Win and retail customers
Scheduling to demand
Despite the prevalence of digital commerce, physical stores continue to thrive. One of the primary reasons for that is the ability to look at and touch a product before purchase. Ensuring that staff are on top of all tasks to provide a satisfactory customer experience with seamless, frictionless operations every step of the way is crucial. This article explores how retailers are optimising staff efficiency to win and retain customers.
Learn more about how you can help your business grow below.
Ensure That Your Staff are Educated on the Product and the Business
In addition to knowing every aspect of your product(s), your staff members should be familiar with various parts of the business. These aspects include the company’s goals, its mission, and what differentiates your company’s mission from that of others. There has to be a reason beyond profit for your retail store’s existence.
Once your entire team is aware of this, they can operate with a level of synergy that can help them work toward your store’s goals. The CEO of Progress Retail, Ray Riley, explains that even giants like Amazon have continued to make their staff learn more than just the products to be able to effectively communicate and connect with the customers.
Keep a Multi-Channel Communication Open
Consistent and open communication among team members is integral to any business. However, it’s often beneficial to go beyond communicating work operations on a single channel. For example, Pets At Home opened various communication channels through which staff members could talk about various things affecting them at work and outside.
One of the steps they took was to create round tables and listening groups. Such a directive helped staff members voice their concerns, which also gave everyone the ability to share their opinions and ideas. Staff members will feel valued, which will help build a sense of belonging and appreciation for the company’s mission.
Protect Your Staff’s Well-Being
An effective method to make employees feel comfortable in the workplace and satisfied with their jobs is to show them you’re looking out for them. Frontline retail workers often have to deal with disgruntled customers. While this may be considered part of the job, customers can sometimes turn aggressive, which can be damaging to employees’ well-being and mental health.
As a result, their willingness to put the maximum effort into their work may be compromised, which can affect their overall productivity. In turn, your retail business will also suffer. Superdrug put up posters inside their stores and on online posts about a zero-tolerance policy for customer aggression towards employees.
This step was part of their initiative known as the Be Kind, Shop Kind. Following such a stance can help show your employees that they are valued and have your support. They can then feel a sense of belonging to the team, which can help improve morale and keep their efficiency at a maximum.
Track Your Team’s Progress
It’s always a good idea to use numbers and dedicated analytic systems to measure and evaluate your team’s progress. For example, the In-Store Optimisation (ISO) by the Behaviour Analytics Academy uses the PEACE method for profit. The word stands for People Engage Abandon Convert External. Each of these five words signifies different processes that go into optimising operations for your retail store. Therefore, using such systems to measure your customer activity and how your staff members respond to them can help identify areas to work on. After that, you can address them and improve overall efficiency within your retail store.
Invest in Your Staff
You must give your staff members a good reason to want to put in the required effort in their jobs and to serve with satisfaction and diligence. You can accomplish that by offering good salaries with other benefits.
Final Words
If there’s anything we want you to take away from this article, it’s that you should constantly be looking at other businesses around you for inspiration - their success and failures can be an effective way of getting things done correctly.
If you’re looking for effective retail management tools, we are ready to help. Book an online demo here and we will show you how easy it is to get started!
