Given that your store a limited number of customer interaction opportunities per day, it just makes sense to continue to train your employees with retail sales training techniques. So here are some retail sales training tips that might help.
- Don’t forget the old tried and true suggestive selling. A lot of store owners we have spoken with get really turned off by the concept. So much so, in fact, that during our training sessions we have relabeled the interaction, calling it “actively assisting” instead. It seems that if employees visualize themselves as someone who can save a shopper an additional trip they are able to frame the interaction in a much more positive light. So instead of speaking to your employees about the additional revenue they can produce for the store, coach them in how beneficial their service is to your customers. Using a new definition of an old proven concept will probably help.
- Here’ another idea from the old bag of retail sales training tips. Depending on the average price of items you sell it is often helpful to warn your clerks against “social-economic casting”. This is a term that we have coined to describe a very real interaction that we have observed. The clerk sells away from a more expensive item simply because when they “cast” that item into their own economic situation, it just doesn’t work financially. Cast in this light they afflicted salesperson sells down thinking they’re doing the customer a favor. With a little coaching and role playing however you can overcome this pitfall. You’ll find that when your employees make this leap your ticket size will invariably go up.
- The basic skills that need to be taught are listening and asking questions. Depending on personality types, however, something as simple as asking questions can be difficult for some people. If you identify a person who you feel struggles with this, you may have hired the wrong person. Perhaps that person could function more effectively working with merchandising or clerical processes. However sometimes something as simply pointing out an inefficiency goes a long way to correcting it.
There are many good retail sales training tips out there. I hope you found these useful. If you have additional suggestions please list them in a reply so that many may benefit from your expertise.
