Retail sales associates serve as the face of their company to its customers, so they must have the ability to put customers at ease while streamlining the selling process into conversation and selling based on value.
They should know how to handle complaints effectively and adhere to company policies, while being flexible enough to adapt with changing industry trends such as digital shopping experiences.
Product Knowledge
Product knowledge is one of the key skills sales associates need in order to upsell effectively and satisfy customers. Customers want to feel like their sales associate understands them, so providing complementary products as part of upselling can make an important impactful statement about who the store really is and its offerings. This can only happen with comprehensive product knowledge among sales associates.
Product training is an integral element of this profession, and employees should be encouraged to gain as much knowledge as possible from new product launches, updates to existing ones or industry conventions.
Sales associates should demonstrate genuine excitement for the products they sell, as this makes it easier for potential customers to understand how these can benefit them. They should also be able to answer basic inquiries regarding their company’s products like what materials are used or whether machine washing can be performed on them.
Customer Service
Customer service associates are responsible for handling customers’ inquiries, resolving their complaints and processing replacement orders. In addition, they should identify business opportunities by marketing products or services to potential clients.
Assemblers work closely with customers to understand their requirements and provide tailored solutions, with customer satisfaction as the ultimate goal. In-depth knowledge of all product lines within their company should enable them to offer advice or answer any inquiries that arise from customers. They must maintain visual standards within their store and keep abreast of new product offerings and features introduced. Store managers frequently communicate with sales and marketing managers and representatives in order to coordinate sales strategies and manage any follow up. Customer service representatives provide support by resolving customer issues and escalate them as necessary to management. Customer service representatives typically earn similar education levels to sales associates and customer service professionals; however, 0.5% more likely than others are likely to pursue a Master’s Degree and 0.1% more likely are Doctoral degrees.
Time Management
Many salespeople waste too much time following up with each lead they encounter; instead, they should focus on closing larger sales which take less time while yielding similar results to multiple smaller transactions.
Salespeople can boost their productivity through time batching techniques. For instance, they should bundle together similar tasks such as updating their pipeline in their CRM tool or reaching out to current customers. They should also be willing to disqualify prospects early so as not to waste precious time with tire-kickers.
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Communication Skills
Sales associates need to communicate clearly and succinctly with customers from diverse backgrounds and cultures, while providing information about products effectively. This includes understanding any language barriers they encounter.
Empathy and active listening skills are also necessary for associates, as these will allow them to understand customer issues, concerns or challenges more fully. They should be able to answer inquiries about products and services, provide recommendations and close the sale with customers.
Associates should possess strong communication skills as well as be adept at quickly picking up product knowledge and industry information in an ever-evolving retail business environment, since products might be introduced or the inventory layout altered on an almost instantaneous basis, which requires employees to quickly absorb that knowledge on their own. Training new policies or retail technologies like POS systems also requires these individuals.
