Emotions and communication will bring customers back to offline stores

Why do sellers need to develop emotional intelligence? Why is a system of intangible motivation for sellers necessary to increase sales?

Online sales are growing faster, online stores and marketplaces bring their owners up to 85% of annual growth. Online charm buyers with the speed of purchase, the convenience of receiving an order and great offers. In offline retail, the opposite trend is observed - sales are inexorably declining. The coronavirus pandemic and the total quarantine of cities and entire countries exacerbated the gloomy situation of offline retail. Of course, we all hope that closed shops, shopping centers, museums, theaters, sports and fitness centers are not forever, that difficult times will pass, and life will return to its former way. Not immediately, but will return. The retail should not lose hope and prepare to regain its position when the epidemic goes into decline. Expert SR Maria Gerasimenko talks about the emotional component of the work of sellers and how offline stores use scientific research data in the field of emotions and emotional intelligence in communications with customers.

Maria Gerasimenko -

General Director of Fashion Advisers, business coach, expert in the field of management and development of fashion business. Main areas of activity: building business processes in the fashion industry, assortment matrix management, visual merchandising, sales and service management, development and implementation of loyalty programs.

Website: fashion-advisers.ru

Online school: school.fashion-advisers.ru

Telegram: @fashionadvisers

Some radical experts predict a quick sunset offline retail. Yes, many offline players will leave the market. Among them will be primarily companies that are not familiar with non-price competition and quality service, as the main element of detuning from competitors. As well as companies that pay insufficient attention to corporate culture, staff selection, its material and non-material motivation and employee training.

Since 2012 Fashion Advisers has been engaged in research in the field of emotions, emotional intelligence and the impact of quality service on store sales. We collaborate with Facemetric, which has developed special equipment that allows you to analyze the emotions of both buyers and sellers. Studies have been conducted, the results of which confirmed that the emotions of the seller have a direct impact on the emotions of the buyer. In other words, when sellers broadcast their appearance with happiness, joy and good mood - the effectiveness of their work increases! Customer loyalty is growing (according to Facemetric research, conversion increases to 5%, NPS shows growth to 7%), which means that your sales are growing.

The fact that a good mood of sellers is beneficial for the company, no one denies this. But there are more complex questions: how to create a good mood for employees, and most importantly - to keep it? Where to get strength, emotions and inspiration in order to surprise customers? After all, sellers are ordinary people who have their own problems and their own, sometimes difficult personal lives. They are not professional psychologists, not coaches and not coaches, to always look and feel their best, and most importantly, to work with strangers with ease all day.

What tools will help the employer to maintain a good mood and interest among employees? Hire a psychologist? Coach? Or is it better to dismiss unsmiling or at least fine for a sad look?

First of all, it is worth noting that there are 3 main factors on which the seller’s emotional state depends:

• Emotional Intelligence Level
• Personal characteristics
• Attitude to work

Emotional Intelligence Level

Emotional intelligence - the ability to recognize, understand and control emotions, both our own and those of others. This is the basis of charisma, charm, stress resistance, the ability to remain balanced in any situation. In addition, it is a guarantee of productive and strong relationships both at work and in the family.

Signs of low emotional intelligence:
• Misunderstanding of other people's feelings
• Refusal to accept someone else's point of view
• Blaming others for mistakes
• Inability to cope with emotionally stressful situations
• Self-doubt, constant doubts about the correctness of actions
• Excessive self-criticism or self-confidence
• Problems and difficulties in communication, inability to find a common language with people
• Modest or biased attitude towards people around
• Lack of empathy

Signs of high emotional intelligence:

• Proactivity. People with high EQ focus their energy on what they can change without paying attention to factors that are beyond their control.

• Interest in other people. Emotionally developed people like to observe the behavior of others, to try to understand the characters and actions of others. They read facial expressions and gestures well.

• When upset - know the reason. We all experience emotional downturns, sometimes we feel sadness, disappointment or resentment. In order to come to our senses in time and calm down, we should know the reason that it is frustrating us and be able to live these emotions with minimal losses for ourselves and others.

• Finding a way to recover from failure. Failures help develop, learn to cope with stress, adapt. Success would not have brought such pleasure without them.

• Be able to refuse.

• Adapt well to new conditions and not be afraid of change. Emotionally smart people are flexible and constantly adapt.

• Be able to listen and hear. Do you know why it is so pleasant for emotionally developed people to trust and talk with them? They do not just listen, they hear, read between the lines, well understand the veiled information.

How to determine the level of emotional intelligence of an employee: observing facial expressions, gestures, words. People with high emotional intelligence have empathy and are disposed to themselves from the first minutes of communication. If you are still in doubt, test Mayer-Salovei-Caruso.

Important: Emotional intelligence can be developed and pumped, the main thing is desire. If it is not developed, then emotional intelligence tends to decline with age. Remember the gossip grannies sitting at the entrance who easily “guess” the professions and hobbies of all their neighbors!

Personal characteristics

“We are all geniuses. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life, considering itself a fool, ”Albert Einstein.

Often people who are far from sales and completely unable to communicate with people come to take up the position of seller. They are in dire need of money and are ready to go to any work that brings at least some income. Employers who already see cancer as fish are fishless, take any employees indiscriminately. Well, and then you know - employees “do not want to work,” “burn out,” “they don’t know what they want,” etc.

What to do more correctly? If you have already recruited cancer for lack of fish - do not stop looking for your goldfish!

There was once a curious case with my client: they opened a new store, recruited a staff of sellers. The team formed, all the sellers were good, trained, smiling, striving for development, but as they say, not without sin - they refuse to replace a colleague, they are a little late for work, then they will close the store 5 minutes earlier.

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And there is one seller - he fulfills all the instructions, comes to work on time, perfectly fulfills all the regulations, replaces everyone and always in a difficult situation, in a word - a man of reliability! But the work of the seller is not her calling at all: the face of this employee never expresses any emotions. That the purchase is a million, that the end of the world outside the window - it is always equally unemotional.

At first, the store owners wanted to replace it, then decided that the time was not right, the situation was unstable, then it was again uncomfortable ... In general, this employee worked for 10 years in the company. She calmly and without emotions “survived” the change of three sales teams, however, her complete neutrality gradually began to be replaced by negative sentiments from the category of “who should buy this at all” and “there are no people, the store should be closed”. Then the store owners could not stand it anymore and finally found a "goldfish" to replace it! Sales growth was not long in coming.

Morality - do not delay “crayfish” at work, continue to search for “goldfish”!

TOP 6 QUALITIES OF A BAD SELLER:

1. Introversion. Introverts are good people, however, they quickly get tired of daily communication with a lot of strangers. Everyday life of sellers is filled with communication, so choose people who are initially prone to this - extraverts!

2. Conflict. A conflict employee complicates the work of the entire team and worsens the mood of customers.

3. Shyness / overconfidence. Two extremes that make it difficult to find an approach to other people.

4. Inability to listen. A successful seller speaks less and listens more to his buyer.

5. Pride, desire to be / seem better than others. This quality makes it difficult to provide quality service, as proud people have the impression that they “serve” their customers and are humiliated.

6. Scanty vocabulary. In order to easily and effortlessly select metaphors and epithets for the characteristics of your product, you need to have a suspended language, read a lot and replenish your vocabulary.

How to find out more about the personal characteristics of employees: Myers-Briggs testing (MBTI), C. Thomas testing (personality behavior in conflict), conversation using projective and situational questions. Vocabulary can be checked with a simple task: come up with as many compliments as possible for the product (select any shoes / boots / bags).

Attitude to work

The way an employee relates to his work and official duties depends both on himself (emotional intelligence, personal characteristics) and on the conditions in which he works.

Do you want to reveal a secret?

The key to success in offline business is in people!

Or rather, in a properly built corporate culture, a motivation program and regular training of your team in product, sales and quality service.

The company where boredom and routine, the lowest salary level in the region, where employees are afraid to stumble and get a fine, where there are regular refining, where there are conflicts and hazing, where there is no mentoring of new employees, where employees do not want to grow and develop, will not be successful where sellers shy away from everyone who comes in, fearing that this is a mystery shopper and they will receive a penalty for improper service. I am sure that each of you will recognize yourself at some point.

If you create favorable soil for your “flowers of business” - they will delight you with their magnificent flowering and work results! The first thing you should start with is the fight against boredom and routine in the work of sellers. This will help you corporate culture and intangible motivation.

Corporate culture is a set of sustainable employee behavior patterns that determine "how it is customary to work in this company."

Even from this definition, an understanding arises that regardless of whether a corporate culture has been developed for your company, it exists. As a set of cultures of your employees.

Changing corporate culture is a labor-intensive business that cannot always succeed. Much depends on the employees, how they will perceive the changes, how you will be able to explain the need for these changes, and how the implementation process will take place.

Corporate culture consists of 3 main elements:

1) The visual component. Reminders and memos that clearly demonstrate the goals of corporate culture. It can be a motivational board, posters with values, etc.

2) Models of employee behavior. A set of repetitive actions that employees perform both consciously and unconsciously. In this way, employees set an example and influence their colleagues.

3) Beliefs. Views and points of view that are widely shared by many employees.

The greatest impact on changing corporate culture is exerted by employee behavior patterns. What actions people perform is much more important than what they talk about or what they believe in. Secondly, a constant visual reminder of goals and values ​​affects the change in corporate culture. Therefore, if you want to change the corporate culture - start with the first two points.

Intangible motivation as the main destroyer of routine

Intangible motivation is a way to encourage employees to perform the actions that the employer needs without the use of cash incentives. Here it is worth commenting that non-material motivation in the absence of material does not work!

Intangible Motivation Tools:

• Competitions, competitions
• Internal ratings (best seller of a store / city / region / company)
• Corporate “newspaper”, which once a week (month) publishes positive news from all stores: who had the most units in the check, who had a celebrity buyer, who became the best seller, who won the competition, who has a cat at home gave birth to kittens, etc.
• Acknowledgments. Once a year - do not be stingy, make company letters of thanks and find what to praise your best sellers for!
• Just like that, for no reason, bring a bouquet of flowers / kilogram of cherries / ice cream to the store and please your employees!