Oh how I agree with Ramona, it seems that specialised product training for sales staff went out around 20 years ago for me when older staff were retiring and had no one to pass on their knowledge to; when department stores started to decline and give in to boutique shopping or go ‘wholesale’ by trying to accommodate mass markets; when there was no longer the same pride in being a ’shop assistant’ ; when self service racks and off the shelf shopping started; when casual staff took over with attitudes to match; when the mighty dollar was chased at the expense of service (customers just had to take it or leave it) and when it was an item that was in, they usually just took it (the bad service) and demanded less; when sales started being held any time of the year, when discounting became a norm and undercutting your neighbour at all costs happened regularly; when online shopping started to take over (so much more to say on this topic alone) and finally when More but Notbetter Faster took over from More Better and Paced. People just don’t believe in life in quite the same way, and many times advertising is cynically rejected as just another scam . I remember that Punch joke where you see an Executive with a briefcase walking into the company Acme Advertising exclaiming or asking I suppose “So? What’s new and better and whiter today?”

As life changes; progresses, modernises, adapts etc. as it must, there is no reason why sound product training cannot still be given, where retail companies gather unto themselves the kinds of people who truly make a career out of specialist sales (Nordstrom?) and where, in schools and universities, real opportunities in retail are offered with real career options attached. Being a ’shop girl or boy’ could be something to strive towards and nit just a cop out job. Of course and always, there will be the exceptions to the rule, I know.

This is a long but hasty reply … so a lot more will need said on much but now I will get off my soap box! Thanks for reading this far if you did.

Cheers
Lestie.

P.S.Please give the answer to the riddle? Could be its rhetorical, but I am not good at riddles anyway! Thanks.

What sport do neither the contestants or the spectators know the score or who is winning during the event until it is over????

Hint: everyone I’m sure has seen this sport on TV

One said they asked where they could find an item. The employee snaped back at her and said where she might look. But said that probably none would be left. The employee said this in a very hostile manner.

The next day I was at the same store and a customer asked me for help and said that she could not find anyone to help her. She had been in retail years before. She worked at Penney’s in the sewing department. She said that they had to go through a lot of training on different yarns. They knew there stuff for sure when it came to selling yarn. The employees today don’t get much training on merchandise in the stores. They get there training in stocking and running a cash register.

Customer service is a thing of the past at these large stores. Not one employee seems happy or content. And these stores wonder why they are not prospering in today’s economy. TRY GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING. Maybe just maybe this might help with the bottom line.

“… before it is too late” jumped out at me in this post Ron, for so many times we leave things until it is too late and they are so difficult to ‘repair’ or do or whatever, that we pass them by to our great loss. Baby steps are often called for as they are the ones we all know how to take.

Way back when I worked in a store, one of my best managers was able to keep us going as a team and producing as a team by managing us as individuals and keeping us in line by getting us to better our own scores all the time. Somehow he made us all feel vital and even the person who regularly came last usually bettered his own previous performances and was just as important to us as the person who usually (and nearly always) came first on the scoreboard. There was very little, if any, jealousy. Don’t know how he did it, but he did. The team fell apart when he was promoted to Head Office! What a loss it was for our store.

Cheers
Lestie