weighs over 90 kg, and processing returns is costly. Nadia has noticed that online customers often ask questions by e-mail before they buy.

Nadia is now thinking about how the business should sell its stoves in the future.

Table 2: Cindermoor Stoves Ltd revenue, 2022–2024

Year	Revenue from showroom sales (£)	Revenue from website sales (£)
2022	486 000	54 000
2023	462 000	91 000
2024	440 000	135 000

Text 2 — Wickenfield Bikes Ltd

Saoirse Kinnane set up Wickenfield Bikes Ltd in 2019. The business sells electric bikes from a showroom in a small market town and through its own website. All showroom staff complete a four-week training course on how each model works before they are allowed to serve customers.

Every bike comes with a free service after the first 100 miles, a three-year battery warranty and a repair service. The website has a live chat facility and a 30-day returns policy. Customers who buy a bike receive a monthly email with maintenance tips and an invitation to a free group ride.

Bikes bought online are delivered within five days. They arrive partly assembled and some customers have complained about this. Saoirse believes that the service Wickenfield Bikes Ltd offers is the main reason customers choose it instead of larger rivals.

Fig. 1 — Wickenfield Bikes Ltd sales and customer complaints

Year	Number of bikes sold	Number of customer complaints
2023	1 450	96
2024	1 680	72
2025	1 860	60

Waxbridge Hives

Waxbridge Hives is owned by Tegan Vowles, a sole trader in Shrewsbury, who makes beeswax candles and wooden bee hotels. A candle sells for £12 and a bee hotel for £28.

Tegan sells face to face from a stall at the town's outdoor market three days a week. She pays £85 a week to rent the stall and spends about £30 a week on fuel for the van that carries her stock to the market. Many customers smell the candles before buying them.

Visitors to the market often ask Tegan whether they can buy from her once they have returned home. She has been quoted £1 200 to have a website built so that she can sell using e-commerce. Hosting the website would cost £25 a month, and the company that handles online payments would charge a fee of 2% of the value of every sale. Orders would be sent by courier at £4.95 a parcel.

Tegan set up a social media account two years ago but rarely posts anything on it. She is considering giving up the market stall so that Waxbridge Hives sells only online.

Thrushby Cycles Ltd

Thrushby Cycles Ltd has four shops in Yorkshire. It sells electric bikes for an average price of £1 200 and repairs and services bikes of all makes. Competition from online bike sellers is increasing.

Every new bike comes with a free six-week safety check. Sales assistants are given two weeks of training on how the bikes work, so that they can answer customers' technical questions.

To book a repair or service, customers must telephone a shop between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Friday. Its website shows only opening times and prices; it has no social media. About 40% of service customers are over 60, and many say they prefer to speak to staff. Shop managers use these calls to sell extra items such as tyres and lights.

The owner, Dilan Mehta, is considering two options:

• Option 1: replace telephone bookings with an online booking system, taking bookings 24 hours a day with text reminders. It would cost £9 000 to set up and £150 a month to run.
• Option 2: keep telephone bookings and employ an extra member of staff to answer calls, at a cost of £24 000 a year.

Table 1 Customer service data

	2023	2024
Telephone calls received	16 000	24 000
Telephone calls not answered	2 400	3 600
Written complaints received	260	416