AdvanceRetail keeps Fone Zone staff in touch Fone Zone is Australia's largest specialist mobile communications retailer. An indpendent retailer of mobile phone handsets, associated accessories and other telecommunications products and services, Fone Zone is also Australia's largest independent Telstra Mobile Premium Dealer. ASX listed since 2005, Fone Zone won its place into the heart of Australia’s mobile phone retailing arena by offering superior customer service, while at the same time removing the confusion from purchasing mobile communications. Set up by husband and wife team, David McMahon and Maxine Horne, Fone Zone’s rapid growth started in 1995 when McMahon and Horne opened with just one store. Now, more than 10 years later, Fone Zone operates a network of over 130 stores throughout Australia. Central to the success of Fone Zone is its dynamic culture and team of employees. As well as a commitment to provide opportunities for learning and training to staff, Fone Zone also operates a range of staff incentives. It was therefore imperative that Fone Zone staff were offered instant access to up-to-the-second target information at the point of sale in order to monitor operator performance at any given time. In addition, due to the nature of the business, staff needed the ability to capture and track complex sales information such as telco registrations, phone contracts, and the referencing of hand-set serial codes in order to complete a sale. It was therefore paramount for Fone Zone to find a retail software solution which enabled staff to access and maintain intricate and accurate data at the point of sale. In 1999 after an extensive evaluation of the options available both, domestically and abroad, Fone Zone partnered with AdvanceRetail Technology. This decision was made based on the flexible state-of-the-art retail management system which was able to manage Fone Zone’s intricate and accurate data from the point of sale. While at the same time designed with user-friendly features which would promote ease of learning and simplified ongoing use to Fone Zone staff. Phase one involved a successful implementation of all 26 stores. As Fone Zone rapidly expanded, the company deployed AdvanceRetail’s point of sale solution across the country rolling it out to all new Fone Zone stores across Australia. Due to AdvanceRetail’s strong POS module and infrastructure, the company was able to scale according to Fone Zone’s requirements and can today be found in all 130+ stores. AdvanceRetail was instrumental in creating a point of sale solution that enabled both the capturing of multiple layers of complex information, together with in-depth reporting capabilities. Staff can check their individual sales targets and operator performances after each sales transaction as well as monitor and analyse individual sales based performance. Lex Moses, CIO of Fone Zone said that capturing the correct data in this business environment needed a specialised and technically above-average point of sale provider. “Fone Zone wanted a world class retail management information system that could provide all our team members quick access to timely, accurate and constructive information at the point of sale, AdvanceRetail was able to accommodate our complex retail business needs but still be simple to use.”