Ushering in wind of change

Dipankar Jain, Director, Nikkamal Jewellers, Ludhiana, wants his showroom to stand out and be the must visit destination for jewellery shopping. He plans on offering his clients a shopping experience which they have never dreamt of. He realizes for this to happen, he needs trained staff who he considers to be the most important aspect of his business.

The learnings

I started young. I began assisting my father when I was 19 years of age. Even though I used to go to the showroom on part time basis, I learned a lot about retailing under my father Chandrakant Jain. After my graduation, I wanted to learn more about the industry but did not want to join any specific course. I ventured into the world on my own. I went to Surat and started working in a jewellery manufacturing unit. There I learned all about jewellery making, how the karigars worked. I crafted two-three jewellery pieces on my own. From there on I moved to Mumbai and worked in Ishu Datwani’s Anmol Jewels as part of the sales team for a year. This helped me understand the thought process of an employee, now I can think like a worker and not just as an employer. I learned that your work force, the sales staffs are the backbone of the business. If you treat them good the business will flourish. When I returned to Ludhiana, I realized that we need to place our trust, motivate and make our sales staff part of our growth story.

The Execution

Ultimately it is the sales team that handles the clients not us and if we keep our team happy, it will lead to happier customers. We do not need to focus on customers, our job is to focus on employees. For this we have come out with a training manual for our staff and, we will be calling in experts and conduct workshops for them on how to handle clients, close a deal, to maintain customer relationships. We also plan to provide job security, we plan to offer them contracts which is not a done thing in our city. We want our staff not to be just sales men or women but qualified professionals. We have incentives to motivate them to do well. We want our staff to belong, we want them to feel proud of being part of Nikkamal Jewellers. Our success stories should be theirs.

Outcome

Training of staff, motivation these are all long-term investments. I do not expect to get immediate result. But I do see excitement and enthusiasm in my staff. They are all ready to give their best, I might not see immediate tangible result but I am confident of long term benefits. My clients will get the best shopping experience, the kind they expect from showrooms in Mumbai and Delhi.