At that time, I was still working in a retail environment and tried my hardest to avoid covering customer service in that realm, since customer service goes deeper than just the retail sense. But, since I no longer work in retail, I want to go back and discuss retail and customer service.
I attribute much of what I know about customer service due to my retail experience. As much as I found some of the online trainings, the games and discussions monotonous, they did actually teach me some very key lessons.
So, here are the:
3 Things I Learned in Retail about Customer Service
There are more than 3 things, but these are the biggest lessons that I learned that encompass everything else.
1. Keep your cool no matter what
Retail:When you work in retail, keeping your cool is difficult. I will not lie about that, because dealing with demanding customers who are expecting immediate results and answers can be stressful. Starting out, I was terrified of making customers angry or not being able to answer quickly enough. As I started learning more about the store and the different brands, it became easier to keep my cool. As I was able to keep my cool, I was able to handle different situations and tasks that were presented before me.
Current: Having a position where I could leave at the door better prepared me for a position where I interact with a wide assortment of people and reply to emails at different points of the day. Working in retail helped me realize not to stress over the minor details and focus on the bigger points at hand.
2. Solution Oriented will help any situation
Retail: When I worked in retail, I worked in all of the of departments except 3 (even there I was occasionally pulled in to answer a question or two), including the customer service desk and jewelry where you would have to make returns and deal with the different policies. It did not matter the season, there was always a customer who was not happy about something and would come in charging. In these times, you have to not only keep your cool, but to also be able to come up with a solution. You had to not only provide the patience, but a calm and collected response to calm the customer down. Not only would you have to feel out the situation, but had to be able to read the customer in a quick way to be able to tell whether the solution would work for them or not. It was a lot of quick thinking and having to be smart about it.
Current: There are times that I still have to make quick decisions, but not as instantaneous as the decisions I had to make in retail. Having to think like this for many years though has helped me view problems not as something that is in my way, but as something to find a solution for. It has caused my mind to try to figure out the different potential solutions for a problem and not just focusing on the negative aspect.
3. Asking for Help is key to providing even better service
Retail: I am sure there were times that my managers, especially my general manager, got annoyed with me about questions. At first, I was very shy and was not confident about asking questions on how to do things. The more I started working and being asked harder questions by customers, I was forced to ask questions. This led me to understand customer service even more, since the more I knew, the better I was able to assist the customers. My former general manager was my go to person, because I wanted to follow the example that she wanted for the store and she did teach me a lot (even though I would never admit that to her in person).
Current: I ask questions all the time! I am constantly communicating with my managers and other senior managers who I report to, because I want to make sure I am not only doing things correctly, but if I am doing things correctly, then I will be able to better service any customer. This helps me not only understand my position better, but the entire organization. The lessons that my former general manager taught me has helped me do well in my current position, but has also taught me to be confident in myself to ask questions to do my job better.
I learned so much about customer service in retail that I could have never learned in a class. In fact, many of the concepts that I learned in class I was able to see real world examples when I worked on the sales floor. My experiences and lessons that I learned are very near and dear to me, since it gave me a foundation to continue to explore how to give better customer service.
Did you ever have a job that taught you about Customer Service? I would love to hear what lessons you learned in these types of jobs and how they have helped you now, so share them below!
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