“Tech-Savvy Transformation, Jugal Kishore Jewellers Prepares Staff to Delight Millennial Brides”

Jugal Kishore Jewellers of Lucknow has found success not only by ensuring that its staff is knowledgeable while dealing with customers but also by teaching them to work across functions at the company, including doubling up as photographers and auditors.

Today’s brides know exactly what they want when they enter a showroom to buy jewellery, and salespersons have to be knowledgeable enough to deal successfully with them. This realization has made Raghava Rastogi, Partner, Jugal Kishore Jewellers, Lucknow, to devise training programmes to prepare his staff to interact with his smart clientele. “New-age brides, generally in the 23-30 age group, are very research-oriented. Salespersons have to understand their language and remain updated about the latest terminology. They should know how to use various social media platforms, look for designs of competitors in case the customer gives reference of a different brand she has seen online, and also understand that different brands have different category names for the same product. For example, in bangles, we have churis, kangans, patheris, bracelets, etc., while others may name them differently,” Rastogi says.

ROTATION ACROSS COUNTERS

Rastogi understands that not every member of the team may have the same acumen. His endeavour is to upskill the weaker lot, making sure that every employee in the organization sits through the training sessions for all sections. So, a silver section employee learns from the sessions on gold and vice versa, which allows Rastogi to rotate the staff across the counters as well. Every employee in the organization spends a couple of months in each of the sections. “This way, everyone knows the work of their team members and also learns from the experience. With this practice, my employees are better trained, compared to my competitors,” Rastogi claims.

LEARNING ABOUT LUXURY

Employees are taught about different luxury lifestyle brands and how to deal with customers who are users of those brands. For example, if a customer has a Louis Vuitton handbag, then what kind of designs should be shown to them? “Customers in this segment do not like to purchase yellow jewellery and are always on the lookout for standout and unique pieces. Sales staff have standing instructions that even if a customer wants to buy just a diamond ring, they must show our exclusive range of jewellery, so that prospects for the next sale are higher,” says Rastogi.

Employees are also taught to read the purity numbers from the girdles of a diamond, so that they can read out the certification number from it while handing over the lab certificate to a customer buying diamond jewellery. “This increases the trust of the customer in the jeweller,” Rastogi says.

EMPLOYEES AS PHOTOGRAPHERS

Online and digital sales are the future of the industry and thus the quality of jewellery images on any platform is all-important. Getting the entire inventory professionally shot would be a costly affair, so Rastogi started a pilot project by teaching three employees professional photography, and they, in turn, were asked to train the remaining staff. “So far, we have made various catalogues of our jewellery collections with images shot by employees. They got good response from customers too,” says Rastogi.

“So far, we have made various catalogues of our jewellery collections with images shot by employees. They got good response from customers too”

Raghava Rastogi, Partner, Jugal Kishore Jewellers, Lucknow

Jugal Kishore Jewellers also audits its entire stock once a week, wherein different departments and categories handle the auditing themselves. So, when a person is selling, he/she knows exactly which items are fast selling and which items are moving slowly. This practice helps to streamline purchases.

THIRD-PARTY TRAINING

Pre-COVID, Rastogi used to personally train the staff. However, after some time he realized that because he was the boss, there was a gap in communication. For instance, if the staff did not understand anything, they were not even asking for an explanation, which became a hurdle for Rastogi. Therefore, he decided to bring in a third party to design a new training module. Earlier, there was one session in a year, but from the end of 2021, the number of training sessions increased to one every quarter. “Employees are given a set of questions to answer after each session covering new trends, design language, how to keep track of competitors through social media platforms, future plans and schemes of the organization, especially BTL activities,” Rastogi says.

Jugal Kishore Jewellers has also been conducting knowledge/training sessions for its customers for the last 16-17 years, with masterclass sessions focusing on various topics such as the 4Cs of diamonds, gold hallmarking, why and how to use caratometer, etc.

The Retail Jeweller India Magazine