Every article or post that I read about the ‘retail boom’ in India or, that bigger and more brawny retailers are having thoughts about retail investments etc I often wonder what is being done to increase employability in the retail business. For example, what does one do with someone who joins a retailer as a shop floor associate ?
I don’t go shopping often. And, I have a marked aversion to hopping across various places in search of that elusive “I must have this” object. The observations below are from the infrequent trips to various retail formats over a period of time.
Let’s take the Pune Central brand for example. Huge and spread across multiple floors, it provides the buying public an interaction with a large workforce of shop-floor personnel. And yet, if you visit the Bundgarden one on any given day the most striking feature you’d notice is that they don’t have a clue about what is stocked where. The second most obvious trait is that the shelves are always in a disarray – the sizes are mixed up, the clothes not always properly and neatly folded back. The third and somewhat funny thing is that they will respond to your query in the local language. Not Hindi, not English. Not even when you indicate that you are unable to follow their responses. It is a remarkable feature. And of course, if you cannot find what you want in the size you require – then it isn’t their job to actually figure out if they have it in stock. If it isn’t something you could find, you possibly don’t expect them to find it for you.
Coming to Westside. This brand is no less different when it comes to on-floor staff being unable to help or being remarkably uncooperative. It is more so at Kolkata, where they are easily interested in gossiping about something, rather than at Pune. The one unique trend at Westside is that a staffer would say that (s)he is checking up the stock and, then try their level best not to turn up in your line of sight.
Lifestyle. The mecca of untrained retail floor personnel. Completely clueless. Completely disinterested in shelf display and, of course, totally rampant in checking out shoppers rather than helping them. If you really enjoy Peoplewatching I’d recommend without hesitation the Lifestyle store at Kalyaninagar. Only you’d need to watch the personnel.
Fabindia. Nothing much needs to be said other than the fact that they do take an inordinate amount of time to actually figure where things are. And, if you are shopping there you’d better be prepared to have some time to wait and sigh. Perhaps read a few pages of a magazine before you can get help from someone on their floor staff. That’s for Pune. The Kolkata one, being more frequented by starlets and stars of yesteryears are not really interested in the “mango” folks.
Landmark. Too many on-floor staff milling around the shelves doing nothing or, plain chit-chatting than working on the displays. Couple it with the crowd due to a sale and you have the terrible task of trying to negotiate on-floor personnel in addition to buyers. And, add to it the fact that only a few really know the books and where they might be, without having resort to painstakingly type out character-by-character the name of author/book on the console, you really have to count your blessings that they still have such on-floor staff.
The Bombay Store. If you aren’t interested in what their shop floor folks are interested in selling to you two things will happen – they will turn away from you and refuse to recognize you and, they will mutter under their breath (but making sure you’d hear) a selection of phrases in Hindi which you’d like dearly to record and pass over to their management. Come back in 10 minutes with one of the visitors to the office who wants to spend a bit and that same staff will be fawning over you and offering a choice between soft drinks and tea. It is an amazing experience and one worth the time if you have a non-Indian friend willing to go along with the charade.
Crossword. They should really take time to look at their midget store formats and perhaps close them down. For example, the one at Kalyaninagar Mariplex. If, at a bookstore, the stock doesn’t move for months on end, you know that they mall-thronging crowd doesn’t really care two hoots. And, that reflects in the staff as well. They will helpfully look up everything but tell that it is either at Sohrab Hall or, at the Senapati Bapat outlet. Duh ! I’d perhaps do the 18+km travel to those rather than attempt anything here.
Starmark Kolkata. Perhaps they sell more Apple products than books. That’s why they allow so many folks to just crowd around the displays reading books and making notes than actually trying to get them a separate area for sitting and reading. Reading inside a bookstore is nice, but when all the shelves are barricaded by readers and the floor staff is busy milling around the iPod or, Wii counter you don’t have a pleasant experience.
Bottom line – what does a store do to train their personnel. More importantly, perhaps given the high attrition/turnover rate, how do they track and maintain quality of service ? Not many articles talk about that. And, there’s a paradox. A good on-floor experience would perhaps lead to return customers/customer loyalty. I wouldn’t know, since I don’t have the benefit of experience. However, one thing is for sure – I generally end up going to the stores where I’ve had nice experience previously. Or, where I know that I can figure out things by myself thanks to the display being kept up to date and in shape.
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I’ve wondered if it’s poor wages and long work hours that get store assistants off customer service. I find that it must also be job security despite poor performance that makes them insolent because feedback by customers is still rare to collect, consider or address. As I’ve tweeted, complaining to companies via email is helping in some cases as their ISO certification or other accreditation is pushing them into responding to complaints in prescribed stages. We’ve to make it a point to email those time-consuming rants if we’re to check this theory out…
I have found that most companies don’t have a policy to keep track of or, audit email responses. I could name Reliance Retail, Central, Barista among these. Cafe Coffee Day of course is the other extreme – denies everything unless you point out that you do have a serious urge to keep communication going.
Most of the times I gripe about brands/stores on Twitter, I actually have attempted to use the Contact Us/Customer Care means via the website and failed. My worry is that the retail market, while providing opportunities to a lot of folks to obtain jobs, doesn’t actually give them training to develop a career. For example, the in-store assistants – what is the career roadmap for them ? What can they also aspire to with adequate training ?
Yes, a missing career path doesn’t help at all. They do the bare minimum–adhere to work hours, don their uniforms–to earn their salary. Even if a career progression is in place, it isn’t inspiring enough to reach. Training is happening in many big places but infrequently so behavioural lessons learnt aren’t followed for long enough.
I’ve had 2 store managers of Reliance Mart calling me after an email complaint to RIL customer care. But it’s probably due to their personal motivation to see their branches do well and not so much for company’s tracking of my complaint.