What are the duties and responsibilities of a retail sales associate? These are the people on the ground who interact with customers on a day to day basis. Their job is multifaceted and comes with many challenging duties.
One of the major responsibilities that anyone working in retail needs is patience and the right attitude. Customers can be demanding at times and that requires a finely honed skill set that is capable of dealing with some potentially volatile situations.
If you are interested in learning more about this profession, you’ll want to master these nine retail sales associate duties and responsibilities:
1. Cash register responsibilities
This may be one of the most important retail sales associate duty and responsibility. The task will take some training, even if they have a lot of experience in a retail sales role. Each cash register machine will have its quirks and you may have a set process for how you like receipts and large bills to be stored.
With a simple training manual and a set of rules that are written down, you can be sure that the new employee will be able to do exactly what you need them to do. It may also help to have an existing employee train them so that they have someone close to hand that they can ask any questions until they have used the machine for a few weeks.
2. Solid knowledge of the store layout
Customers fully expect each and every retail sales associate to know where all of the items are located throughout the store. This might take a few weeks but with an organized store layout this will be easy enough to learn over time.
Depending on what you expect from your employees, you may instruct them to walk the customer to the product that they are looking for to ensure that they find it okay. The retail sales associate needs to be very familiar with the shelf management and layout of the store.
3. Increasing retail sales
As a retail sales associate, your duty and responsibility revolves increasing sales in the store. This can be a little challenging for some, but with a few incentives and some upselling opportunities, it can be very easy to make some significant improvements in your bottom line.
This can be especially effective around the holidays and you will have some products that are not normally in the store. If you make sure that each and every retail sales associate knows about these products that will be able to direct customers to them with ease.
4. Keeping a retail-friendly personality
As the retail sales associate is the customer’s only real human connection to your store and brand, they need to be as warm and genuine as possible.
This retail associate duty is easier said than done. It takes some real fortitude to maintain such a positive and welcoming presence for the whole working day.
5. Understanding the product
For general stores, this responsibility doesn’t really apply for retail associates. However, if your store specializes in a certain type of product then you need retail sales associates that know their stuff. This is even more important if your customer is well informed and may have a number of technical questions.
By making sure that your retail sales associates have superior product knowledge, the customers will begin to trust their recommendations more and more.
6. Cleaning duties and responsibilities
There are two parts to this responsibility for retail associates. There is the ongoing day to day, moment to moment vigilance that goes into keeping every area of the store clean and presentable and the nightly clean up.
However, you plan to assign the roles to each employee you must follow up and make sure that no one is dropping the ball. Letting small things slide can lead to larger messes being left untidy.
7. Education requirements
You will want your retail sales associate to have at least to have graduated from high school. This will mean that they have the skills needed to handle money and keep track of pricing among other things.
If you have any additional requirements based on any knowledge that is important to your customers, you will need to let them know about it in the job description and the interview stage of the hiring process.
8. Professional experience
Retail experience is always a bonus as you will be able to build on what they already know. You may need to break them of any bad habits that they have picked up along the way if they don’t conform to the high standards that you have set for your other employees.
9. Keeping a positive attitude
This will carry them through on the hard days that never seem to end. This is something that you can’t teach so it needs to already be a part of that person.
You should be able to identify if they are a good fit for your store well within their probation period. It is well worth taking the time at the hiring stage to ensure that you have the right people hired for the job.
