Last December, Brian Douglas entered a big-box electronics store giddy at the prospect of buying an HD-TV as a gift for himself. Although he had done some research online, he really wanted expert advice to help him decide which size, type and brand would work best in his Branchburg, N.J., home. A poorly trained salesperson couldn’t help him, so he left for another chain store.

In late February, Starbucks closed all of its U.S. units for several hours to retrain baristas in the art of coffee making. The company realized it had taken its eye off of the ball.

Unfortunately, poor service — even a perceived lack of service — is all too prevalent in retailing today. Thirty-three percent of consumers polled for The Retail Consumer Dissatisfaction Survey, conducted by the Wharton School’s Jay H. Baker Retail Initiative, said they have been unable to find a salesperson and 25 percent said they were ignored completely by associates. These findings reveal that retailers lose at least 6 percent of shoppers because of a lack of trained help.
                    
Those statistics don’t surprise Bob Richardson, president and CEO of Associates Interactive, a new company that helps retailers and manufacturers enhance training. (Richardson had been president of R2 Marketing Group, a technology marketing and training firm that developed programs which helped boost sales at companies like Wal-Mart.)

Associates Interactive focuses on a blend of conversational skills and individualized techniques.

One of the methods, RetailAI, is particularly beneficial in helping store associates determine how a customer wants to be sold, rather than how the vendor wants a message conveyed. Unlike manufacturer-specific training, Associates can train employees to offer unbiased advice.

“When you look at what comes from manufacturers, it is very self-serving,” Richardson says. “Through our experience working with large retail outlets and CE manufacturers, we found that there was a need for high-quality, independently produced training material in the market.” Most material currently available “is solely focused on how a certain product is better than the competition,” he says.

Continue to update
Training can occur on or off premises, and Associates Interactive works with both suppliers and retailers. “We find training needs to be ongoing so you can continue to update,” Richardson says. “We also find [that] we see sales results with even just a few hours of training.”

The electronics segment represents “a big opportunity because people expect consultation,” Richardson says. “They say, ‘Help me achieve what I envision.’”

Sales associates who appear fidgety and nervous are quickly transformed into confident professionals, he says. “We teach them how to sell face to face. We also teach how to sell a project and consumers really appreciate getting all of the information they need.”

In addition to pure retail strategies, employees are well-versed in simple ways to improve their conversational skills. “A trained employee is happier in his position and less likely to leave,” Richardson says. Training also “reduces product returns and increases consumer loyalty since shoppers get the right products.”
 

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