Retail Customer Experience: The 10 Essential Strengths of Front-Line Retail Employees
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Retail Customer Experience, a daily news portal devoted to helping retailers differentiate the shopping experience.
Most customers assume that small, local stores generally have a bigger focus on customer-care excellence. However, this isn't always the case.
Think of the greeter in Walmart who informs you of the current promotions and invites you to stroll a bit and take advantage of the good deals. What about the sales associate at the Gap who looks up from stacking t-shirts and points out what great colors they are and then asks if you need any help finding something? Of course, there are the local shop owners who always say hello and ask if they can be of service.
What skills and qualities are required by retail sales associates to facilitate positive initial engagements with customers?
Confidence: The confidence to make eye contact and strike up a conversation with strangers is absolutely essential.
Innate friendliness: Customers don't want to deal with sales associates who have to force themselves to be pleasant and nice.
Flexibility: When dealing with the public, things can go wrong. You have to be flexible enough to roll with the punches and think outside the box sometimes.
Ability to multi-task: Sales associates have to juggle customers and their questions and needs, and at the same time attend to their other store duties.
Patience: Dealing with people means that you will have to take the good with the bad. The patience to deal with all types of customers is vital.
Articulate: Sales reps must be conversational and have the ability to formulate answers and provide information when asked.
Respectful: The customer might not always be right, but she is always the customer. Customers must be treated with respect, even in the most challenging situations.
Proactive: It's never a good idea to wait until a customer is stressed or agitated before offering assistance. Being one step ahead to gauge when someone needs help is the best way to minimize a brewing situation.
Positivity: The ability to smile in the face of a long and possibly chaotic day can make a world of difference to customers.
Empathy: Being able to look at a situation through the eyes of a customer is an extremely valuable skill that can enable you to provide the highest degree of service.
At the end of the day, it's all about how a sales associate interacts with a customer. How that interaction goes will ultimately determine if that customer will buy and recommend the store to her friends and family, or turn around and walk out, never to return again.
Discussion Questions: Which retailers, in your experience, do the best job of acquiring/training associates with the core strengths listed in this article? Are their any qualities missing or over-emphasized in the list?