People Who Need People

Well, it’s not too long now until we here that sound again…..Ho, Ho, HELP!

Christmas decorations are already up in the department stores and the season has begun – just like the bushfire season – earlier than last year. In retail the one thing that is often overlooked is how important store staff requirements are in this critical retail harvest period. After all, if you can’t serve the customer you’ve lost the sale and , even worse, more than likely a competitor can.

Recruiting casual labour for this period should have already been completed. If it hasn’t – ACT NOW! Your systems and processes for helping your staff to do the business should also have been simplified for this period. If you haven’t thought about this yet, here’s a few tips. Segment your range into price tiered gift suggestions. For example “Gifts under $20. Gifts under $40. Gifts under $60 and Gifts under $100”. Think through cluster tables with one product open and on display and the rest pre-gift wrapped. Investigate ways of speeding up the transaction time – mobile eftpos systems, cash only lane etc. Develop packaged bundles.

What things can you do forward of the lease-line to draw people into the store or better still, sell efficiently from the lease-line. This doesn’t mean disregard service or forget about the fact that Christmas is a season to spread “good cheer”. But like any other time of year, customers aren’t all the same and some segments want speed, efficiency and low stress and others want Christmas joy and immersion.

To create time for your people to be able to provide more immersive service for some requires time saving efficiency somewhere else – especially in such a busy, high yield time period. In particular at Christmas time, your people make all the difference in how profitable the season will be. Train them in how to think and act fast – in fact drill them. They need to react like a well trained football team in many ways. But they also need to be able to celebrate with some customers and help them to spend more money through service.

This will ensure not only profit this Christmas season, but that Christmas cheer spills over into customer relationships which continue to be mutually rewarding for the year to come. Merry Christmas!