You're navigating changing retail trends. How do you adjust customer service training for new hires?

Integrate technology into your customer service training to adapt to changing retail trends. Use interactive e-learning platforms, virtual simulations, and AI-driven tools to provide hands-on, realistic training experiences. Equip new hires with the latest digital tools, such as CRM systems and chatbots, to enhance their efficiency and service quality. By embracing technology, you can ensure that your team stays current with industry advancements, delivers exceptional customer service, and remains competitive in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

Today's retail world has two major components -- the operational side that deals with selling things to the customer. The technical side that provides that direct support to the operational side. Together they drive the retail world into the Modern Agile Unified Commerce environment. Succeeding today takes both components. Jeffrey will help guide you through the operational side. He knows from where he speaks.

The fact is every customer that walks into a store expects any store team member to be knowledgeable about every product in the store. They may even expect the store team member to know competitive products so they can help the customer make a purchase decision! This means product training must be kept up to date and this will require agile technology from the right technology partner to help you develop new training on an ongoing basis. Your store team will also need access to customer information to match up to that product info. Why? This will allow them to align product capabilities to customer interests, including purchase history and customer preferences. That's the type of personalization customers expect from well trained staff!

Adjust customer service training for new hires in response to changing retail trends by focusing on updated product knowledge, emphasizing digital and omnichannel customer interactions, teaching adaptive problem-solving skills, and fostering empathy and proactive communication to meet evolving customer expectations effectively.

Sales is all about listening. Every sales training program will tell you that the most successful sales people are great listeners because they hear what the customer is saying as well as what they are NOT saying to know how to help them. Does the customer look pleased, or do they seem annoyed and exasperated? A well-trained sales person will know how to adjust their interactions to accommodate either situation or anything in between. One of my favorite stories of a star sales person comes from a Neiman Marcus store. One store team member in the men's dept hit a $1M sales mark in one year by continuously turning a transaction about dress socks into $10k of merchandise! And he did it by listening to his customers and adapting!

Your store team is your frontline interface to your customer. Customers expect them to have strong product knowledge. You need an approach that not only delivers training to your team but also provides them with the right tools and technology they can use to gain access to the product knowledge needed at any given time. Think about how mobile devices could enable that access - it's not just a matter of handing team members a device though, you'll need the right software to go with it that delivers an easy to use interface. No store associate wants to lose precious seconds searching for product info on a device when standing next to a customer! App performance matters!

One of the tools to gain customer loyalty is to educate your customer about your product, the more the customers become educated about the product the more they will get facilitated by the product or service and they will prefer to get facilitated by the same product because it will become a customer's comfort zone. And naturally most humans wanna stay in their comfort zone. So make your product or service a comfort zone for your customer! ✌️🤝💐