Marketing Tips

Provide Information to an ‘Online’ Customer

By John Stanley

Rethink - Retail

As business owners we have a challenge.  We have internal customers (our staff) and external customers (our consumers) who need technical information based on the products we provide.

Traditionally, our internal customers went to trade colleges to get diplomas and certificates in what we sell and therefore when we appointed them to the team they already often had a degree of product knowledge.  We would then provide weekly update training sessions on product knowledge.

These experts could then pass on the information to our customers during the consultancy part of the selling process and provide leaflets for the consumer to read at their leisure at home.

In the ideal world this process works, but we do not live in an ideal world.

I recently talked to a lecturer of a retail trade school. He told me that ten years ago he was teaching on average over forty students a year.  This year he had four students doing the same course.  This trend is happening in many trade schools around the world.  That pool of students educated in what we do and looking for a career in retailing has shrunk rapidly.  The pool is still there, but their desires have changed.  Students were looking for one career but they are now planning on many.

Internal Customer Development

That means a retailer can still find potential team members who can provide awesome customer service but it is exceedingly rare to also find a person who has those traits as well as the relevant product knowledge.

As a result, product knowledge training is becoming more critical in-house.  Although, I am an advocate of in-house training, I also accept that team members are changing jobs more rapidly and hence the cost of in-house training is increasing accordingly.

The traditional approach to product knowledge training therefore is not the way of the future.

External Customers

The external customer traditionally walked into a store, spoke to a knowledgeable salesperson to get advice and then often took a leaflet home for follow up information.  But, our external customers have also changed their buying habits.

Many have become more sceptical of advice given in stores and therefore do their research ‘online’ prior to walking into the store.  As a result, they are often more clued up on the specific product range they are selecting than the salesperson.  They are often given relevant leaflets, in store, to read when they get home, but the majority of these go straight into the recycle bin before they are read.

How do You Overcome the Problem?

Traditional transfer of product knowledge to internal and external customers is becoming less and less effective. It is time to re-look at the way this information is received by internal and external customers.

The majority of consumers are ‘online’ savvy and in the future that will be the source of the majority of information.  Consumers are now familiar with ‘youtube.com’ and other online services. DVD clips are cheap to make and are effective in getting information across.

Imagine if you surveyed your customers and discovered the 20 most common questions or concerns of your customers concerned the use of the products you sell.  When I did this for a company in New Zealand recently we discovered the 80:20 principle applied i.e. 80% of staff time was taken up answering the 20 most common questions.

Why not create 20 DVD clips you can put on ‘youtube.com’ that answer those questions?  Call it your instore ‘online training programme’, but make sure it is branded to your store.  When new staff come on board they will need to watch those 20 videos as part of their induction training programme.

When a customer asks a staff member about one of the ‘20 questions’ the staff member will be able to talk them through the consumers concerns, but also give them a business card with the ‘youtube.com’ link to the images and invite the customer to watch when they get home.

Added Value Service

Not only does ‘online video’ help solve some of the in-house training product knowledge problems but it can be presented to the consumer as an ‘add-on’ benefit of dealing with your business.

Larger businesses could provide this service as on in-house add-on value.  Smaller businesses could network within their associations with other small businesses to develop the training programmes.

It is time to ‘Re-think’ how we communicate technical information to both internal and external customers.  The technology exists, it’s not expensive, we just need to grasp it and have a marketing advantage.

Information Action Plan

1.             Create a list of the 20 most asked technical questions by consumers

2.             Research ‘youtube.com’ (and other online video services) and become familiar with this type of media.

3.             Start producing DVD clips on the most asked questions

4.             Train your internal customers prior to passing the information on to external customers.

5.             Create a password for your customers so the material you produce has specific added value for your customer’s eyes only.

John Stanley is an internationally recognised conference speaker and retail consultant. He has authored several successful marketing and retail books including the best seller Just About Everything a Retail Manager Needs to Know. John’s retail experience covers hands-on retailing in supermarkets, hardware stores, garden centres, farmers markets and drug stores.  For more information on John Stanley and how he can help your business prosper and grow, visit his website www.johnstanley.cc

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