The Transforming Role of the Store Associate

As we cautiously emerge from the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic and shoppers return to our stores in person, it seems an opportune moment to take stock and reconsider the role of an often-overlooked cog in the retail machine – the store associate.

Working at the coalface of retail, the store associate is your customers’ first point of contact with your retail experience and, excluding your marketing efforts external to the store itself, you brand. This means store associates are uniquely placed to provide customers with a more intimate level of customer service – beyond showing them where certain products are located and ringing up their goods.

As retailers scramble to find ways to draw customers back into their brick-and-mortar locations and away from the comfort and convenience of online shopping, the humble store associate could potentially be one of the most powerful bits of equipment in the customer experience toolbox.

Store Associates

We know that retail customers are looking for more exciting experiences when they choose to enter a physical store. Online shopping carries with it so many advantages, including price and convenience, that customer need the high street to provide something unique to augment their shopping experience.

A lot of this comes down to personalization. While a lot of online stores claim to offer personalized recommendations and a host of other features tailored to each individual customer, most of us know from experience that these are rarely that effective – inappropriate product recommendations loosely based on similar keywords for example.

This is where store associates can be leveraged to offer a genuinely personalized experience. This is made possible because store associates possess something a digital tool built into an online storefront cannot [currently] imitate – the art of conversation.

By training your store associates to engage with customers and have genuine conversations about their interests, likes/dislikes, family life, etc. they can gain a better picture of that customer’s wants and needs and help them find products which are far more personalized than anything an algorithm could cough up.

Obviously, there is a balance to be established so these conversations don’t end up as pushy or intrusive sales pitches. Often customers will come into a store and know exactly what they want, and in those circumstances the store associate’s role will be to simply help them find that product – possibly with a little gentle upselling thrown in for good measure.

However, a customer who is on an exploratory shopping excursion is far more likely to be open to this kind of engagement and provide fertile ground for a truly personalized shopping experience.

Personalized Shopping

According to Retail Week, a massive 71% of retail customers have expressed frustration regarding impersonal shopping experiences and have gone on the record to state they are far more likely to spend more and engage in repeat business with stores which can offer truly personalized shopping.

In fact, 80% of customers have agreed they would be more likely to return to a store which offered a personalized shopping experience.

When store associates have delivered personalized recommendations to customers – often through a combination of data and face-to-face conversation – Almost half [49%] of customers have walked away after purchasing products they didn’t intend to buy when the initially entered the store.

Research from Salesforce has revealed that 84% of customers agree the experience a brand provides is just as important as the products it sells. Brick-and-mortar stores provide the perfect platform for store associates to create memorable brand experiences that customers simply can’t get from impersonal and purely data driven interactions online. Customers want to feel engaged with on a genuine and empathic level and store associates are perfectly placed to facilitate this.

"Customers expect empathy, tailored engagement, and value regardless of whether they’re buying for themselves or on behalf of their employers," said Salesforce in its Sixth Edition State of Marketing report.

Technology will clearly have a role to play in delivering personalized engagement to customers in this new retail landscape, but we must never forget the power of store associate led face-to-face interactions and genuine conversation.

Final Thoughts

Store associates are going to be critical to the recovery of the retail business and having engaged and well-trained people on the shop floor will enable your retail brand to stand out from the crowd and differentiate itself in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Online shopping isn’t going anywhere, but personalized experiences can help physical retail demonstrate it still has a role to play in the retail business.

The power of store associates is set to be part of the conversation at Future Stores Seattle 2022, taking place in July at The Sheraton, Seattle.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.