“I don’t want someone who’s just friendly — I want someone who is knowledgeable,” posted a consumer in the comment section in a blog about what customers want.  As we all know, a cheerful staff is an important part of making customers feel welcome. But having a well-trained sales staff is a key  means of differentiating your store from a big box or chain store. And it takes a lot for employees to know more than today’s consumers, who have often studied up on a product online before coming into the store.  

Staff training is an ongoing process that begins the day a new hire starts, but never ends.  You can enlist your sales reps to help with this process by holding staff seminars, and you should use your employee newsletter to highlight new arrivals. There are many helpful product videos online that you can recommend to your staff.

We prefer not to have our staff have their cell phones out while they are on the sales floor, but we do allow them to look at trade magazines to see what is happening in our field. They also know where the vendor files are located in case they need to look up information about a specific product.

We recently got a nice thank you note from a customer praising an employee for taking her to the display of merchandise, producing a ruler to measure it, and then giving a comparison between two similar items based on personal experience.  Which brings me to another element of staff training — the employee discount.  We offer our staff most merchandise at 10% above wholesale, which is a perk they very much appreciate.  It also works to our advantage, because in many cases they have taken home a product to try it.  Nothing sells like a personal testimonial!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder