Archive for January 16th, 2011

Grand Opening Day Training For Employees

Author: Andrew Hallinan

Your grand opening is a very important day with lots of jitters and excitement for all involved.  And because it is the first day you are introducing your new company to the the world, to potential clients and customers, its very important that everyone involved puts their ‘best foot forward’.  In order to ensure this happens, its very important that all employees are a part of the employee training process.  Not only do new employees need to be trained for their particular roles that they will be fulfilling in the weeks and months ahead, but all employees should be prepared to fill multiple jobs in the chaos of the first day and grand opening celebration.  Training is so important because the employees are the face and voice of the business.

Basic Training: Interacting with Customers
Every employee, regardless of their prior work experience, should be trained in the basics, such as greeting customers, health and safety regulations, the location and stocking of goods, as well as closing and opening procedures.  For training on interactions with customers, the best idea is often to provide an example script and then to role-play.  Take the time and energy to make sure all employees know their roles well enough to be confident and professional for both the grand opening and the months to follow.  Their speech, actions, and knowledge of the store should reflect this training and standard of professionalism.

Basic Training: Stocking Shelves
Another aspect of running the new business that every employee should know is how to display the goods and merchandise.  Most often this means knowing how to stock shelves and then label with prices.  If no goods are out, available to customers for purchase, then the ‘closed’ sign might as well be out.  In other words, if there is ever a possibility of a customer dropping in looking to spend money but the shelves aren\’t stocked, then there is no point in paying employees to ‘man the post’.  In order to make sure that never happens, all employees, regardless of their paid positions, should know how to stock goods and label pricing.

Basic Training: Checkout Procedure
Knowing how to put the correct prices on goods ties in to an earlier point of everyone needing to know how to check a customer out in a timely manner.  Being able to complete a customer\’s desired transaction in a timely and professional manner is tied into the earlier point of all employees needing to know how to interact with patrons.  But employees will not be able to complete the transaction without knowing pricing.  And clients quickly become frustrated with shopping if they do not know how much an item is going to cost them.  Once both parties know this information, only then can transactions, money in exchange for goods, go smoothly.  This enables customers to leave satisfied and employees to work efficiently.  Make sure that employees know not only how to label, but where the pricing and bar code information can be found by using a master, computerized, listing program.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/branding-articles/grand-opening-day-training-for-employees-4010544.html

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