Retail Associate Training: Communication Skills

Communication Skills
The ability to communicate well with your co-workers, supervisors, and customers is a very important skill in retail. People react to how they are treated, whether good or bad. In any work environment, stressful and frustrating experiences occur. Your co-workers and your employer will rate your abilities and professional manner by how you handle these situations.

When you speak in a firm yet co-operative manner, you leave a very different impression than when you speak in an argumentative or competitive way. The words you choose to communicate ideas or feelings can make the difference between beginning an argument or beginning a discussion. The following are types of statements that will start positive discussions:

- I want statements, for example, “I want you to help me.”
- I feel statements, for example, “I feel overwhelmed about the deadline.”
- I hear you statements, for example, “It sounds like you had a busy morning as well.”
- Telling about ourselves statements, for example, “I do not feel comfortable climbing up the ladder in the back room because of my fear of heights.”

The following are types of statements that will start arguments:

- Cutting off communication statements, for example, “Leave me alone.”
- Insulting questions, for example, “Why can’t you seem to do anything right?”
- Meaningless statements, for example, “This is unfair.”
- You must statements, for example, “You should have told me.”

Listening Skills
An important part of communicating in the workplace is listening skills.
The following are helpful hints to use while listening to staff, supervisors, and customers.

Focus Your Attention
- Keep the speaker at the center of your attention and maintain a comfortable level of eye contact.
- Looking around the room or reading will make the speaker feel they are not being listened to and may cause that person to feel upset or frustrated by you.

Tune In To Understand
- Listen carefully so you clearly understand what the speaker is saying.
- Listen not only to what the speaker is saying but how they are saying it.
- Restate, in your own words, the speakers’ concerns, whenever possible. For example, “That sounds very upsetting for you.”

Ask For More Information or Opinions
- Encourage the speaker to tell you more by asking questions.
- Wait for a pause, and do not interrupt.
- Ask for his opinion to make sure you understand what he is telling you.

Keeping Cool When You’re Not
The retail environment can be very stressful. Managing your customers’ needs, answering the telephone, completing expected tasks, making sure proper opening and closing procedures are followed, and handling transactions can be very demanding. At stressful times, the last thing you want to do is say something that will make the situation worse. The following are some helpful hints for managing those times when you feel you are close to “losing your cool”!

- Take a deep breath. Try to calm yourself down by breathing.
- Get a grip. Try to name the feeling that you need to control.

- Think it through. Handle the immediate situation in a positive way.
Focus on getting through the next short period of time. For example, until your next break.

- Choose the best course of action. Give yourself plenty of time to decide whether your feeling was a temporary one that does not need further action OR if you need to decide on a course of action to solve an actual problem.

Important:
- Do not act quickly in any situation that begins with feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed, or frustrated.
- A good idea is to wait 24 hours and see if your feelings are still as high as the day before.
- You will be thankful you did this because most of the time you won’t have made the situation worse, instead of solving the problem.
- The ability to “get through” stressful situations, not get stuck in those feelings, and continue your work will make you the type of employee people will want to keep.
- Imagine that when you get home you can really let your stress “hang out” by letting out a good scream in your pillow, taking a relaxing bath, or ranting to someone you trust.
- The very important part is that you will not have damaged the opinion your supervisors, co-workers, and customers have of you.

Communicating Clearly And Hearing Feedback
In work situations, it is very important to state opinions and ideas clearly.
At your work, positive and negative feedback will be provided all the time.
This happens so the way you do your job can be clearly checked and you can become better at it. Being able to respond to both positive and negative feedback in a positive way will show people at your place of work that you value your job. It can be difficult to hear negative feedback from your supervisors, such as criticism during an evaluation, and stay positive about your job. The following are some helpful hints:
- See it as important information about how to do your job and not about you as a person. Do not see it as a personal attack on you. Try to remain objective.
- Take the information and act on it! Do everything possible to change that part of your job into something you can do really well.

Common Thought:
“If I ask for help or information from my co-workers, it will look like I can’t do my job. If worse comes to worst, I will just do the job over.”
The truth is you cannot be expected to know everything. People will also be asking you for help now and again. It is not a good use of time and energy to plan to do a task again if you think you might not do it right the first time. You have the right to ask for help when you need it. People will appreciate your honesty and will notice that you want to do a task the right way.

Common Thought:
“It is easier to do my work and my co-worker’s work as well, than to ask her to do her share. I don’t want word to get out that I was making any demands on her. People will think I am just complaining or being unfair.”

The truth is you should not be doing the work of two people. Also, you cannot control what other people think. You have the right to expect your co-worker to do her part of the job. Talking to your co-worker about this may not be easy, but it is worth the effort to solve the problem. It may be a good idea to go to your manager first with a clear list of what you have been doing that is actually your co-worker’s responsibility. Remember: do not sound defensive or angry. Talk about it as a concern and remain clear and on track.

Communication Skills Are Essential For Sales
Good communication skills are needed in any business. To sell your product, you must be able to explain the features that make the product unique.

Choose your words carefully:
Create a positive mindset. Change negative or pessimistic words like “rough”, “hard”, “tough”, and “difficult” with positive ones like “rewarding” and “challenging”.
Avoid using extreme words like “best”, “worst”, “always” and “least”, unless you can prove them.
Change them to words like “frequently”, “rarely” and “usually”.
Learn a company’s unique terms, key words, and short terms, and drop them into conversation.
Try to sell your product or service by playing up your customer’s interests or hobbies.