The retail industry has gone through a major transformation. The growth of mobile e-commerce has resulted in a global shift from traditional bricks and mortar businesses to online stores. Retail organizations don’t see a move toward e-commerce as just another means of generating business — most now see it as essential in order to:
- Compete as well as reduce their costs.
- Benefit from the opportunity to diversify their business.
- Gain a market share that would otherwise be unavailable to them.
Mobile e-commerce has presented the retail industry with a new challenge also – enhanced consumer knowledge. Today’s customer is far more educated on the products they buy. The number of consumers who research online before making a purchase is staggering. So it is vital that retail organizations ensure their employees understand just how important it is to know their target audience.
Training Should Be Your Biggest Priority!
The most effective way to ensure your employees know the needs of their customers is through proper training. Developing a retail training program that delivers the right messages to employees about the needs and behavior of customers and how the business should adapt to meet these changes should be high on any organization’s agenda. A retail organization should consider the following factors when developing a new retail training program:
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Defining Your Content Strategy
Developing a proper content strategy is highly important. Training employees to know the changing needs of their customer audience better will require a lot of customer research so that the right content is obtained and incorporated into the training program.
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Know Your Learner Audience
You want to train employees so that they know their customers and understand their needs, right? However, the first thing an organization should consider when developing a retail training program is to determine the needs of its own employees. Ironic isn’t it? What type of people does your organization employ? What are their skills? What type of training do you feel they would enjoy taking most? These are some questions that should be answered upfront to ensure the training has maximum impact on the learner. Following a customer analysis, conducting an employee needs and skills analysis might be the next best step in the process.
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Retail Training Should Tell a Story
Storytelling is a part of who we are as human beings. Many forms of modern training, particularly e-learning, incorporate stories and real-world scenarios, and compel the learner to participate in activities. This makes retail training an enjoyable experience rather than a boring retail training program from which the learner feels detached and isolated. This engages the learner, rather than leaving them feeling detached. Using storytelling techniques with characters, themes and a plots that get the learner involved will undoubtedly make your training program more enjoyable and produce better results.
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Shorter Is Better
The time required to complete a training program will have a big impact on the learner. Whether you opt for e-learning, classroom training or a blended learning solution, make sure the training is designed with the learner’s specific needs in mind. People have limited attention spans so bite-sized chunks of training are easier to digest than big mouthfuls! Concise information delivered in short duration’s will ensure better learner engagement and be more beneficial at a performance level to the business overall.
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Choosing Your Devices
When deciding which devices (PC, Smartphone, iPad, Android) to develop your training for, you should again start with a needs analysis of your employee learners. Also, the size of your organization, geographic locations and type of devices your organization already uses should play a part in the decision making process. Above are some of the most important elements any retailer should consider before training development. The design, the content and the delivery method of your training are all vital. Above all else however, there should be a clear line between knowledge taught and skill learned. Does your organization need to develop a retail training program? Perhaps you are considering a redesign of your existing curriculums? Contact Interactive Services today for a free consultation.
About Us
Interactive Services are leaders in the field of custom training solutions for large organizations across multiple industries including retail, financial services, healthcare and manufacturing to name a few. We develop over a mix of over 200 e-learning, classroom training and blended training learning projects annually.