CRNS Masterclass

Mon 5th June 2006, 2pm-4pm
Venue: Cumbernauld Town Hall, Bron Way, Cumbernauld G67 1DR

This half-day masterclass covered every aspect of FRC Group. Shaun's inspiration talk lead us through their values both as an organisation and as an employer. The group publish award-winning social reports along side their financial reports and each employee has the chance to learn new skills and get qualifications in their University for the People. Their motto is to' recruit on attitude and train on skills'

FRC are probably best known for “Bulky Bobs”, a household collections service of bulky waste. The service makes more than 50,000 collections a year with almost 30% of what they collect being sold in 'Revive' - a store in Liverpool city centre that sells, what they call, 'pre-loved' furniture. Shaun explained that their leaflets and price tags in-store are in different languages and also include 3 different prices for three different bands of customer. It's a small point, but ensuring that their prices are in big letters and are actually numbers and not just percentage discounts, makes a big difference. As much information on customers is gathered as possible including postcodes to ensure their marketing and leaflets all target the right people.

One of the keys to their success is sub-letting space in the Revive store to products that compliment the sale of their furniture. Fireplaces, curtains, blinds, carpets and electrical goods are all things that their customers said they wanted to be able to buy alongside furniture. This not only provides and 'one-stop-shop' for their customers but covers their own rental overheads. Interestingly, Shaun gave a figure of 5,000 square feet of space per project that they run. Any bigger and you'll be tempted to store items for too long that aren't selling.

FRC also offer a Social Removal Service. Customers are offered much more than just having their possessions physically moved as they 'move people not property'. The service sends a chaperone up to 3 weeks before to help them organise the move. A taxi then takes them to their new house on the day of the move and the chaperone takes care of switching gas and electricity. All this added value is something that no other removal service provides and is also cheaper!

Download presentation (PDF format, 1.4 MB)