Like most workers in a well-managed store, Kim honestly wants to make both her customers and her employer happy. She walked in the door with an eager-to-please attitude, and she understands that when she's on the clock, she's not here just to chat and be friendly.
Kim is proactive about helping shoppers, and will do just about anything she can to delight a customer.
Store managers give everybody the training and the tools to make it easy to stay up to date on all the goods and services being offered by the store and it's competitors.
In this case, Kim knew moisturizers well enough to ask the right questions about the competitor's product and store technology gave her easy access to the information she needed to suggest a winning alternative.
There was a time when anyone who wanted to know anything about a product had to make a trip to a store where the item was in stock. Even after Americans learned to let their "fingers do the walking", retail salespeople -- emphasis on people -- were still the best source of any information that couldn't be printed on a label or package.
But today, between mass media, mail order catalogs, the internet, and even cable shopping networks, consumers have a variety of ways to get information about products & prices without ever talking to one of your employees.
That can be a problem for retailers if shoppers begin to think of your people as an unnecessary part of their shopping experience.
Every employee must have better product knowledge than your customers or they will be hard pressed to add the value of service to a shoppers' quest. If your customers begin to think of your employees as just a warm-body at check out, they will simply start buying wherever they can get the best price.
And we all know how much fun that would be, don't we?
This new reality means retailers who intend to thrive tomorrow are empowering their workers to know more and do more to impress customers.
For some retailers the biggest need is for improved systems & infrastructure. For others, putting better information at your associates finger tips will be important. But all retailers who invest in empowering their workers can look forward to these benefits:
When the people in your business are equipped and trained to add genuine value to most every purchase, shoppers think less about the price of a product, and more about the value added by your store.
That's how smart, independent retailers will take advantage of being closer to the customer to create an experience customers keep coming back for.