If you believe that hiring staff, guiding them through onboarding documents, giving them a brief overview of your shop and your clientele, instructing them on equipment usage, and then setting them loose on your retail floor won’t affect your sales, you’re sadly mistaken.

In no uncertain terms, you’re undoubtedly experiencing a sales slump.

Do you concur? If you’re similar to countless other retailers, you may not.

In fact, you might be perfectly content with the approach outlined in the introductory paragraph.

This, however, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re incompetent—it just signifies you might lack experience.

However, for those seasoned retailers who are yet to streamline their operations, that’s a different scenario entirely.

To illustrate our point, let’s look at a recent example.

Surprisingly, during the last festive shopping season—a period when most North American retailers aim to achieve a significant portion of their yearly sales target—numerous large retail chains had staff on their sales floor who were unaware of the company’s refund and exchange policy.

This policy is the most fundamental one, second perhaps only to the accepted payment methods.

At a time when countless potential gift recipients could be inquiring about returning Aunt Agatha’s sweater if it didn’t match her favorite color, or Uncle Jim’s power saw if he already had one, it was startling to find many employees unable to correctly respond to the simple question, “What is your refund & exchange policy?”

Why do you suppose this is the case?

It’s highly improbable that such a basic topic was omitted during the admittedly brief training these individuals received.

It’s also unlikely that the employees were incapable of understanding the policy.

After all, the policy is crafted to be comprehensible for everyone—both staff and customers.

It ought to be simple enough for any individual, from any background, to grasp.

So, what’s the issue here?

• The employee is perplexed and hesitant to ask for clarification.
• The customer poses more complex queries than the employee is equipped to handle.
• The policy keeps evolving, making it challenging for anyone to stay updated.
• Managers and Supervisors in-store vary in their training approach, leading to employee confusion.
• Employees, feeling pressured, may be dismissive or vague with customers.
• The employee simply doesn’t care.
• All of the above, and possibly more…

While retail sales isn’t as complex as rocket science, it’s far from being child’s play.

Prioritize training your employees to execute their duties effectively.

Make a concerted effort to train your management teams, equipping them to ensure their staff performs accurately.

Failure to do so will invariably result in a sales decline.

There is no room for debate.