Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Frozen & Dairy Buyer magazine. A long-time Harris Teeter executive, Mr. Harris is a former chairman of the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association and a member of the Refrigerated Foods Hall of Fame.
Training is very important for all departments in a grocery store but many of those efforts fall short of requirements.
Take the dairy and frozen departments. Dairy and frozen sales are more than 16 percent of total store sales and net profits are more than 20 percent. But in most cases they don't have a department manager. Most retailers use the first part-timer who comes in after school to work the departments. I can tell you that a trained dairy and frozen manager can increase your sales and profits in the department.
I conducted a "product knowledge workshop" each year where we took the trainer on the road to different locations and invited all new department managers to attend. A few weeks after one workshop, I got a call from one of the managers and he was so excited that he was able to help a customer without calling me. The customer asked him about the difference on the dates of milk. He told her one was fresh and the other one was UHT (made with ultra-high temperature processing). Then he explained the difference to her. She told him that she was so proud that her store took the time to train him. That had to be one of the highlights of my career.
Here are the topics we covered:
- Your role as a department manager and what is expected of you.
- Why you should be concerned about safety.
- Why you need great customer service.
- Sales and profits.
- What really causes out of stocks.
- Why there are so many new and discontinued items.
- Department resets and why they're needed.
- Why there are so many changes in costs and retail prices.
- Planograms.
- What you should do with close-dated product coming from the warehouse.
- Damaged product and how to handle it. (You would not believe how many times I have seen a full case returned to reclaim due to one cup being damaged.)
I also had my business managers from companies come in and talk about their categories (yogurt, milk, butter and margarine, etc.). Each presentation by the vendors had to be generic and cover these points:
- How the category is doing this year versus last year.
- What the product is and how it is made.
- Expected shelf life of the product.
- Rotation.
- Reclaim.
- Temperature.
- New items.
- Discontinued items.
- Complaints you may get, and how to handle them.
Good training is essential to increase your sales and profits... as well as a great way to boost the morale and confidence of your managers.