Basic Skills for Retail Employment

Objectives - Participants will be able to:     

Building Customer Relations
  • Understand the social skills needed for positive customer interaction.
  • Use a greeting to initiate customer contact.
  • Represent the store in a professional and friendly manner.
  • Understand strategies for recognizing customer customer needs and interests.
  • Build customer trust and loyalty.
  • Apply store procedures to give a uniform standard of customer service.

Barriers to Communicating with Customers
  • Recognize the barriers to effective communication in customer service.
  • Learn strategies to deal with barriers.
  • Employ methods to overcome communications difficulties.
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  • Communicate effectively to encourage good customer relations.

Telephone Courtesy

  • Prepare for incoming calls.

  • Speak pleasantly when using the telephone.

  • Listen effectively when taking incoming calls.

  • Be sensitive to the needs and moods of callers.

  • Deal with irate callers.

  • Take calls for others.

  • Take complete and accurate messages.

  • Conclude a call courteously.

Math for Retail Operations
  • Understand the place value system.
  • Demonstrate the use of basic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
  • Accurately exchange money with a customer.
  • Properly operate cashiering equipment.
  • Help customers understand product prices.

In Touch With The Details
  • Understand why observation is important.
  • Separate perception from observation.
  • Identify strategies for observing someone or thing.
  • Apply observation skills to real issues such as loss prevention and excellent customer service.
  • Identify situations in which shrinkage occurs.
  • Determine the employee’s role when a potentially dangerous individual or shoplifter is identified.

Workplace Safety
  • Determine your safety attitude.
  • Understand steps to take to prevent accidents and injuries.
  • Know the steps to take during an emergency.
  • Properly investigate an accident.

Merchandising: Inventory Receiving and Processing
  • Simplify and follow instructions.
  • Learn the essential functions of merchandising.
  • Understand basic merchandising abbreviations and terms.
  • Understand merchandise receiving principles.
  • Recognize merchandising equipment.
  • Know the merchandise department coding basics.
  • Understand basic merchandise processing principles.

Setting Goals for Individuals and Teams
  • Describe the importance of goals.
  • Explain the difference between  long term and short term goals.
  • Explain how a positive attitude promotes good communication.
  • Describe the ten step goal setting method.
  • Explain how success is focused on people.

Workplace Ethics:  Developing Good Attitudes and Habits
  • Identify positive work habits and the rewards for practicing them.
  • Recognize poor work behaviors and the consequences that may result.
  • Identify strategies for improving individual work habits.
  • Identify good work attitudes.
  • Identify strategies for improving work attitudes.

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