Kamal Jewellers’ employees cross-sell and upsell with effective training

Kamal Jewellers’ consistent training has taught the staff to understand customer budgets in a round-about way while staying updated with the latest launches in other categories and upselling and cross-selling wherever possible

Almost three years back, Dehradun-based Kamal Jewellers organized in-house training sessions at all its stores to address a lack of coordination within its 70-member team. The store managers of all four showrooms – two in Dehradun, one in Hardwar and one in Vikasnagar – conducted these sessions encompassing personal grooming, product knowledge and customer service at their respective stores. Sugam Rastogi, Owner of Kamal Jewellers, Dehradun realizes that training is a continuous process. “If you do not conduct training programmes even for a few weeks, then the staff starts feeling demotivated,” he observes. Professional trainers were brought in about five months back.

FOCUS ON GROOMING AND ATTITUDE

The brand started with in-house training sessions focused on personal grooming of the employees; including the hair-do of male and female employees and beard grooming of male employees, especially if they were new to the organization. This was followed by sessions on inculcating a positive attitude among salespersons towards the work and customers. For example, they were taught how to tactfully handle customers who walked in at the store’s closing time. The participants were also given training on product knowledge, how to engage with customers and showcase products, teamwork, and how to inform customers about product launches, all of which enabled better sales.

HOW TO CROSS-SELL AND UPSELL

To go about training more professionally, Kamal Jewellers brought in industry-based professional trainers in March this year. Four training programmes have been conducted by them so far. These programmes aim to improve the staff’s selling skills along with sessions on cross-selling and upselling. Regarding cross-selling, the focus is on the conversation of gold customers about diamond jewellery. To achieve cross-selling, the staff was taught to identify the customer’s budget smartly. So, instead of directly asking for the customer’s budget, they would start showing jewellery from a lower price range and then slowly move to the upper range. Depending on when and at what price range the customer asked the staff to stop, they could identify the customer’s budget. The staff was then instructed to persuade the customer to buy diamond jewellery by showing the latest collections in the customer’s range.

As for upselling, the focus was on showcasing different segments. For example, if a customer had come to buy a gold ring or a chain, the staff was taught to display a new range of gold bangles along with the rings. Most of the customers look at the bangles at some point. So, the main motive behind this strategy is that even if the bangle sale did not happen at that time, the bangles remain on the mind of the customer later, if they decide to buy bangles, they most probably visit Kamal Jewellers.

” Now, the staff is interested in all categories and we have seen a substantial increase in sales over the past two years. Overall sales increased by at least 15-20% and diamond sales increased by 5-10% “

Sugam Rastogi, Owner of Kamal Jewellers, Dehradun

Commenting on the transformation post the training sessions, Rastogi says, “After completion of the training sessions, we have witnessed a positive change in the behaviour and body language of the employees. Teamwork and the efficiency of the employees improved. Earlier, they used to be content with just selling items from their section – the salesperson responsible for gold rings would only sell rings, and so on. However, post the training programmes, they are also contributing to the sales of other sections.”

According to Rastogi, earlier, the staff used to take little interest in what was happening in categories other than the one assigned to them. For example, if there was a diamond jewellery collection launch, the staff responsible for the gold section had little knowledge about the items available.

“Now, the staff is interested in all categories and we have seen a substantial increase in sales over the past two years. Overall sales increased by at least 15-20% and diamond sales increased by 5-10%,” he says.

The Retail Jeweller India Magazine