Lesikar's Business Communication: Connecting in a Digital World 13th Edition by Kathryn Rentz,Paula Lentz

Exercise 1

As an entry-level employee for a business research firm, RetailData.com, you've been assigned the task of recruiting survey participants for a report on best practices in sales-associate management. The survey will gather such information as the companies' key performance indicators (KPIs)-that is, such quantitative data as sales per labor hour, downtime per associate, wages \ sales ratio, and units sold per transaction-as well as information on such additional topics as hiring and training practices, turnover management, performance incentives, and the use of labor management soft ware. In short, your company hopes to create a report that companies can use in order to "benchmark" their retail management practices against those of others in their industry. The report will be sold, along with many other industry reports, on RetailData.com.
Write a persuasive email that will get store managers and executives to participate in your survey. Your email will contain a link to the Web-based survey, so the message you are writing will not need to discuss the contents of the survey in great detail. Instead, use the email to get readers to appreciate the importance of the information they will be helping to generate. You can offer them a free copy of the resulting report, and five of the participants will be selected at random to receive one free additional report on a different business topic. The individual responses will be shared with no one, and the data will be presented in aggregated form so that no particular companies will be identified in the report. The survey will run from May 6 to May 24, 2013. The report will be finished by June 30, 2013. Add any additional material that you believe is warranted. Remember: The more successful your invitation, the better the report (and the better you and your company will look).