Job descriptions often list serving people as a necessary skill. It may be serving food and beverages, driving them the shortest way from A to B or another kind of service.
Working in sales for quite a few years made it possible for me to spend a lot of time with people. Doing that I had always fun. Ok, to be honest: Most of the time. But most importantly I learned a lot. There have been both joyful and painful situations.
These are three basic lessons my work in retail thought me about dealing with people:
Your attitude makes the difference
If you want good staff, how can you employ somebody who isn´t trained? That´s not what companies do. At least not in Germany. But it´s exactly what happened to me.
As somebody who had finished his apprenticeship as a window dresser, I knew a bit about visual merchandising. But I didn´t have a clue about sales. The only thing I could do was to keep eyes and ears wide open and to learn very quickly. In addition I applied everything I had learned about service as a volunteer at church and at a few jobs in bars and cafés. I was´t sure how long this would work.
But I survived. One week. Two weeks. A month. A year. And another year and another ... and another.
Looking back from now I´m very grateful. For colleagues who helped me, for managers who let me make mistakes and for bosses who even put me in charge of interns and apprentices. I started without many qualifications but with the will to serve people and to improve doing it. It actually worked out, ... puh!
I never thought it would be true but as it seems it is (at least in some areas): If you have the right attitude it´s not that important which profession you have, you´ll be successful.
It´s easy to offer bad service
It must have been thousands of questions and requests I dealt with over the years. Many times after I had spoken to customers, I asked myself "Have I really tried to do everything I can?" In these Moments I often thought of a better answer or solution. Sometimes I even found the right product on the sales floor, which I didn´t even think of a moment ago. Bummer!
To offer excellent and individual service is an art. It requires concentration, the courage to ask questions but most of all the desire to fulfill the customers needs. Doing anything else means settling for second best. That´t easy.
Don´t underestimate the power of communication
A warm welcome, the right product at the right place or the correct price tag. It all makes a difference.
It´s more than the sales persons voice that speaks during a shopping experience. Arrangement, cleanliness, signage, ... every detail is a message to the customer. There are so many things retail staff can take care of.
Even the flow of information is important. Broken promises are one of the most frustrating things for customers. Another thing I´m guilty of. It happened that one time it was my store manager who had to give the discount I had falsely promised.
What kind of service experiences have you made at your workplace? I´m looking forward to hear from you in the comments.
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