Coaching is what you do ‘with’ someone to help them reach their potential and improve their performance.

Coaching is essential in the retail environment, and it’s proven to improve the performance of individual employees and organisations. However, there are still many businesses that haven’t implemented coaching effectively and it’s still common to hear pushback like:

• It’s too time-consuming, our staff are too busy!
• Isn’t it just for people who have problems?   
• Isn’t it only for senior managers and leaders?
• Won’t it take a long time to see any results?

These concerns are completely normal because coaching programs can be and have been time-consuming, reactive, inaccessible and ineffective. However, with an integrated coaching tool and good training, coaching can be quick, easy and available for your whole team. 

If you haven’t already, then 2023 is the time to commit to coaching your team.

What should coaching look like?

Coaching can come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, including structured and group sessions. However, in a retail environment, this should always include informal coaching. This is a more laid-back, conversational approach to coaching. It means you can give quick and specific feedback on the retail floor. This is great for learning as your team receives feedback in real-time, and the interaction will be fresh in their minds.

Here’s an example: You notice that one of your team missed an opportunity to add on to their customer’s purchase. You walk over after the customer has left and congratulate them on their sale, and remind them of the add-on techniques you practised earlier in the week.

What are the benefits?

Performance benefits 

In a retail environment, customer experience is the top priority. You’ve likely invested in some sort of sales training for your employees to help them provide a better experience and make more sales. But without coaching, you’re losing out on a huge portion of these benefits. Research by Wilson Learning has shown that effective coaching can improve performance by over 40 per cent.

Learning culture

Coaching is also an effective way to build a positive workplace culture and retain your top talent. In the recent Hays Learning Mindset Report, over 85 per cent of workers rated continuous learning as very or extremely important. Investing in coaching shows your team that you’re committed to their development, which can motivate them to stay with the company. It’s a great strategy to reduce staff churn while upskilling your employees. 

Check out our Kathmandu case study.

Adapting to an evolving retail environment

With trends and technology rapidly changing in the retail industry, it can be challenging for employees to keep up. Training alone can help to keep your employees up-to-speed, but the added efficiency of coaching is a game-changer. Providing the right support can help to reduce the time it takes to understand new skills and information, keeping your team ahead of the ball. 

As you can see, coaching should be a key part of any retail business, but it’s often forgotten or done so poorly that it doesn’t create results. If you want to improve performance, support your employees and increase your customer satisfaction this year, then it’s time to start coaching! Get in touch with us to learn more about how you could implement coaching.

RedSeed.com is an online learning ecosystem with seriously good content for customer experience teams. If we don’t have it in our library, we can make it for you.

And you can use it on your platform or ours.

• Video-based course library.
• Build knowledge and change behaviour.
• Integrated manager-led coaching.
• Simply, powerful LMS.

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