Retail frontline training has to be as interesting and well thought out as your customer service motto. Great differentiated service is something that you can introduce only through consistent and simplified training!
Yawns, sleepy faces, zero energy – such a familiar sight in training programs! I have pretty much felt like that in most programs I have attended – save a few great programs with a few great trainers… Most people these days have a huge ADHD problem (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) when they are expected to pull back from their high energy, multi-tasking jobs and are brought into a training program. So obviously they get bored!
A typical ‘Knock Your Socks Off’ Customer Experience program is aimed at store staff – who are typically working all day long, most often reactive rather than proactive due to the quantum of work that they handle and they do not come from backgrounds where they have spent too much time or energy learning…hence the teaching methodology one absolutely needs to follow with them is one I fondly call the E5 methodology! Easy, Enriching, Electrifying, Energetic and Empathetic.
Easy – The training for frontliners or for that matter anyone in retail should be Easy – simple words, using a mix of English and the regional languages so that one can make ‘learning’ much simpler. Pretty much use of the training techniques one saw in nursery and primary school – lots of pictures, lots of repetition, simple easy words and a lot of love! Use of simple slides, workbooks with tons of exercises, videos, pictures, photos are the way to make a bit more of a lasting impression. The other benefit is also that the output from this training at the stores also becomes easy to observe and measure from say a mystery shopper program!
Enriching – An obvious ‘E’ would have been educating – however training a working salesman/woman has to have something more than the knowledge that ‘you’ want or need them to have. You have to be able to make the connect between the knowledge and the training program to what is in it for them?! As kids we could be forced into learning, there were marks and future at stake. So what does an individual look at from the program – my experience is that they come in expecting a good lunch and nothing else. What I sell them though are ways to get ahead in life, ways to improve their self-worth, their relationships and ways to better manage their time! This puts them in the driver’s seat as far as ‘learning’ is concerned and makes them more alert and participative, as the stake is now that much higher and important to them!
Electrifying – A prerequisite to great selling is being really charged up and motivated! If you cannot charge them up in a classroom you will not charge them up on the shopfloor. Techniques must be used to get the best out of your team in a classroom scenario. You have to get them up and excited about everything you do, the methodology has to be fun and something that totally charges up the participant and gets him awake, alert, hungry for more and excited about learning. This is of course easier said than done – sometimes I take just minutes to thaw an audience and sometimes it takes up to half-a-day – but it is energy well-spent – as the ‘learning’ is far more effective only after this… The good news is that no matter how tough the audience is – when you decide to ‘electrify’ you will eventually get there.
Energetic – The first 3 points are more to do with the participants and what motivates them – however this and the next point are more towards what the trainer must do at his end! The trainers for retail training must be highly motivated and energetic! The energy that they bring to the program will carry forward and build the energy with the staff that they train. This energy is not built overnight, a lot of work goes into this one. As a trainer you need to eat right, workout a lot to be able to bring that stamina to the classroom!
Empathetic – The lives of frontline people is extremely hard! They work long hours, and they travel great distances to come for your programs! Chances are that 9 out of 10 times they don’t even come from the socio-demographic background that you come from…so you must understand them and relate to them. Spend a lot of the breaks, lunches and dinners just getting to know them better! A better understanding of your audience will help you be more successful with the programs you deliver and the way the content you deliver is absorbed.
Your training program has got to be just as interesting and delightful as the service you want your staff to deliver. Remember the good old concept ‘Moments of Truth’, almost all of customer service is centered on this very concept… The concept says that at every point that you interact with your customer you are forming impressions – for good service you need to ensure that each of these impressions are fantastic. Now I say that your training programs on this subject also need to follow the same rule. Your entire interaction with retail frontliners must be exciting, enriching, alive, fun and should knock their socks off.
Yawns, sleepy faces, zero energy – such a familiar sight in training programs! I have pretty much felt like that in most programs I have attended – save a few great programs with a few great trainers… Most people these days have a huge ADHD problem (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) when they are expected to pull back from their high energy, multi-tasking jobs and are brought into a training program. So obviously they get bored!
A typical ‘Knock Your Socks Off’ Customer Experience program is aimed at store staff – who are typically working all day long, most often reactive rather than proactive due to the quantum of work that they handle and they do not come from backgrounds where they have spent too much time or energy learning…hence the teaching methodology one absolutely needs to follow with them is one I fondly call the E5 methodology! Easy, Enriching, Electrifying, Energetic and Empathetic.
Easy – The training for frontliners or for that matter anyone in retail should be Easy – simple words, using a mix of English and the regional languages so that one can make ‘learning’ much simpler. Pretty much use of the training techniques one saw in nursery and primary school – lots of pictures, lots of repetition, simple easy words and a lot of love! Use of simple slides, workbooks with tons of exercises, videos, pictures, photos are the way to make a bit more of a lasting impression. The other benefit is also that the output from this training at the stores also becomes easy to observe and measure from say a mystery shopper program!
Enriching – An obvious ‘E’ would have been educating – however training a working salesman/woman has to have something more than the knowledge that ‘you’ want or need them to have. You have to be able to make the connect between the knowledge and the training program to what is in it for them?! As kids we could be forced into learning, there were marks and future at stake. So what does an individual look at from the program – my experience is that they come in expecting a good lunch and nothing else. What I sell them though are ways to get ahead in life, ways to improve their self-worth, their relationships and ways to better manage their time! This puts them in the driver’s seat as far as ‘learning’ is concerned and makes them more alert and participative, as the stake is now that much higher and important to them!
Electrifying – A prerequisite to great selling is being really charged up and motivated! If you cannot charge them up in a classroom you will not charge them up on the shopfloor. Techniques must be used to get the best out of your team in a classroom scenario. You have to get them up and excited about everything you do, the methodology has to be fun and something that totally charges up the participant and gets him awake, alert, hungry for more and excited about learning. This is of course easier said than done – sometimes I take just minutes to thaw an audience and sometimes it takes up to half-a-day – but it is energy well-spent – as the ‘learning’ is far more effective only after this… The good news is that no matter how tough the audience is – when you decide to ‘electrify’ you will eventually get there.
Energetic – The first 3 points are more to do with the participants and what motivates them – however this and the next point are more towards what the trainer must do at his end! The trainers for retail training must be highly motivated and energetic! The energy that they bring to the program will carry forward and build the energy with the staff that they train. This energy is not built overnight, a lot of work goes into this one. As a trainer you need to eat right, workout a lot to be able to bring that stamina to the classroom!
Empathetic – The lives of frontline people is extremely hard! They work long hours, and they travel great distances to come for your programs! Chances are that 9 out of 10 times they don’t even come from the socio-demographic background that you come from…so you must understand them and relate to them. Spend a lot of the breaks, lunches and dinners just getting to know them better! A better understanding of your audience will help you be more successful with the programs you deliver and the way the content you deliver is absorbed.
Your training program has got to be just as interesting and delightful as the service you want your staff to deliver. Remember the good old concept ‘Moments of Truth’, almost all of customer service is centered on this very concept… The concept says that at every point that you interact with your customer you are forming impressions – for good service you need to ensure that each of these impressions are fantastic. Now I say that your training programs on this subject also need to follow the same rule. Your entire interaction with retail frontliners must be exciting, enriching, alive, fun and should knock their socks off.
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