12/6/16
The Holidays are here and it’s important to make the buying experience as easy as possible for your customers in order to have a successful season. Removing friction points during the shopping and buying processes is critical to ensure the best experience for each customer.
Here are four key areas that can potentially derail your Holiday sales along with the best strategies for keeping customers engaged and in the frame of mind to their gifts from you.
For many retailers, the first contact with consumers is no longer inside their brick-and-mortar stores. It is quite often done online as they research products, prices, and specs.
Studies indicate that consumers expect robust integration between online resources and in-store sales assistance.
The Intel® Retail Edge Program provides Learning activities and tools to help your sales team take customers seamlessly from online research of the latest PC devices to in-store purchases of the right devices to give as gifts to family and friends.
Through this training, sales associates learn how to:
Comprehensive training is essential to enable associates to make a good first impression and deliver the best experience for online-to-in-store customers.
Some of our own reviews of customer behavior found that they prefer to buy in-store over online in large part because of the perceived expertise of sales staff.
This is especially critical for new products such as 7th gen Intel® Core™ processors and the latest cutting-edge PC devices.
Giving your sales associates the right tools and training can position them as expert advisors to shoppers.
Listening to customers is the single most important thing sales associates can do to facilitate the selection process. By taking the needs and priorities of customers into account when presenting the available options, associates are more likely to build a solid rapport with them.
This can lead to increased Holiday sales and enhanced brand loyalty.
Confidence is also important when presenting devices or add-on recommendations to customers. Training is one of the most effective ways to help employees develop self-confidence.
The Intel® Retail Edge Program offers Learning activities with incorporated sales tips that provide the targeted information your team needs to present their ideas effectively on the sales floor.
The experts at eMarketer* predict that mobile payment transactions will amount to more than $27 billion in 2016. These new technologies will make it easier than ever for consumers to complete their Holiday purchases.
For retailers incorporating mobile payment options, it’s important for sales staff to know how to navigate through these options to reduce stress during the checkout process.
Retailers are adding mobile options for coupons and special offers to deliver a more positive experience for customers and Holiday shoppers. In-store technologies also boost consumer engagement by allowing hands-on interactions with the latest devices and technologies.
By delivering an integrated experience in your store, you can provide comprehensive support to customers while maintaining consistent staffing levels.
Give your sales associates the tools they need to succeed this Holiday season. Encourage your staff to take advantage of the Learning activities and online community offered through The Intel® Retail Edge Program.
This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on LinkedIn*. Click here to see the original article.
References:
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
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