This article rediscovers the hidden goldmine for retailers. In fact, it might be the best time to bolster the sales force because everyone else is focusing on the online space and it’s becoming very competitive. Physical store selling will likely be much easier to break through.

Things retailers can do to increase their in-store sales are plenty. For example, they can have the greeters ask a simple question: “Have you been here before?” People will answer yes or no. But either way, have the sales staff introduce the specials for the day and ask if they’re looking specifically for anything. I don’t guarantee that it will work, but if you keep track of the sales before and after this implementation, you will know if it’s working.

It still baffles me to this day why retailers would hire high school students who have no selling experience to sell. Having done it myself, I gotta say I had no clue what to do despite some minimal coaching from colleagues who were not doing that much better either. Cost is one thing, but if the profit exceeds the cost of hiring a professional salesperson, why not?

Quality service can only be delivered by employees that understand the essence of the corporate brand and shifts in customer needs—it enables them to easily extend value beyond the organization.

As Mr. Kohli said in his comments, this scenario is best suited for the developed and organised markets. In markets like India, where the unorganised sector calls the shots, all that matters is the amount of personasilation and relationship building a store keeper or a sales executive does with his customer. At the end, it is not only enough to have research-backed, technically-sound product in the market but also to have a well-trained and adaptable sales team on the foot to meet customers’ needs and gain commitments.

I deeply agree: customer contact is the key to service quality and excellent service is the key to a company’s success.

The fundamental message is indeed important in terms of improving rates of sale. It will, however, prove significantly harder in countries where a less proactive attitude is embraced at a cultural level. For some, we’d need a paradigm shift at a much lower level and work upwards. It’s always good to have a goal, though.

While I agree that sales people on the shop floor are critical, even in the most informative and well-laid out, “self-help friendly” environment, having a badly trained sales staff is worse then having none.

Negative salesmanship and weak product knowledge can quickly turn a positive retail environment into a bad experience. It is important for retailers to be aware of this.

Good discussion, however I’d settle for a greeting. That’s how low the bar has dropped. Do the survey yourself—walk through 50 retail stores (not Wal-Mart) and count the greetings. Oh, and get the personal cell phones and gadgets out of the hands of the employees.

At the retail touchpoint, it is impossible to replace a human experience so far. All the other tools prepare the customer for decision making, however the crucial part would be the human experience.

Sales people have to be taught to mainatin a balance between a short-term goal of sales incentive and long-term goal of customer loyalty. To be persuasive without being invasive is the crux.

While I agree with the general tenor of the article, I find it a bit thin on implementable solutions. The fact is that sales staff ARE expensive, especially if you are to avoid rapid turnover and costly re-training across the chain; therefore simply adding trained sales staff is not necessarily the optimal answer for most retailers.

The real opportunity for retailers is in well coordinated multi-channel marketing and customer assistance (e.g. Web, phone apps, e-tag) and POS optimization combined with more sales assistance at crirical decision points. Automation and monitoring ‘clues’ can be used to alert sales staff to critical buying decision points for the customer and help optimize the sales staff’s time. An analysis of the retailers executing on such multi-channel strategies combined with in-store automated assistance (primarily for sales staff but also for customers) would be a very interesting add-on to the current article.

To me, too often that we forget that only humans can understand humans. Technology and systems are to support us to reach and to understand each other more efficiently, but not to replace humans. However, how to motivate and engage human resources into company vision and the value of culture becomes very important. Many in top management get caught up in the self-oriented or short-term stock-value added mentality and forget the higher ROI of real people in their organization. It’s not easy developing and leading human resources, but it sure beats going broke without one. Even an Apple store needs to have a motivated staff or else it is just a store.

I agree with Sarah Bird—getting retail management on board is extremely difficult.

The article discussion appears obvious to sales and marketing businesses, but does one apply these lessons to the practice of medicine?

I agree with John Van Landeghem. The simplest advice I would give any retailer is to walk into an Apple store. It is like no other retail experience you have ever had.

Here is a short story. I had dinner the other night with a board member of a large US retailer. He told me that he had never been in an Apple store, but while waiting to attend a function he realized that one was nearby and he went in. He walked out 15 minutes later with an iPhone and said that if he had another 15 minutes to spend he probably would have purchased a computer.

By the way, the average sale per sq. foot cited [$4,300] severely understates the performance of Apple’s flagship stores. Industry estimates for the 5th Avenue store in NYC exceed $10,000/sq.ft.

This article somehow resembles the ideas in a book entitled Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. In their zeal to bring down costs, retailers have forcefully standardized the experience of shoppers where sales staff are not required. But a closer look at the experience of shoppers says otherwise and is truely validated by this article. Experience can never be commoditized and retailers should understand this clearly.

Just go into any Apple store to see this in practice; knowledgeable enthusiastic, passionate sales people. I have been happily up-sold and cross-sold more products and accessories than I care to admit to myself or my wife. One aspect the article did not mention is perhaps how great sales people may in fact allow a retailer to sell at a premium price, as the customer is willing to pay more for great sales experience. You can buy Apple products from Best Buy to WalMart now, so why all the line ups at the cash at the Apple store?

Too often modern retailers get caught up in the self-service mentality and forget the higher ROI of real people on the floor. No, it’s not easy developing and leading a productive sales staff, but it sure beats going broke without one.

From my view, the opportunity is to shift from “the art of selling” to the art of “helping shoppers make better decisions.” Those who do extensive research may get overwhelmed by the volume of information available, especially if they have not been able to manage, organize, or integrate the information. Some Web sites (e.g. those of electronics providers) make it easy to set up feature and price comparison tables. Wouldn’t it be a nice draw if sales people had a tablet tool to help them construct the same for shoppers, especially for products that are higher cost?

When consumers can’t integrate information or choose from the volume of resources available on the Web, they naturally look for guidance from someone or some group they trust. This is the opportunity for sales people to provide what the Internet struggles to provide: a listening ear.

Sales people have recived a bad reputation for being wily enough and glib enough to sell snow to an Alaskan. I say, if there is oil under that snow, then point it out. If there is nothing but mud under it, then shame on you.

We try to approach sales from the aspect of helping the customer make a good decision. The sale should be good for me and good for you.

This article shows that besides all traditional 4Ps, still there are some issues to which we should pay attention. People and process are two subjects that require full attention and we have to be aware of these and have plan for that.

There is an urge to simplify things when times are turbulent. Technology, economics, information, and changing customer behaviour all add to the turbulence. Often this urge has led to choosing one of the promotional tools as the pivot at the expense of a balanced mix. In the consumer and retail environment, as this article highlights, things have tilted too much to impersonal promotion. Sales staff is, after all, a longer-term financial commitment.

In the B2B environment, on the other hand, sales has put on so much weight that it is now used as a the determining factor of market engagement rather than the result. Budgets tend to be a percentage of last quarter’s sales which is a backward looking formula—the wheel driving the car. Each context still requires a balanced promotional mix, strategy and management calibrated to the contextual differences. The whole in this case is bigger than the sum of the parts. This has survived the test of many a turbulent times.

For far too long, now, retailers have been obsessed with trimming costs rather than concentrating on skilled people. Cutting back on staff, training, working hours, and even opening hours is always going to be at the expense of sales and this adds to the woes of an organisation. Craft the experience for the customer with great products, build strong relationships, have skilled sales staff, and you create a great competitive advantage. For too long, now, the accountants have controlled marketing and they simply don’t understand the function. Give it back to the marketers!

I fully agree, and it is surely helpful to have a guide or support available when a question arises in a potential customer’s mind. Essentially, this is relevant for large stores and for the economically well-placed countries. In the low-cost economies where wages are low, the presence of store personnel is overbearing and affects your choices.

Going by the title of your article I thought it would include ‘high cost items’ as well as ‘Solutions’ selling. Unfortunately it did not. Maybe you thought there was no change in selling those.

The theme of your article is right on. However, there are some points not mentioned that have a lot to bear on the reason(s) behind the approach they take to merchandising, staffing, and selling.

For example, why do very smart(?) people believe that they do not need ample sales staff or cannot afford to hire and/or train knowledgeable salespeople to do the most important job in their stores, i.e. make sales that keep the doors open and pay the bills?

What rationale do they have for thinking that people come into stores knowing what they want to buy? Yes, some do, but these sales are clerked and not sales created by knowledgeable salespeople. Most people come into a store or, for that matter, go on line to look for something that they have already made a decision to buy what they want/need. The majority go into stores looking for something that goes with what they are doing, planning to do, would like to do. This does not mean that they know what it is that will. This is where knowledgeable salespeople come in IF the customer can find a salesperson, knowledgeable or not.

I don’t know if you asked this of stores’ top management if anyone had gone into any department in their or another store when the department was busy, dressed so as not to be recognized, and tried to buy something. Can they even find a salesperson to talk to and then, does the salesperson know the differences between like goods in that department?

Unfortunately, customers who came in and did not buy because of the decisions made as listed in your article, they do not call or write to management, “I almost bought something in your store today but could not find a salesperson or, if I did, (s)he did not know anything about X” If enough customers did, maybe changes would be made. That they didn’t may mean that they had no loyalty to the store due to the way the store treated the customers.

We have lost retail store management practicing “management by walking around,” watching what’s going on, talking to customers as if they were a salesperson, etc. If they did, possibly they would make changes.

Thank you for addressing a BIG problem that may someday be solved.

Though the premise of the paper is sound, the statement that sales consists of only four steps should be re-considered. This is a very myopic view. Perhaps the most important step in the process is the translation of need into benefit and the implications for not taking action. Working at the “needs” level will result in retailers not realizing the results better sales professionals offer and will only validate current practice.

The Apple Store concept is masterful at the art of selling. CNBC recently reported their stores yield sales about $4,300/square foot, nearly 17 times the $250 benchmark of typical retailers.

In Apple’s latest 10-K: “By operating its own stores and locating them in desirable high-traffic locations, the Company is better positioned to control the customer buying experience and attract new customers. The stores are designed to simplify and enhance the presentation and marketing of the Company’s products and related solutions. To that end, retail store configurations have evolved into various sizes to accommodate market-specific demands. The Company believes providing direct contact with its targeted customers is an effective way to demonstrate the advantages of its products over those of its competitors. The stores employ experienced and knowledgeable personnel who provide product advice, service and training.”

If you’ve not experienced an Apple Store, see it for yourself. Amazing. The passion of the sales staff toward Apple is contagious.

As a former sales manager for a premium automobile brand I can identify with these findings. Cars are a more involved purchase decision than consumer electronics and hence offer greater rewards to sales executives, and require significant time spent on training and assessment.

I believe that if retailers took this same view and spent more time on sales training and assessment they would see measurable results in associates selling up and across, as well as reduced staff turnover due to greater job satisfaction.

We’ve changed the paradigm from investing in our people to investing in technology without designing our systems to integrate both in the most effective way. As is the new buzz phrase, “There’s an app for that!”

This is common sense! Many top excecutives believe that innovating means to fill us up with marketing gadgets and information, and undervalue the power of good sales people. Did they forget that many customers feel important when they are well served by a good salesperson? Didn’t Maslow say that, many years ago? I don’t think it has changed.

Everything old is new again. One of the benefits of middle-age is having seen it both ways and wondering who came up with the “ignore your customer” model in the first place.

Personnel at a retail establishment that actually sell would be a welcome change—my expectations are so low that I actually get excited when there is someone at the check-out desk when I’m ready to pay! And frankly, that lack of service drives people to the Internet to make purchases because it is as friendly and helpful as in-store. Often times more so, and boy have they mastered the up-sell and add-on sell. It seems I’m always adding one more item suggested by the on-line site before checking out. Great article, but I doubt that many retailers will take heed.