Making Front end retail staff critical differentiators for the business
Disinterested
and indifferent sales personnel in retail stores is a common sight. Staff
members who are plain bored of their jobs or complete misfits in roles that
demand presence and engagement, can often be that critical underperforming link
in such stores. In such instances, when a customer makes a purchase it is
usually inspite of them. Customers increasingly have the option to buy online,
if they so desire. Brick and mortar retailers therefore need to use the opportunity
provided by the visit of the customer to their store as an opportunity to leave
a positive influence on them.
One
of the most significant and easiest ways to leave that positive influence on
customers is through front end store staff. Their contribution can be immense
in converting customers from browsers to shoppers, impressing them with their
knowledge and attention to detail and in general giving them a superior
experience that online will always find tough to match.
This
has implications for retail businesses in terms of the kind of people that must
be recruited, the kind of behaviour and learning that should be encouraged
specifically in the store teams – and the kind of behavior that should be consistently
rewarded.
While
recruiting, front end Operations Managers often juggle the demands of the job
in their own heads. This means potential recruits must be good at organizing, managing
the back end, indenting for stocks, making reports, creating rosters at one end;
and simultaneously have endless energy to interact with customers at the front
end. Of-course the first part is a hard core nuts and bolts operation at the
heart of the retail business and without which the store can’t function, while the
other is an equally energy sapping and perhaps tougher aspect of dealing with
customers, day in and day out.
At
the heart of this dilemma is the quest for that perfect retail employee who can
do it all; be valuable for the business through his hardwork and diligence and also
ensure that he leaves a positive impression on the customers that he interacts
with, such that customers begin to prefer their outlet over others. To make
this possible, rather than blandly recruiting store staff basis historical
patterns or basis individual needs of front end managers, the question that HR and
front end Operations Managers must answer is
(a) what kind of profile should they consistently recruit that can add
value to their business? What kind of behavior should they train employees for?
And what attitude or skills should be encouraged, valued and rewarded on a day
to day basis?
A
section of Retail Managers speak about the importance of discipline in store
teams and look at those who will always come in time (and before time if
possible), work late hours, can multi task in the store when required and
unquestioningly accept the diktats of the Store Chief or Store Manager. While these
are important, desirable and must have qualities, they are by no means
sufficient to make an employee -a great team member and a valuable resource or
qualities that will help elevate the store from an average business to one that
is loved by its customers.
Another
section of retail Managers rightly point in the direction of staff who handle
the back end and I would be more inclined to agree with them for the sheer
importance of the work done by these team members in ensuring that the stores
run efficiently in terms of stock indenting, product availability, hygiene and
cleanliness, stocking accuracy, reporting etc. The skills required here are an
ability to work with numbers and the discipline to do it diligently at the
prescribed frequency. When one considers this in light of the question whether
this quality is enough to bring a smile to the customers face or if it is
sufficient to bring a customer back to the store, I would not be so sure.
This
brings me to team members who work in the front end engaging with customers of
all hues. Their key role is to ensure customers find what they are looking for,
make their experience in the store pleasurable and achieve targets that they
may have, through upselling or cross selling etc. At the outset this doesn’t
look like a great skill and can easily be dismissed as too generic. But to my
mind if between the 3 sets of store staff any one has the power to bring a
customer back into the store, it is this set.
It
is also obvious that we need all 3 kinds of people and their respective skill sets
and experience in a retail store to be able to run it well. But seen in the backdrop
of increasing incidence of online sales, chaotic roads with limited parking on
high streets, malls overflowing with customers on weekends, and stores in
general beginning to look like each other, Retail Managers need to be clearer
about the profiles of employees that they are entrusting to run their stores. The
business needs to be clear about the kind of behaviour that differentiates them
from other competitor stores, or the kind that ensures customers have a genuinely
good experience or simply encourages customers to come back to their stores in
the future as well.
To
my mind, quite unequivocally, the team members who should be most valued are those,
who are trusted by customers. These are colleagues who can engage with
customers in the most authentic and appropriate way. Customers don’t think
twice before sharing their contact numbers with them. These team members never
seem to be over pushy when it comes to sales. Observations regarding such team
members over the years have thrown up a couple of important pointers that
recruiters and front end Managers must be cognizant of:
·
Their confidence is just at
the right level. They are neither over nor under confident. Their quiet confidence
does not stem from arrogance or mere bluster. It stems from their superior
knowledge of products that they are entrusted to handle. And this knowledge in
turn is an offshoot and consequence of their desire and keen-ness to learn and absorb in all situations.
·
They have relatively higher EQ
than the rest. They intuitively
understand from their knowledge and experience what works or does not work
for a customer. They are able to tailor their recommendation basis actual
customer need vs sounding overly promotional in a bookish or theoretical kind
of way.
·
Their cheerful and friendly
demeanor makes them the go-to people for customers in the store rather than those
employees who are always too busy or too enraged or too distant in their
behaviour.
·
They are charming and able
to converse easily with customers –
going beyond the “Yes”, “No”, “I don’t know” routine. When asked a question,
their answer is more likely to be in a paragraph rather than in monosyllables.
·
They are emotionally stable
and have great temperament through both easy and tough days. They are able to
better handle all kind of situations more calmly.
Here,
it is important to understand that – when faced with the challenge of
recruitment – preference is often given to those who have worked in similar
contexts or industries before. What also needs to be remembered is that – while
such candidates may have contextual knowledge, they still may make for poor
choices if the above criteria are not met. Given the fast changing shopping and
customer contexts, the crying need for offline businesses is to be superlative
in their service orientation and it is not necessary that people from similar
industries always fit the bill.
This
is what retail businesses could strive to get better at:
1) Clearly define the skill sets
that they are looking for in front end retail stores.
2) Drive alignment across the business especially amongst those who recruit and train
them to spot the right skill sets and behavioral traits.
3) Have a clear program and
focus to train front end store staff
in the desired skills that will get your front end staff get perceived as
experts by consumers. Customers look forward to interacting with experts and
not with clueless team members or those that can’t add value to them.
4) Staff members who do not
demonstrate the flair for front end roles must be either retrained or relocated to more appropriate positions commensurate
with their skillsets.
5) Training of front end Managers to recognize signs of desired skills, attitude and
behavior is key. This is something that they need to consistently mentor and
encourage their staff for as also demonstrate it themselves. Those team members
who can engage effortlessly with customers and get seen as experts must be
rewarded and recognized more frequently so that the message to the rest of the
team percolates down faster.
Importantly, most of this requires a perceptible
change in organizational culture, and is unlikely to succeed if it doesn’t flow
from the top or is not encouraged by more than one department.
Having the right skilled staff in the front end can
be that one big differentiator for brick and mortar/ physical retail vs online
players and greater sensitivity in this regard across levels and departments in
the organization can only be helpful.
