Tag: retail training

28 Nov 2022
Elearning for companies in modern manufacturing

What should be elearning for companies for sales?

Training is an important issue for companies because it can fix so many things for them.

Hence, they need to do competency based upskilling for employees and vendors to get the best productivity for them. The elearning for companies must consider the competencies needed for various jobs. Such reskilling is also needed because digital changes are happening very fast in recent years.

With companies relying on resellers like ecommerce marketplaces and offline retailers to sell their products, they can’t ignore the need for training them. 

How to train offline retailers?

These days’ companies are setting up shops in every part of the world to increase their products. Hence, companies need to ensure that the offline Retailers must know the USP of your product. It’s because when they don’t have an idea about the same, they can’t sell the product.

  • Persuading customers to buy the product:

A retailer’s job is an extensive job that includes ensuring that the customers are canvassed about the product. When the retailers have not been given proper training, they might not be able to persuade the customers. In that case, the customers can only buy when they have comprehensive knowledge of the product based on their own research.

Sometimes, a retailer’s job includes creating a market from scratch for the products through promotion, which can be done after research has been conducted on the product for a particular region. If the customers face any problems with the products, stopping them from buying them, it’s the retailer’s job to rectify them through the company.

The companies need to have proper training materials that are shared on the LMS in time, and the learners can access them. They can consult them on time to make sales happen because any lapse on their part can cost the company in terms of a lost deal.

Elearning for companies solutions must ensure that retailers have a positive attitude toward their work.

They can be trained in skills, but showing empathy for customers’ needs is also crucial. Also, they should have a penchant for helping others. Hence, training to have the right attitude is quite pertinent in this regard.

The retailers form a link between the manufacturer/company and the consumer and ensure that the post-sales service of the products is seamless because any glitch not removed in time can affect the brand’s credibility.

With proper assessments included in such elearning for companies’ courses, the trainers can gauge whether training has brought about the necessary change in the attitude of the retailer. The elearning for companies is not an easy job because it has to ensure that various learners are accommodated.

  • Proper advertising:

The retailers are also responsible for the packaging of the product. 

Hence, it must include promotion and merchandising training for store owners and product service training for the other personnel. Role plays can be incorporated to make learners understand how their roles affect the sales and hence how they should carry them.

Therefore, the manufacturers must ensure that in their Elearning for companies platform, they have sufficient resources for the retailers.

How to impart training for selling products on an ecommerce marketplace?

Companies are now relying on an ecommerce marketplace to get ahead in the market. Some of the businesses can’t afford to have tie-ups with logistics aggregators and payment processors and hence decide to sell their products through an ecommerce marketplace, which charges a monthly fee for their services. These websites have all the arrangements for displaying products. They also ensure products are delivered on time and picked for returns too. However, companies need to train their marketing personnel in the following ways for maximizing ROI through an ecommerce marketplace:

  • Choosing an ecommerce marketplace:

Using an ecommerce marketplace is an economic option for businesses because they can’t keep so much stock ready for them all the time. With an ecommerce marketplace to handle all their hassles, the products can be arranged when the order is placed.

The manufacturers need to train the management on how to choose the right kind of ecommerce marketplace for their products. It’s because the marketplace might only be focused on a single product category, or even selling products of related categories. They also need to understand how the brand pages are shown on the website because it can affect sales.

But the manufacturers must ensure that their sales team has been trained to handle any customer issues that arise afterward. The manufacturers can use chatbots to help customers with any issues. However, when the customers rely on the sales team and when adequate support is not offered to them after the product has been delivered, they can get irked and don’t order again. 

  • Product assortment on such a marketplace:

The management also needs to decide whether it wants to showcase all its products on an ecommerce marketplace or not. Sometimes, it’s better if high-end products are not shown on an ecommerce website, but rather put up for sale on the manufacturer’s website only.

The management of a manufacturer’s brand has to make such product assortment decisions because the customers might form different opinions of the brand. The product assortment also depends on how a digital marketplace is performing in terms of sales. When a manufacturer decides to choose a certain marketplace, it also has to decide whether it’s offering value-added services like digital marketing, including sponsored ads on social media.

For example, whether a certain marketplace is sending out regular email campaigns to potential customers whenever a brand comes out with a new product. So, the management can only make such strategic decisions when it has been trained through e-learning for companies. 

21 Mar 2022
retail training

How can retail training increase the sales for a business?

Companies are facing pressure to meet sales targets because pandemic has negatively affected the businesses. But now, since the lockdowns are over, there is so much scope for them to get ahead. But then the competition in the market is so high, how the companies can sell.

Retail training has assumed much more significance because the brands are now selling on their websites and apps. Hence the customers buy directly from them rather than visiting the shops. But retail training can help you make a difference provided you are supportive to customers. It’s because the offline shopping experience is quite personal for a prospect, unlike online shopping.

The retail training can ensure that a salesperson can churn out some commendable numbers. However, being a successful salesperson requires you to have excellent soft skills. A salesperson in the company might have such skills, but how to ensure that the entire sales team gets such skills. This salesperson beats the sales targets month after month, and hence he needs to be made an inspiration for all. Such employees must also act as leaders, ensuring that the juniors listen to them and deal with customers effectively.

The hiring process already leaves those who are not suitable for the job. Everyone who is considered fit for the role has got retail training. But how to make sure that sales targets are met repeatedly.

But what, when the sales team is not getting good leads

Not being able to meet the targets is not always the sales team’s fault. The marketing didn’t provide them with good enough leads, and conversions didn’t happen.

The sales team can be given lead scores, which means they must not waste efforts on inconvertible leads. Every lead deserves a specific endeavor in terms of time because it might lack other attributes such as income, need, etc. So, specific leads deserve more time from the sales team because they have higher chances for conversion. However, apart from providing more guidance to the sales team, it’s also crucial to see that the quality of leads is desirable, and the marketing department should see to it.

Retail training, however, checks that the efforts of the sales representatives are up to the mark.

It’s the job of the retail trainer to ensure that the customer buys from the sales representatives. This is how retail training can help the sales team:

  1. Product features training

    One of the crucial aspects of retail training is providing in-depth knowledge about the products to the prospects. When the sales representative can do that, he wins the customer’s confidence ensuing that the latter has a clear idea about how the product can serve his needs or not. In addition, all his doubts about the product usability must be cleared. When sales representatives are given product training, it has been shown that it causes a 5% increase in sales. But to check the level of knowledge of sales representatives, a competency test is essential.

    The product knowledge training not only includes knowledge of the product’s features but also for whom the product is meant for or not. If the salesperson is aware of all the situations, he won’t try to sell the product to someone for whom its not worthwhile. Product knowledge training also teaches them about other products in the marketplace and how your product scores over them.

  2. Empathic listening

    Retail training can only help sales employees effectively convince customers to purchase products. Soft skills training is also crucial for prospects because if they can’t be greeted well by the sales employee, they won’t feel welcome to make a purchase.

    The sales employees must have the skills to listen to the customers and not lose confidence even when the customers don’t seem eager to buy. Moreover, there are challenging situations before the sales employees, like an overcrowded store, and they must know how to tackle such situations.

    The reins are in the hands of a retail person in the case of an offline shopping experience. The prospects who have come to the store are willing to buy something; otherwise, they have not stepped out of the house. Retail training is essential because, unlike online shopping, the salesperson has no clue about the prospective shopper. The latter has not entered his information in an online form, and hence the salesperson does not know what his wants are. In the case of online shopping, a prospect has added so many options to the shopping cart, and hence the retail salesperson knows his preferences. The online prospect also has much better product knowledge than an offline shopper. An offline shopper does not have much knowledge about the product, and it’s the job of the salesperson to convey that information understandably and pleasingly to him.

    So, even if an online internet browsing person who has some knowledge about the products has come to the store to get them, he must not return empty-handed or at least write negative reviews about store sales staff so that they don’t attract further customers.

How to convince the management about retail training?

The L&D department in a company must ensure that the training gets the nods of the CEOs because they decide the funds. Once they are not included in the project, they can be appalled by the cost, unwilling to approve it, or even have some impractical expectations.

Similarly, managers also have to support the project because they will train new employees. Once they are convinced that this program will be helpful for the company, they will provide their full-fledged support in even creating the e-learning content. Such retail programs are beneficial for managers who don’t have to train the employees personally. Instead, they enroll them and supervise their progress. When such programs are implemented, managers are saved from the hassles of training juniors and can focus on their targets. In addition, managers don’t have time to provide individual coaching to hires during peak seasons, and these programs act as their alternative.

The manager’s job is to see that more and more people enroll in the training. Telling them that they will face adverse consequences like termination won’t lead them to train. Hence the metrics of the training participants like the number of units sold and conversions can be provided to encourage enrolment.

The employees also might not have the will to apply the training skills. Hence the management has to see that the employees wholeheartedly go through training and use it too.

06 Sep 2021
retail training

Retail training is important for businesses with multiple-channel accessibility

Modern-day customers have become more technically savvy thanks to the advent of digital communication. Today, customers have become fond of online shopping done using their gadgets where they don’t need to leave their abode. Those companies which are not making a foray into digital technologies are lagging behind competitors and losing business.

Since 2019, the world started experiencing the pandemic and online shopping became a norm. The customers were not willing to go to stores anymore due to the fear of the disease. Instead, the customer service staff was facing problems due to such a heavy rush of customers online. The customers didn’t get their answers instantly; instead, their calls had to be transferred to different departments like the Product to respond to prospects. Google Insights has already reported that right now, being in the E-commerce business is the most profitable possibility, especially in the MENA (Middle East North Africa) group countries including Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc. By 2022, the online shopping market in this region will have enhanced three times from 8.3 to 28.5 billion USD.

Hence retail training has become a major requirement for companies. The customer service people are now working from home due to the pandemic because stores have been shut down and their leaders have taken such decisions. Hence there is a need for a cloud-based server to be implemented by such stores, so that customer data is accessible all the time for everyone.

Increasing demand and technically proficient customers

The rising demand faced by customer service representatives has become a problematic issue for them. They don’t have time to answer customer queries on various platforms. Hence, with a cloud-based server, they have centralized storage available to them like which customer has accessed them before and what are his product preferences.

Retail training can be useful for sales representatives because it can allow them to access customer conversations through cloud-based solutions.

The retail executives can be taught so much through such training.

How to operate the CRM: A company also has to implement a CRM to keep track of whom the customer is dealing with but it has to be integrated with an E-commerce platform so that customers can post orders and queries online. A must for all-around availability, a cloud-based server is required to host both the CRM and the E-commerce based website and mobile app. For example, the companies can reap the benefits when the customer service representative raises a ticket about the unavailability of the product and he is informed as soon as possible when the product becomes available because lets the vendor has also been added to the same CRM. So, there is not much delay between when a customer asks for a product and when it is supplied to him counting as an effective business. Retail training has come to the rescue of companies when customer service representatives learn how to raise a ticket on the CRM.

The retail training can also be beneficial when such employees what conversation should be added to the help desk so that responses to the customers are automated. This way, the customers don’t have to wait for a response when retail executives are not in their seats. Integrated voice response (IVR) is the necessity of our times.

Retail training can ensure that the salespersons can provide feedback to general questions posed by customers on WhatsApp. This helps in chatbot programming also.

Communication skills: Online shopping has seen such a boom because the customers are expending so much time on their cell phones and the ads on such devices capture such attention. The placement of mobile ads has increased by 70%, which has fuelled such a surge in online shopping. Chatbots have also become a necessity where customer queries are handled through software. But retail training is mandatory because the customer care executives are required to handle those WhatsApp queries which a chatbot can’t resolve. Retail training is required for the betterment of communication skills for the executives. They can also consult the company’s website to solve customer confusion, but they need to multitask. Retail training also helps them to search a cloud contact center solution through keywords for answers to customer troubles to give a prompt reply. Customers are now in a hurry to make sales and when they can’t get the right answer, they leave the chat, so retail training is an essential solution to make such executives skilled with new technologies.

Due to the pandemic, all the businesses are offering omnichannel support and are now reachable through Live Support, website contact form, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger to name a few. Businesses can’t afford to be complacent anymore, and retail training is all about that. The sales executives should be ready to set auto-responder emails in a CRM to an inquiring customer based on the keywords in his question. The customers want instantaneous responses and any delay in the reply can force them to look elsewhere.

He was a German psychologist who is known for discovering the forgetting curve. According to this curve, the biggest decline in memory happens within 20 minutes, and then 1 hour.