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13 Important Training Issues For Retailers

Guest post by: Richard Gordon

Article Overview: Have you ever been a customer somewhere and had someone take care of you with such care and interest that you just assumed they were the owner? Isn't this the kind of person you really want taking care of your customers? You also want someone who actually cares for your customers and who will take ownership of a problem and make it their goal to take care of that customer as your personal representative. It's all about having people who want to deliver a memorable experience, as opposed to having people who are indifferent to customers and just want to put their time in.

13 Important Training Issues For Retailers

Have you ever been a customer somewhere and had someone take care of you with such care and interest that you just assumed they were the owner? Isn't this the kind of person you really want taking care of your customers? You also want someone who actually cares for your customers and who will take ownership of a problem and make it their goal to take care of that customer as your personal representative. It's all about having people who want to deliver a memorable experience, as opposed to having people who are indifferent to customers and just want to put their time in.

While I realize you have your own particular equipment or store specific training to do for the merchandise and the type of store you operate, I'm concerned here with some of the training that is too often ignored or not emphasized enough. Here then are a few guidelines for training new employees and getting things right from the very beginning. Before you begin training anyone, commit to these ideals:

Hire for personality, first and foremost. If they aren't personable, your customers won't like them or your store. If they don't care about people, they won't take care of your customers way your customers should be taken care of. Someone who cares can usually be trained. A trained person or good salesperson who doesn't care, you don't want anyway.

Try to avoid telling new hires what they can't do. A better strategy would be to tell them what they can do and what you see in them that made you want to hire them. Also let new hires know about your mission statement and what your want your businesses role to be in the lives of your customers. Then train to empower them to do it.

Be present on a new employee's first day. Make them feel important, valued and introduce them to your people and the store itself. No new hire is going to feel too valued if the first day they show up, the person that hired them is not even there and they don't know a sole when they walk in the door. I've never understood an owner who takes off and leaves the store as a new hire begins the first very impressionable hours. Be involved!

This is your chance to begin emphasizing what is important and valued by "you" the boss. When you've got a new enthusiastic fresh face, try to encourage and stimulate their enthusiasm before bad habits or day-to-day problems effect their attitude. If you want new hires to develop the right attitude, take it upon yourself to convey the enthusiasm and purpose you originally brought to your business in the beginning.

Have a written job description as well as a company policy in writing. Make sure that the employee signs off on each stating they have read and understand both. Then have them sign and date each document. This can come in handy with discipline and potential lawsuits. Remember, it's better to have and not need!

Try training you employees on a normal business day, starting an hour or two before the store opens.

Hold regular sales/training meetings. We're not talking about some fancy formal training program, but we are talking about regular and frequent (one (1) per week, at a minimum). It's too easy and tempting to put them off or cancel them. All this does is to set the example to your people that maybe this isn't so important after all.

Among many of your own important issues, training should include the following if you really want to raise the performance bar in your store:

1. Train your employees on the philosophy behind the company, the importance of service in your business. Train them heavily on handling a purchase transaction before every turning them loose on an employee. Do NOT use customers as guinea pigs with your new hire.

2. Be certain when new employees are first being acclimated to the job they understand who they're working for, and that customers are NOT an interruption to their work. The customer is the purpose of their work and their paycheck.

3. Train your people to look straight into the eyes of your customers and sincerely talk to them and thank them. (If they can't convey warmth enthusiasm and confidence and helpfulness, you've already got the wrong person.) If they can't look you in the eye when you're interviewing them, pass on them.

4. Teach your people to begin learning and memorizing your customers names. Any sales class ever taught has always emphasized the importance of using the customers name often. Everyone likes to be recognized and everyone likes to hear his/her name. It makes people feel more secure... like they're among friends. Wouldn't you rather buy from friends?

5. If your people don't remember the customer's name? They can at least letthem know that their recognized your glad to see them again. How about, "Hi, nice to see you again." Again customers like to go to where they are recognized. So show that you recognize them and help ensure they keep coming back.54.Use your meetings to discuss new products, changes in store policies, new merchandising strategies or other matters relating to the store's merchandise and services. Get input from employees to solve problems or issues in handling customers. The more involved your people feel in creating new policies or procedures, the more likely they are to enthusiastically participate, and the more likely they are to emphasize these same policies and procedures to new employees. There is nothing like a company culture that has employees saying, "Here, customer service is everything!" or " Here, we do it this way!"

6. Train you employee on when and where to eat lunch. Make sure they understand that they should not be stuffing food in their mouth anywhere on the sales floor or within view of the sales floor.. Make sure they understand that customers come before lunch regardless of what time it is or when they were promised a lunch period.

7. Train your people what you want your people to concern themselves with during slow periods or down times. Things like cleaning, dusting, changing displays, sizing, ticketing etc.

8. Training on how to answer the phone and how to answer phone inquiries.. If you've ever called a store or business and had the person on the phone at the other end make you feel like you've interrupted them, you should understand why training on phone etiquette is also important to review and stress.

And while we're talking about the phone... teach your employees that customers in the store come first over those on the phone. The people in the store went to the trouble of driving to your place of business and they are the ones who can give you their money NOW. Do not make them wait on any kind of phone conversation.

If you get a call while you are waiting on a customer or ringing them up, excuse yourself to the customer who is in front of you and inform the customer that you will just put the caller on hold.

Answer the phone and tell the caller politely (without agitation or sounding like you've been rudely interrupted) to please hold while you finish taking care of a customer. The customer on the phone should be asked to hold for a moment only, while you answer a customer's question in the store. If you feel it will take a few minutes, take the customer's number and tell them you will call them back as soon as possible (within the next few minutes) and then do so.

Thank the customer in front of you for their patience and finish the transaction without rushing the customer, sincerely thank them for their business and ask them to return again.

Don't forget to go back to the caller as promised, who will most likely understand the situation.

Do not allow your store customer to feel as though they are interrupting any phone conversation. If your people are on any kind of a personal call at all in your store, (and they shouldn't be) the phone should be hung up period...not put on hold. You don't want customers to feel as though they must hurry and accommodate you and your customer on the phone.

Finally, your employees should never carry on a telephone conversation with the phone tucked under their chin while doing any transaction for another customer. This is a good way to lose a customer. Do not carry on a conversation with anyone in the store, while you are talking to a customer on the phone and do not lay the phone down without putting it on hold. The customer on the phone should not be listening to your gyrations or conversation while you make them wait. This is what why "hold" buttons were invented.

9. Teach your people to present or show items to your customers in the absolute best way possible. This might include setting the item against a pretty or complimentary backdrop or fabric. This might include placing a necklace or pendant against a blouse or dress the customer is considering. It might include learning what accessories or items to suggest for any piece of merchandise sold.

10. Train you people to pay close attention to their customers and listen well! Those that do will have a much better chance of creating a connection or "memorable moment," as I discuss in my book. It's usually a result of listening intently to a customer and then seizing upon some opportunity. However this is not so likely if the employee has not been given some freedom or been empowered to go out of their way to take care of customers. It's also not very likely where customer service is not highly emphasized.

This is also a great time to show how to handle an unhappy customer, or even what over-the-top service is all about and why it's important. It may sound corny, but act out the customer-salesperson relationship between you and your people. Role-playing can help your people see and experience various situations from the customer's point of view and more importantly, it can also help employees to quickly "size up" customers (learn about their needs) or recognize when a customer's body language or words signal a problem in the making. Use your better salespeople to help with suggestions or tactics they've used before. Often, a good sales personality loves to boast about his little success stories. The bottom line is that there is no shortage of subjects to talk about, but you've got to do it regularly. If you do, you will be pleasantly surprised at how much your salespeople improve.

11. Your customers need to see your commitment to pleasing them through your employees. Train your retail employees how to resolve customer complaints on their own. Then train your employees to handle these issues NOW! Remember, the customer comes first. And then after that, the customer comes first. Do NOT leave customers in the waiting or "limbo" mode. Work to implement a policy to take returns or void transactions without calling on a manager? Make decisions to satisfy the customer up to a maximum level without running to you. Be sure to outline these capabilities in your employee training manual. You want your employees to be empowered to take care of the customer. This is important to your store's relationship with your customers. See "Empowering Your Employees in my book, "A Line Out The Door".

If you allow or teach your people in any way to say "Sorry, that's company policy..." or, "If I do that for you, I'll have do to it for everyone", you've just given the go ahead to the mediocrity train and it's leaving the station soon with a number of your customers.

You need policies and training in place that make it very easy for employees to address any given situation or problem for a customer. Employees should not be running to you to find out how you want a particular customer handled in a customer satisfaction situation. The goal is to have such a clearly spelled out customer satisfaction policy that you avoid putting your people in the position of coming to you to and asking you what you want to do.

12. Train your people to understand that all orders must be filled promptly and delivered promptly, even if it is a hassle or an extra expense for you to do so. Inquiries, repairs, e-mails, complaints and callbacks need to be handled with a sense of urgency. Customers want their products to be fixed or their service problem to be resolved. They should not have to wait or wonder if your business will take care of them. You need to teach them to know their problem will be addressed from your first encounter on.

13. Last, but not least, while this is somewhat similar the to #11, be sure you and your employees handle refunds, returns and exchanges graciously, positively and pleasantly. You really need to be pleasant and positive. The idea here is, your sorry the customer was disappointed, not that you're aggravated that you must let go of some cash. Customers should not walk out of your store with a negative feeling about your store because you or your people gave them a hard time about a return. Some store employees and owners develop an attitude and a cool tone with someone who wants a refund. This will not help your store no matter how unhappy you are with the return, so... "suck it up." With some sincere help the customer can wind up not only exchanging everything for merchandise, but also purchasing additional items. There is nothing wrong with suggesting a different size, different style, different brand or completely different item altogether

Other Tips

Create an internal store wish book of your best customers, what they like and what they are looking for. Following up on these requests and wishes is what truly separates the men from the boys.

"With regards to other jobs within your store, choose the perfect employee to team up with your new hire who really has a knack for teaching and mentoring." Give your employee a special typed or handwritten letter that tells them why you are choosing them to train the employee. This makes the employee feel honored as well as making them take the training responsibility more seriously. Consider a checklist coupled with a buddy system. While new employees are being trained by your experienced employees, make use of a checklist for important procedures as the new hires master them.

Don't stop training. Training should practically never end. Just because you told someone something or showed an employee once, does not mean it's locked in and as dependable as the sun. Customer service language and habits especially, must be reinforced constantly. Also try hooking up new hires with the best most talented service oriented employee you have. This does not mean you can divorce yourself from the training personally!

Evaluate And Rate Your Service Performance.

Be honest about every aspect of the customer experience. Again, it's not about your impression. It's about your customer's perception. When you have a chance, ask your customers what they like best about your competition's store or services compared to yours, or how they would rate you on a scale of from 1-10.You can't fix it if you don't know what's broken.Even once you have great service, you can't become complacent and assume you know how things are going. From time to time, you must send out or e-mail a customer survey to make sure your services, products, efforts and understanding of your customers are all on track. You need to know why they are doing business with you and why they are, or are not, buying from your competition.

Get crystal clear on what type of employees you want and how you want them to treat and please your customers. Be creative in finding the right people, and train them well and train them regularly, if you want to have happy, longer-term employees who are a credit to your business. There's a reason the best stores are the best, and its not just because they have attractive interiors.

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Article Tags: customer phone skills, customer service, employees, increasing sales, retail help, training



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