Innovative sales training for retail staff

e-Commerce is capturing an increasing share of the market. Now more than ever, high street shops have to attract customers with their USPs: advice, service and the shopping experience. 

Despite the growing e-Commerce sector, the bulk of all consumers are still being bought in stationary stores. The trend shows, however, that online sales are pulling important sales away from the high street. Now the retail industry must demonstrate what it can do by exploiting its USPs: advice, service and shopping experiences. These are factors that are primarily communicated to the consumer by the staff at the POS. It's therefore worth investing in the sales staff. Sales training is the key to increasing the motivation, skills and success of the staff.

These days sales staff find themselves facing a huge challenge: the modern customer has already done their research on the internet and already knows many of the features of the product. Nevertheless, they look for advice from specialists. High street retailers must therefore offer greater consulting expertise than previously in order to beat the internet as a research tool. This means that the quality of advice must be the actual USP of retailers – whether selling complex consumer electronics or fair trade coffee in food retail stores.

"Our aim is to inspire customers. The staff in the shop are the most important multiplier – so it is they whom we have to excite and enthuse first and foremost. Innovative gamification approaches are the ideal way of communicating key product features and turning training into an experience. Above all, our solutions directly and sustainably support our client’s sales goals." (Nils Hartmann, Executive Director at WOWing)

That makes the sales staff the most important gatekeeper at the POS because they are the ones who have direct contact with the consumer and present, advise and recommend the products. The sales assistants give the crucial impetus that steers the attention and decision processes of the customer: what products they offer the customer, how well they explain the relevant product features. It is precisely where products need explaining that this knowledge is so critical for the manufacturer looking to safeguard their edge over competing products.

Innovative training concepts take the gamification approach into account: the sales staff get to know the brand and product in a fun way while at the same time being trained specifically in how to close deals. Gamification achieves greater involvement on the part of the staff as well as high product information recall levels that cannot be reached via traditional, front-led training.

A gamification example from WOWing: “Retail Training Cube”

For the market launch of a new mobile phone, we developed a multifunction training tool for our client Google with which the retail staff could discover the USPs of the new devices in a fun, interactive way.

The playful interactions anchor the product benefits and applications faster and for longer in the memory than is the case with traditional training. This turns a conventional product presentation into an interactive, sustainable training course which is not only fun for the participants but also and especially differs from the usual retail training.

(This article also appeared in Absatzwirtschaft magazine)

More about the Retail Training Cube.