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When we talk about CX to friends and family, it’s amazing how often the conversation works around to retail. It seems like retailers are the go-to example of good and bad experiences for customers and employees alike. Maybe it’s because retail is ubiquitous; online or in person, we deal with some type of retailer every day.
Retailers have always faced a particularly tricky balancing act between company goals, employee needs, and customer wants. In fact, customers have higher expectations for retailers than ever before. So, what can retailers do to meet these expectations? And if you’re not in the retail industry yourself, what can you learn from retailers’ examples?
We’ve delved into several aspects of retail CX in our blog. If you haven’t read these articles, you can catch up on them here:
Employees and retail optimization
As you might guess, we can’t fit a complete summary of retail optimization techniques into a short newsletter. So we’ll focus on one key area: employee scheduling and engagement.
Optimizing employee schedules is directly tied to optimizing the entire retail experience. If too few employees are working at a given time, operations slow down and customers get frustrated. If too many are scheduled, it eats into your profit.
Effective training is one key to better employee performance. According to research compiled by Zippia:
Companies with employee development opportunities have 34% more employee retention. Organizations with comprehensive training programs have 218% more income per employee and 24% higher profit margins. Employee training increases workplace engagement by 21% and productivity by 17 percent.
Building an optimized employee experience
So, how can you ensure you’re optimizing the employee experience?
Build employee-manager relationships. This will help employees feel supported and give them a mentor within the organization. Provide training, encouragement, and feedback. Most people value professional growth and appreciate relevant job training. Not only does this make their work easier, it helps them feel connected to the company. It’s also important to provide feedback and encouragement to employees; this builds confidence and engagement. Acknowledge effort and a job well done. Humans thrive on positive feedback. And acknowledgement doesn’t have to come in the form of cash rewards; verbal recognition also boosts employee morale. A lack of acknowledgement, on the other hand, quickly leads to an unmotivated workforce that feels unappreciated and ready to leave for the next job. Provide growth opportunities. A lack of growth opportunities is often cited by employees who leave retail roles. And this is fair: no one wants to be stuck doing the same job for their entire working life. By providing career development programs and career pathways, retailers can give employees the chance to grow within the organization – and be more passionate about their current role.
Of course, there are many more aspects of retail optimization – enough for another article. And that’s exactly what we’ve done with this month’s featured blog post (which is also where we got most of this article.) Check it out to read the other four steps to retail optimization.
And as always, feel free to contact CX by Design for a complementary 30-minute consultation.
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