Training Is Essential
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I needed to pick up something on the way home, so I stopped in the local outlet of a mass merchandiser. I quickly found the item I needed and headed to the checkout. No line, wonderful! “Seek and destroy shopping at its best,” I thought to myself, “in and out in less than five minutes.”
Ah, but it wasn’t to be. The nice lady working the cash register had no idea how to use it. She scanned the item I wished to purchase, but, since I had no cash and needed to use my debit card she had no idea what to do next. She called for a manager to come assist. Three times she called over the course of ten minutes before someone came to her aid.
I could tell she was flustered. During the wait I asked, “Haven’t you been trained how to work this thing?” Her reply was shocking, but not surprising given the situation. “No. This is my first day here and they stuck me on this thing. No one showed me how it works and I have no idea how to run it.” While we waited for the manager, she went on to tell me she’d worked in retail for a number of years. Although she had been a cashier before, this particular system was unlike any other she’d worked with and she was almost completely unfamiliar with how it worked.
By the time the manager arrived three or four people joined then line behind me – and this was the only checkout open at the time. It was getting tense because not everyone in line was especially patient. I can imagine others joined the line and simply left after realizing things weren’t moving along; abandoning their purchases and going to the other mass merchandiser down the road.
The manager acted like it was a huge inconvenience to have to come and show the new cashier how to do her job on her first day. She treated the lady with a great deal of contempt as she walked her through the process of completing my transaction.
At one time in my career, I worked for this particular mass merchandiser. Then, it was the master of retail. People begged to get into its management training program because it was the best in the business. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, that would never have happened in my store.”
I’m not going to speculate on what was going on that particular day in that particular store. It could be they were short handed and the manager felt she had no choice but to put the rookie on the checkout while she attended to other matters. Was that the best solution? Think of the impression this gave to me and the other customers waiting in line. Think also of the frustration and humiliation the new employee felt. She probably didn’t feel very valued as a member of the team.
If you are going to have employees interacting directly with customers it is essential you make sure they are properly trained. If you don’t make sure they know what they’re doing it’s bad for the customer, bad for the employee, and certainly bad for you and your brand. This person is the face, voice, personality of your company to each person with whom they come in contact. You owe it to everyone to make sure they are adequately prepared for the task at hand.
Granted, it takes time for someone to mature into a role. While this is true, good preparation is essential. Would you rather build your business on a foundation of sand or rock?
What if the manager had run the register and had the new person doing something else that day? How might have the situation been different?
photo credit: karindalziel
