Your Retail Staff Has No Idea How Lucky They Are and It's Your Fault

I've come across this article and for me it's worth to read. As in retail here, most of the representative are not aware what are they doing and the worst part some of the employer are just focussing to expand their bussinesses, creating names/branding but forgeting the most crucial part that is ....... the employee....

Credit To >> Lee Anne Homsey - Customer Service Expert Seminars

Posted on >> June 29, 2013

Your staff has no idea how lucky they are and it’s your fault! You’ve been so focused on your business that you forgot about your employees.

Is the position offered enough to keep your employees happy?

Is selling your widget enough for them? 

Is yours the best widget on the planet and selling it makes your staff jump for joy? 

Probably not .....

"Many employees are arriving daily to accomplish a means to an end for eight hours and they don’t really care what they sell. Which means, of course, they don’t really care if they sell either? This is a bad scenario for retailers. Your widget better not have any competition or be able to sell itself otherwise, you better start caring about your employees and whether they like selling."

So how do you motivate your entire sales team to sell more and drive more traffic to your business? Show them how to take advantage of you. Teach them how to use your widgets for their own personal and financial gain.

I guarantee no employer before you has ever taught their staff how to cut corners and take advantage of a system for their own personal gain. Yet that is exactly what you will be doing when you help them create their first repeat customer.

Repeat, regular customers are great for business. This is a customer the employee can greet by name or wave to fondly from across the room indicating he will be assisting them momentarily. Communicating even from a different department in the store.

This is cutting corners and yet the customer feels as though he/she is getting more customer service and anyone around him. This one customer service trick alone will save your employee hours over the course of a year! It saves hundreds of yards walked a year. 

Wouldn’t you like your employees to have more energy for the things they like to do after work?

Knowing your customers by name does just that.

Employees can tell an entire store that the person who just walked in is their own personal customer with a simple wave.

There are so many nonverbal and verbal ways to communicate with good, regular customers, but this is only possible. Once you know the customer’s name. It will save so much time, energy and stress your employees will be made.

It is also much more difficult to be rude or curt with someone who knows you by name. So your employees experience far fewer inpatient or unfriendly customers and for more customers who treat them with respect and even wish them happiness.

What a different experience the same store can be for the employee who has even one regular customer a day who they would know by name. Helping them find and choose things, learning their tastes and even personal details about their life, children and careers. This type of customer is like shopping with a friend and still getting paid. It’s the closest thing to a stolen hour that they can get and the crazy thing is that only they can create this scenario. No one else can do it for them. How do you learn customer’s names, you may ask? It’s quite simple actually.

Here are two ways; get their names before they become customers or learn names while assisting customers who are coming in anyway.

Why assist nameless people who might be unfriendly when you can turn them into “friends of the business,” who want and request you.

Why settle for the standard that has been set years ago when clearly times have changed?

Windows to new connections have been newly thrown open due to the internet and the ability to create connections has never before been this easy.

If your employees prefer not to engage people who they could be building relationships with then they are absolute fools! You never know where a relationship may benefit you.

As an employer, you are now supplying them everything they need to make their eight hours into a powerhouse of opportunity and promise and their eight hour day will seem more like four hours so if they prefer the old-fashioned ways, then they are no smarter than someone standing in an outhouse with the Yellow Pages and a princess phone.

Each employee has the limitless possibility to open, create, benefit from and even profit from a relationship with multiple regular customers.

“Regular customer energy” is infectious as well. Your other clients will want to be called by name and given what seems to be superior and unique customer service treatment.

If you have an employee incentive program in place, even better! Start a rewards challenge involving introducing customers to the manager. The employee with the most introductions wins a prize. The employee wins the prize, gains customers and request plus now the customer is known by the manager of the store, making it all the more enticing to shop and refer friends.

The competitive “name that name.” Challenge is actually a fantastic tool that your employees will benefit and use in every area of their life! (Free networking tool with this week’s paycheck: Make sure they are writing customer’s names down in a book. You don’t want to remember someone one week but not the next.)

In my opinion, you are creating bad customer service by making your widget the focus of everyone’s attention. Clue phone! It’s not the best widget ever! The focus shouldn’t even be the customer! The focus should be your employees, the conduit to the sale and how to make them happier to drive more traffic. They need to feel loved and appreciated at some point in the equation.

I assume, for example, that your managers are not telling them how great they are, maybe they are only pointing out your employee’s flaws and mistakes. Maybe the customers are unappreciative or inpatient, maybe even rude. If your employee didn’t really even love your widget in the first place but has too much personal debt or responsibility to look for other job opportunities. This is not the best equation to a purchase. In fact if this employee is frustrated enough. He may be displaying passive aggressive behaviors onto every customer experience and you don’t even know it.

What’s shocking is that you and you alone have the power to turn your black and white, cold, boring store into a virtual Candy-land of daily opportunity and excitement for your staff. You just choose not to because the old ways are much more comfortable. Well “comfortable” is going to put you out of business my friend. Things are they really very different and you better get up to speed and start engaging your staff, and giving them the tools and structure that they are asking for or they will eventually go somewhere else but not before the unhappy and unsatisfied feelings seep through the cracks of every conversation that could have easily blossomed into repeat customers, but instead became a poor customer experience, complete with bad mouthing your store’s reputation, bashing on the Internet and around town. Or worse, they say nothing and eventually you close your doors. Stop this vicious cycle and cater to the needs of your employees. Their days don’t need to be interminable until they move on. Make it fulfilling so they never want to leave!

It’s not about your widget. It’s not even about the customer! It’s about the people who make you want the widget, buy the widget, take pictures and post about the widget and the experience buying the widget. It’s the people who shake your hand when you enter the store and ask how your kids are. It’s the people that customers want to thank and send holiday cards to, recommend to friends and for promotions, call with funny stories or questions because they know they are wanted and appreciated by these people, appreciated personally and not just for their wallets! It’s about your employees. These are the people who personalize your business your brand and your widgets.

Employees: if you want to make your working life better, easier, more fun and more profitable than call your customers by name. The way to accomplish this is very easy. Mention your own name a few times or assist your customer with things not related to what you are selling.

Example; if customers are carrying bags, coats, umbrellas greet them and offer to put their items behind the counter or someplace safe. As they are handing their belongings to you asked for their name. (Don’t be nervous! It’s easy, and you are providing extra customer service they didn’t know they needed or could possibly have.) Just say, “And your name? I’ll put a little tag on it so everyone knows it’s yours.” Walla! With seems like extra effort on your part is actually the first step to creating your effortless workday and then workweek and ultimately career in a rewarding customer relations position. (Lucky dog!)

Now it is vitally important that at some point after getting your customer’s name, you write it in a book that will become your regular customer’s names book.

Do yourself a favor and purchase a standard composition book for customer’s names. When you get a name put the date at the top of the page and jot down things like: weather conditions that day and a politically correct description of the customer plus her kids names or career… any little thing that she may have mentioned that will help jog your memory if you don’t see her again for a few weeks.

Another way to get a customer’s name is if they have children with them. Try keeping the kids entertained and or putting the stroller somewhere safe. You can introduce yourself and tell the mom or dad you are more than happy to help. Any time you are not busy. When they obviously appreciate you singing the A B Cs with Junior you can tell them that they can call the store at the time to let you know they are coming in and that way you can finish up with other clients Past to keep Junior company while year she shops.

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