Training new staff is made easy with wireless team communications
Training new colleagues presents a dilemma for stores. Providing a comprehensive training session means removing an experienced colleague from the floor. Taking a more casual approach means that you run the risk of new hires making mistakes. In either scenario, customer experience suffers.
This is an impossible choice. Luckily, it’s one that you no longer have to make. VoCoVo lets you provide effective, on-the-job training while continuing to give customers your full attention. Here’s how it works.
Colleagues care about training
High colleague turnover is a fact of life in retail. The industry attracts a lot of students and other young people, many of whom will move on fairly quickly. The pandemic accelerated this trend further, with voluntary turnover rising to over 10% for UK retailers.
High colleague turnover isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A continuous influx of new people keeps things fresh and encourages new ideas. The problem is that all of these people need to be trained. Employees care about this just as much as managers. Surveys show that proper training is a dealbreaker for many new hires:
- 86% of colleagues say that training is important to them. This number is even higher for young people.
- Almost three quarters of colleagues feel that a lack of training is holding them back.
- 40% of colleagues will consider leaving within a year if they don’t receive adequate training.
The data supports all of the above. VoCoVo surveyed colleagues about their concerns, and insufficient training turned out to be a major issue:
- Over half of colleagues feel that customers know more than they do about products
- 42% would be happier at work if they had better training
Neglecting training means neglecting customers
A lack of training doesn’t just affect colleagues. It has a knock-on effect on the customer experience. Poorly trained colleagues will struggle to answer queries, meaning that customers are kept waiting while they search for information. insufficient training also leads to mistakes, again causing frustration for the customer:
- 82% of customers have been in a situation where they felt better informed about products than colleagues. 21% feel like this all the time.
- 12% say that a lack of knowledge among colleagues is their top frustration.
- 29% have made a purchase based on inaccurate information from a colleague.
Customers want well-trained colleagues who can answer their questions with ease. The problem is that providing this training means taking an experienced colleague out of circulation. This can have the opposite effect, making it even harder for customers to find help. Until now that is…
The perfect compromise
With VoCoVo, you can provide effective training without sacrificing customer experience:
Hands-free headsets let you train new hires on the job. Experienced colleagues can perform their usual tasks while simultaneously explaining them to new recruits.
VoCoVo wireless headsets allow new colleagues to ask for help whenever they are unsure about something. Experienced colleagues can answer their questions remotely without having to pause their own work.
VoCoVo’s solutions include add-on features that let you create separate channels for each store department. New colleagues can tune into the relevant conference and get answers to their questions faster.
This kind of training is far more effective than a classroom session. Research shows that pairing up a new hire with an experienced colleague can speed up the onboarding process by 87%.
Focusing on training can also improve colleague retention. Companies with robust training programmes have been shown to increase retention by up to 50%.
Good training will pay for itself many times over. Get in touch with our expert team at 2826 today to get started with VoCoVo.
