Diane smiled. “This one matters.”
She led him into the conference room while Emily stayed with Marcus to arrange insurance activation on her phone.
Inside, Diane had printed several reports. Frank recognized customer traffic summaries, sales conversion rates, complaint categories, and lead-assignment data. She had moved quickly.
“I started pulling what you asked about,” she said. “Who never gets far enough to show up in satisfaction scores.”
Frank sat.
Diane placed one report in front of him.
“Walk-in conversion by salesperson.”
Trent’s numbers were excellent overall.
Then Diane separated the data by the source of the customer contact.
Internet appointments: excellent.
Repeat customers: excellent.
Manager-assigned leads: excellent.
Unassigned walk-ins: much more uneven.
“Look at abandonment notes,” she said.
Frank read.
Not ready.
Credit concern.
Browsing only.
Budget mismatch.
Low intent.
No trade value.
Frank looked at Diane.
“How are those categories determined?”
“Salesperson notation.”
“Verified?”
“Not routinely.”
She handed him another page.
Marcus, despite being new, had an unusually high number of customer contacts but few completed deals. Many of those contacts occurred after another salesperson had declined or abandoned the shopper.
“He’s been picking up the people everyone else leaves,” Diane said.
“And doing coffee.”
“And doing coffee.”
“Why didn’t you see it?”
Diane did not become defensive.
“Because I was watching unit count.”
Frank nodded.
That answer mattered.
Good managers could still build systems that rewarded what they measured and ignored what they did not.
Diane continued. “I also pulled survey comments from customers who did not purchase but agreed to follow-up calls. There are three complaints about feeling judged on price before a budget discussion. Two mention Trent by name.”
“Were they escalated?”
“No. They were coded as lost-sales feedback.”
“Then you have a system problem, not just a Trent problem.”
“I know.”
Frank leaned back.
“You don’t need my permission to fix your store.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then why show me this?”
“Because you’re an investor.”
Frank waited.
Diane sighed. “And because you’re Frank, and I trust you to tell me whether I’m reacting emotionally because this happened to you.”
“That’s a better reason.”
He looked at the reports again.