Open-ended questions, effective listening, sales approach, entrepreneur, "outside the box", visual appeal, loss prevention, customer base, foundation of change....these are all overused retail phrases that need to simply go away!
Training, or to put it simply, the information you give an employee to do their job well, is too diluted. Other than hands on training to teach a specific skill, most of your training should appeal to common sense. People go through hours and hours of customer service training, only to be churned out as another robot simply repeating their training to everyone that walks in the door. The customer experience (another overused buzzword) has evolved into building a much stronger human connection.
Hire people (not workers) that can have a conversation, that can smile, and that genuinely seem to appreciate your brand. Then your training turns into simply nurturing their pre-existing personality traits. Give them essential product and company knowledge, and then ask them to treat people the way they would like to be treated. Nordstroms has a reputation for not only having happy employees, but they also have a legendary reputation for customer service. What they tell their employees is about as simple as it gets - "Use best judgement in all situations"
So instead of diluting everything with overused and under-executed buzzwords, simply tell your team to go out and make friends with the customers. DO the right things, like calmly approaching a suspected shoplifter, or not walking by the soda cup someone left on a fixture. Encourage everyone to share ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem. Understand that with changing seasons and products there will come change and ambiguity, and know that that is a normal part of the process and not someone at corporate that has never worked in a store making a bad decision. Treat your employees with the same human connection that you want them to deliver to your customers and everything else will follow.
Training, or to put it simply, the information you give an employee to do their job well, is too diluted. Other than hands on training to teach a specific skill, most of your training should appeal to common sense. People go through hours and hours of customer service training, only to be churned out as another robot simply repeating their training to everyone that walks in the door. The customer experience (another overused buzzword) has evolved into building a much stronger human connection.
Hire people (not workers) that can have a conversation, that can smile, and that genuinely seem to appreciate your brand. Then your training turns into simply nurturing their pre-existing personality traits. Give them essential product and company knowledge, and then ask them to treat people the way they would like to be treated. Nordstroms has a reputation for not only having happy employees, but they also have a legendary reputation for customer service. What they tell their employees is about as simple as it gets - "Use best judgement in all situations"
So instead of diluting everything with overused and under-executed buzzwords, simply tell your team to go out and make friends with the customers. DO the right things, like calmly approaching a suspected shoplifter, or not walking by the soda cup someone left on a fixture. Encourage everyone to share ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem. Understand that with changing seasons and products there will come change and ambiguity, and know that that is a normal part of the process and not someone at corporate that has never worked in a store making a bad decision. Treat your employees with the same human connection that you want them to deliver to your customers and everything else will follow.
Comments
Post a Comment