Because a lot of retail employees deal directly with customers, it is very important that they receive adequate training on how to provide great customer service and increase sales. Training in the retail industry does not come without its challenges though. When developing a retail training and / or elearning strategy, it is important to address these specific challenges.
Employee Turnover
The retail sector is notorious for its high employee turnover rate. In most retail businesses, employees come and go all the time, making it very challenging to have well-trained customer-facing personnel available at all times. Providing employee training when you are constantly recruiting new people is very difficult. High turnover also poses challenges with building customer loyalty because customers will be seeing different employees all the time.
Having a flexible, but high quality training programme in place (ideally incorporating retail elearning) can help address these HR and customer service challenges.
Rapidly Changing Business Environment
The retail industry is a very volatile environment that is influenced by changing trends and aggressive marketing. For retailers to maintain their competitive edge, it is important that they are able to pivot quickly when fashion moves into a new direction and / or competitors are using new marketing tactics. Decisions made at the head office need to be communicated down and implemented quickly to stay on top of the market.
eLearning can provide a great device for passing down information on new products, sales tactics, marketing ploys and other important knowledge.
When setting up a training strategy for your retail organisation, hiring a training provider with retail industry training experience is a must. The help of a professional training consultancy can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your training courses and the return on investment they provide.
Below we’ve listed a few training and learning providers that have extensive experience with retail industry training.
Online Retail Training – Bolt
This exciting and relatively new online training company looks like they are ready to shake up elearning and make an impact in a number of industries – especially Retail. They have a modern approach, with a great deal of focus on engagement and analytics.
They understand the priorities of this sector, with emphasis on saving both costs and time to competency, with solutions such as bite-size retail training modules for FMCG, Food and other Retailers. They have a growing, and already impressive, set of clients that include the likes of McColl’s, Weetabix and Nestle.
Browse some of Bolt’s Retail Case Studies here to learn more.
Leading UK Retail Training Provider – Beyond The Box
Beyond The Box Ltd was established in 1999 as a retail training provider and field marketing consultancy. Since then, the company has worked with leading retailers such as Tesco, Dixons, Currys, Ben Sherman and many more to help improve their performance through better retail training and expert field marketing.
Training courses offered by Beyond The Box include topics such as:
- Sales development
- Leadership skills
- Customer experience and care
- Retail recruitment
- Communication
- Assertiveness
- Product training
- Product promotion
- etc.
All training content can be tailored to your organisation’s needs.
Find out more at http://www.beyondthebox.co.uk/.
US Retail Training Provider – Retail Training Services
Retail training expert, Retail Training Services LLC, is a retail training provider that offers both onsite and online training courses for small and large retailers.
Off-the-shelf training courses can be customised to your organisation’s needs and cover topics such as:
- Sales
- Store management
- Field management
- Marketing & merchandising
- Store and field operations
It is also possible to have custom training courses developed from scratch for when off-the-shelf training products don’t suffice. Instructor-led retail training can be provided onsite or through webinars. Blended learning solutions are also available.
Retail clients include Honeywell, Cleveland Golf, Nestle Purina, Courts and Taylormade.
More information can be found at http://retailertrainingservices.com/.
eLearning Consultancy from Learning Light
Are you looking to start your journey in elearning or enhance your existing processes, technologies or content?
Learning Light have decades of combined experience in supporting organisations of all sizes and across most industries. Please give us a call on +44 (0)114 307 2357 for a no-obligations discussion of your requirements.
Retail LMS Provider – Litmos
Litmos is the developer of a robust learning management system that can help retailers implement an effective eLearning strategy. Their LMS allows rapid deployment of new training courses, has an intuitive user interface and includes extensive reporting functionalities.
The Litmos LMS is hosted in the cloud so retail employees can access training material from anywhere around the world.
Litmos also offers off-the-shelf training courses that can be purchased in different packages and includes training on topics such as leadership, sales, marketing, franchise training, employee training for retail stores and more.
Find out more about the Litmos LMS at https://www.litmos.com/industry-solutions/retail
and Litmos training content at https://www.litmos.com/products/courses.
Online Retail Course Provider – The Friedman Group
The Friedman Group is a retail training and consulting expert that offers online learning packages for retailers that include access to a large number of courses on topics such as:
- Sales skills
- Store management
- District management
- Store meetings
Different packages are available for small, medium and large organisations. Training courses can be accessed online.
Retail clients of the Friedman Group include Sprint, Telus, Specialized and Godiva.
Find out more at https://thefriedmangroup.com.
Learning Light has also evaluated a great deal of elearning content relevant to the retail industry, including online sales courses over at e-Learning Centre.
eLearning Content Development – SpongeUK
Off-the-shelf eLearning courses do not always meet the complex requirements of an innovative retail organisation. In some cases it is well worth the investment to have course content developed that is customised to your organisation’s unique situation.
eLearning Provider of the Year (2019), Sponge UK based in Plymouth, South West England is a custom eLearning content provider that develops tailored online courses for organisations in a variety of industries, including retail.
There’s a further profile on this Plymouth based elearning provider here where there is more on what they do and the scientific rationale behind their work in areas such as gamification and games-based learning.
For more on their services and details of their national and international clients such as Tesco, Adidas Group, BMW, Lexus and SportsDirect.com.
Find out more at wearesponge.com.
Other retail websites and resources
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/hr-challenges-retail-sector-43858.html
www.theretailatoz.com/e-learning-for-retail/
https://www.vendhq.com/retail-trends-and-predictions (2019 edition).
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Last updated in October 2020
Av Srivastava
eLearning Marketing Consultant
About Av
Av Srivastava is an elearning research analyst and marketing consultant who has worked with a range of learning solution providers in the UK and worldwide.
He writes about the latest and best elearning solutions to help buyers choose the ideal company for their needs.
He also helps a small number of elearning companies to understand their perfect customers, increase their visibility, and develop streams of inbound enquiries.
