Employee Experts
- Details
- Published: Wednesday, 25 April 2012 18:14
- Written by David DeCiero
One of the benefits of having employee experts is that they can help to educate your customers.This knowledge sharing goes beyond helping individual customers in your store.There is a way to leverage their intelligence and their passion by providing educational classes to your customers.This both challenges your employees and engages your customers.
If you have grown your employees well, they will have become experts in their particular area.I have seen passionate people who can tell you everything you need to know about craft beers, French wine, or whiskey.These employees are very helpful when a customer comes in looking for a recommendation.However, this is a very personalized interaction and by its very nature it cannot reach a large amount of customers.In addition, the customer may only be looking for a single specific recommendation.There are no guarantees that the customer is particularly engaged in the topic.Therefore, you may have an extremely insightful employee spending time with a low value customer.The question becomes about the best way to leverage your employee’s subject matter expertise with an attentive and potentially high value customer.
The best way to both help your employees share their knowledge and attract a high value customer base is through classes.They can also be called seminars.These are 1 hour reviews of a particular topic about which your employee has knowledge and passion.This could be a course on India Pale Ales (IPA), or in Tuscan wines not named Chianti.There are two benefits.First, you get your employee out there and allow them to be recognized as an expert.This can serve to boost the confidence of your employees and give them a new challenge in their position.Second, it attracts a very interested crowd.This crowd has the potential to become high value, repeat customers.The very fact that they have come to your seminar indicates they have specific interest.Then, if you can teach them something or get them passionate about the particular topic, they will make a connection to your store.This connection will last a long time and provide you with an excellent return.
There are, however, a couple of pitfalls to avoid.The first is with your employees.Not all employees enjoy getting up in front of a crowd.They may be extremely intelligent, but they have to be able to get their message across y presenting well.There are few less painful things than watching an uncomfortable presenter.The second is in your inventory.There is a tendency to want to “push” a particular product.You will definitely want to avoid trying to sell a particular label or brand.The goal of the class is about education, not selling.You are giving your potential customer a free education in return for their interest and potential business.Nothing turns off customers faster than the feel that they aren’t getting an education, but rather a sales pitch.Even though you don’t want to push a particular product, make sure you have plenty of the particular spirit on hand.It would be a mistake to teach people about Tuscan wine not named Chianti and then only have a Brunello and some Sangiovese blends.Make sure you have plenty of options for your customers to choose from.Remember, these people have high interest and may be beyond the obvious choices.
Seminars are a good way to engage your employees and your customers.Done correctly, they can provide new challenges to your employees to keep them happy and provide you with high value customers.Both of those are valuable commodities, so any way you can get and retain them is great.