The best retailers understand that in order to grow their brand and create great customer experiences that make people want to come back, they need each store to perform at an evenly high level across the entire chain. But over the years we’ve seen that the majority of retailers only have a few high performing stores, and others that aren’t even close, creating what we call a “performance gap”
Why is that? And what are the mistakes that lead to this variation in performance? Let’s look closer.
What is a performance gap?
You know that store where your salespeople are charismatic, knowledgeable and consistently creates big sales numbers? The store where customers keep coming back, and the employees seem engaged and happy all the time? Now imagine if you could transfer all these positive traits to every store team across your chain.
Because, let’s face it. Not every store in your chain has this kind of positive, sales driven culture. In fact, you most likely have stores that are constantly under-performing, despite your and your teams’ best efforts to turn the tides.
This is a common challenge that many retailers face. The performance gap between stores creates an inconsistent experience for your customers and might taint your beloved brand if you’re not taking actions to bridge it.
4 mistakes that creates a performance gap in your retail chain
The first step to change is to understand what problems you have. Through our experience, working with 100+ retail brands over the last 15+ years, we’ve seen a lot of common mistakes among the chains with the biggest performance gaps. By avoiding these, you give your chain the best chances of success.
1st mistake: Having a top-down perspective
A top-down management approach often leads to strategies that are disconnected from the daily realities of store-level operations. And the strategies tries to be “one-size-fits-all” when every store has its own insights, experiences and challenges. This leads to every store having the same type of training, when they really need training tailored to their own needs. Fail in this department, and your employees will have a hard time unlocking their inner superpowers.
2nd mistake: Not handing over responsibility to frontline staff
Feeling like you have authority and responsibility in your daily work is crucial to feel meaning and joy in your work. When head offices don’t delegate the responsibility, it will always lead to low morale and disengagement among the teams.
The frontline staff are the ones interacting directly with customers and handling day-to-day operations. If they are not given the authority to make decisions and take initiative, their ability to provide excellent service and respond to immediate issues is severely hindered, leading to inconsistent performance across stores.
3rd mistake: Neglecting follow-up after sales training
Sales training is essential, but a lot of retail businesses are making a big mistake. They’ll invest in a big conference or event with a lot of knowledge sharing over a few days, and hope that this is enough to improve their staff and see the sales numbers go up. But oftentimes, this boost in knowledge doesn’t last long.
Without proper follow-up, continuous support and daily feedback, employees may revert to old habits, and the training will not have the desired impact on performance.
4th mistake: Basing decisions on feelings
One of the first things we teach our customers is that they need to know their numbers. The reason is because a lot of retailers use their gut feelings or intuition when making business decisions. This is a bad idea, especially since retailers today have the chance to collect actionable data in every store. A data-driven approach ensures that decisions are based on solid evidence, leading to more consistent and improved performance across the whole chain.
Conclusion
To avoid these mistakes, a more inclusive, data-driven and tailored approach to managing store performance needs to be adopted. By giving your frontline staff more authority, ensuring training follow-up, basing decisions on data and allowing each store to gather insights and tailor its own development, you’re on the right path.
If you want more knowledge around this and want to hear about the best type of solution for retailers today, please watch our webinar where Gøril Wold Wægger shares her biggest insights and learnings.
