Customers throughout the retail industry have voiced their concerns about sales peoples’ lack of product knowledge and that particularly in large stores, finding a staff person to help them can be difficult.  These issues stem from the fact that some retailers create departmental boundaries (which serve as barriers) in order to prevent conflict and control inventory. This approach, though popular, is not beneficial in any way to customers.  In fact it threatens customer service levels and also creates many unnecessary issues logistically such as excess inventory (resulting from lack of interdepartmental communication) and the need to hire additional personnel in each department rather than maximizing current staff.

The Working Without Borders Program removes these departmental barriers by encouraging associates to learn about products and promotions in other departments in order to provide more holistic service to customers.  It also calls for heightened levels of both teamwork and collaboration and reduces return rates as associates are responsible to qualify their customers for their purchases. 

In sum, the program calls for all associates to be able to work without borders and sell and provide solutions throughout the store as opposed to in their small departmental bubbles.

Under the WWBP when a sales person makes a sale, the associate is responsible for all related logistics including getting the product to the department in advance of the customer picking it up, assisting with delivery arrangements if need be and/or monitoring the shipping details and status of delivery and keeping the customer abreast of the goings on.  Two weeks after the customer receives the product, a follow up phone call is placed by the associate to confirm customer satisfaction with both product and process.

One potential barrier to the WWBP working well is commission. Commission, if not handled expertly, can be a significant obstacle to providing the sort of customer service that keeps a business competitive these days.  Some associates will not see the benefits of a program requiring them to help customers in a department other than their own given that they will not be earning a commission on that sale.  This may require that your commission compensation structure be revamped so perhaps commission is shared on joint sales or commission is done away with all together and salaries for the entire sales team is raised instead.  There are a number of innovative options to help solve this issue.  Please feel free to contact TCCBI for more information.

So the WWBP, when executed well, serves to minimize barriers between departments so that customers needs can be met by anyone on the sales floor.  This is not to say that you don’t have product specialists, someone that is particularly knowledgeable about Panasonic hi-def televisions for instance.  Not everyone can have detailed knowledge about the inner workings of an advanced piece of technology.  That said, everyone on your sales floor should have basic knowledge of the products on the floor so that, at the very least, the customer’s more basic questions can be answered until a product specialist is available to complete the sale.