6 Simple Tips To Ensure Your Retail Store Is Leading The Charge In Quality

Running a brick and mortar retail store can be tough work. Managers have a lot on their plate and managing quality is usually top of the list. Following these simple steps can result in better sales, a reduction in stock loss, happier staff, and better mystery shopper results.

Set the standards from the get go

Ensure that all staff are aware of the quality standards that are expected from day one. Explain to the team why quality standards are so important and the expectations from head office.

Even consider including a quality and standards session in new staff training to breed a quality culture from the beginning of an employee’s time with the business.

Ensure staff are empowered to own quality

Standards in quality drop when staff have no sense of responsibility. By arming each member of your team, no matter their position, with the tools needed to take responsibility of their store – ratings will pick up.

iAuditor is an easily downloaded app which gives members the ability to build and check off inspections. An admin can build, assign and schedule audits for those in their team. Team members then get notifications through their mobile device to conduct audits. You can build a checklist to inspect anything: Stock, cleanliness of the store, standards for staff, merchandising, security, point of sale, collect feedback and much more.

Prioritise security

Include security checks in your templates. By making staff more aware of the location of cameras to ensure they haven’t been tampered with and staff manning major entries and exits will result in minimised stock loss. In fact, by making staff more aware of security, an iAuditor customer and large retailer in the UK was able to reduce stock loss by 16%.

Welcome feedback

Encourage staff members to record all feedback, from both customers and their thoughts, so that trends can be recorded and updates to the store or merchandise can be suggested. Staff excellence can also be rewarded and alternatively, any improvements can be made.

Reward excellence

Creating a quality culture starts with transparency. Explain to your team that the more data you accumulate for your stores, the more you will learn. Reward employees that fill in templates regularly and use the data from customer feedback to help inform promotions. Explain to your team that the templates they fill in now will help shape the future of the store, and potentially the business as well as help them progress in their careers.

Make the most of your data

Use the data collected in iAuditor to make informed decisions on stock, store layout, merchandising, staffing, security and more. Look at multiple stores and use learnings from one to another.

Easily personalise and print reports to share with management in head office. Show through data reasons behind changes in sales, stock loss and more.

Top retail templates:

• Inspection for Retail Store Checklist
• Retail Operational Audit
• Retail Store Audit

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