As the holiday season is approaching, sales is expected to spike more than the usual. It is important for the retailers to double their effort for this season, but demanding the employees to work for extra time in a fixed number of heads, is'nt enough. So most of the retailers are in a full forced hiring for this time every year, in order to serve the millions of shoppers who ramp up spending for the holidays. But new research shows that massive hiring may come at a cost. According to SkillSurvey, (Staffing-solutions firm) retailers that hiring staff members in a grind and don't take the time to properly screen them for key customer-service traits seem to lose potential sales and customers.
SkillSurvey spotted the top areas for improvement for retail customer service and sales representatives based on a survey of more than 19,000 employee references.
According on their studies, a lot of candidates has a low skill to compose recommendations of products and services to the customer as well as the employees seems to have below average capability of encouraging customers to buy new products or services by presenting relevant options.
"These key behaviors with lower-than-average ratings were the same whether the customer service and sales candidate was applying for a position in a store, on the phone or online," said Ray Bixler, CEO and president of SkillSurvey. "The findings indicate that retailers can lose money when they don't take the time to identify and hire candidates with skills such as the ability to gather the right information from customers and tailor their recommendations accordingly."
He concludes that past work performance is the best guide of future work performance, and that retailers should take the time to find personnel who have proven strengths in these key areas, or to identify areas where development is demanded.
Mr. Bixler added, "Quality hires are critical during the holiday season because they positively impact customer interactions and therefore the bottom-line of the business."
