Having a sales contest for employees can help motivate them to sell. Having a little competition between employees can improve morale, help them to avoid boredom, and also help you to identify weaknesses and strengths in your staff. Train your staff to help them be successful. Use their customer interactions as coaching moments to improve the level of customer service that your employees provide.
First, get your employees interested in seeing the business succeed. Let them come up with promotional ideas, window displays, and have input in what inventory you sell. Not only will you benefit from the new ideas, but your employees will feel involved and start to see how their hand in the business is paying off.
Once they care about the business, explain how the success of the business is dependent on the customer experience. Providing customer service that exceeds expectations will ensure that the customer raves about your boutique to friends. Word of mouth is most definitely your most effective form of advertising. You can’t pay for a customer’s respect, you have to earn it. Once you have it, you could have a customer for life, plus a walking, talking, texting, advertising machine.
Teach your employees some basic ways to exceed customer’s expectations. Never point out where something is if a customer asks. Always say something to the effect of, “Let me show you where that is.” Never brush off a customer and say, “It’s over there by the shoes.” When you’re helping a customer, avoid distractions and store responsibilities. The display that you were straightening will be there when you’re done.
Give your staff selling tips or special deals to offer your customers. Once they are helping a customer, they can engage in conversation. Your staff could find out that this is the customer’s first visit and then inform them that if they provide their e-mail address at check out, they can receive 10% off of their entire purchase. When a customer feels like a deal is being made specifically for them, they are way more likely to purchase.
Reward employees for providing this type of service by incenting them. You could say that whoever accumulates the most e-mail addresses of first time customers in a month’s time wins $100 bonus. The extra sales, customers, and good customer experiences that you create in that month should far exceed the bonus money that you pay out.
Another way to improve the customer experience is to have your staff constantly move around the store. They can straighten and restock your displays and garment racks instead of looking bored at the register. Customers hesitate to “disturb” the staff if they look bored or involved in conversations with one another. Your employees should always approach customers and offer help. Moving around the store, managing clothing racks and displays, and offering help will further ensure that your customer’s every need is met.
About the Author: John Garvey is on the staff of Only Garment Racks, a leading online source of garment racks including clothing racks Find a high quality garment rack or clothing rack at http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.