What’s the best sales coaching platform for retail teams?

7 Dec

Finding the best sales coaching platform for your retail team is no easy task.

Sure, a platform can look ok, but has it got all the features you need to impact your business? Are your managers engaged with it? Is it easy to use on the shop floor? Does it highlight areas of strength and weakness? How does it encourage behaviour change over time?

There are so many questions you need to answer before you can make your final decision because once you’ve deployed it, you don’t want to have to change it if you run into any issues down the road.

Choose a platform which is dedicated to retail teams

The best sales coaching platform for retail teams will firstly be one which is dedicated to retail teams. This might sound silly, but when a platform is specifically designed for your industry, it means it has all the features which are common in your particular field of work.

It also means the team behind the platform are familiar with your pains and challenges which makes it easier for you to work together.

You’ll also want to select one which already has a large number of retail clients using it successfully. This is proof that it works for other companies in your space, so it’s highly likely it’s going to work for you too.

What platform is dedicated to retail teams and is already used by large retail brands?

Introducing Ocasta Review, the best sales coaching platform for retail businesses, used by retail teams. Next, Virgin Media O2 and Victoria’s Secret are just some retail giants using Ocasta Review for their sales coaching.

What is Ocasta Review?

It’s a sales coaching platform which makes it easy for you to follow your ideal customer journey, coach employees on the shop floor, create action plans to improve their performance, set tasks and create digital checklists to improve productivity. When combined, these features work collectively to boost sales across your entire retail business.

Here’s an example of how this sales coaching platform works

Download Free Sales Observation Template For Retail

Step 1 - Create your customer journey

Detail all the steps your customers go through from the moment they enter your store to the minute they make a purchase. Here’s an example of what one might look like:

Customer walks into the store after looking at the window display.
They enter the store and look around for what they need.
They browse your products to determine which is right for them.
They peruse the other products you have available.
They make their way to the checkout and assess the queue length.
They make their payment and leave the store.

Step 2 - create your ideal customer journey

Now create your ideal customer journey; this might look a little something like this:

Customer walks into the store because of your fabulous window display.
They enter the store, and a sales associate greets them straight away and asks what they’re looking for.
They build rapport with the sales associate who takes an interest in their needs.
They browse the products in the place the sales associate has directed them to.
The sales associate asks if they need more help and offers additional products related to the one they’re holding.
They make their way to the checkout, which has a small queue.
The cashier upsells additional products which complement their purchase; they make their payment and leave.
Upon leaving the store, a friendly sales associate waves goodbye.

Step 3 - turn your ideal customer journey into a sales coaching plan

Now, turn this into a sales coaching plan by asking questions which tell you if your staff are following your ideal customer journey. These may look a little something like this;

Did anyone greet the customer when they entered the store?
Was the customer asked what they were looking for?
Did they take an interest in the customer's needs?
Did they guide the customer in the right direction?
Did the sales associate offer additional products?
Did they manage the queue to ensure it’s kept short?
Was the customer upsold at the till?
Did the sales associate wave goodbye when the customer left the store?

Step 4 - upload the questions to Ocasta Review

Now, put these questions into Ocasta Review. Your managers can use the coaching platform on the shop floor, observing employee behaviour and assessing if they are following your ideal customer journey.

This is the first step in your coaching journey because it gives you a benchmark of what areas the specific sales associate needs to improve for them to succeed.

Ocasta Review has insight collection features which make it quick and easy to collect answers. Users can simply tap, swipe or type their answers, so completing these coaching reports should take no time at all.

During the coaching session, if they notice any tasks the employee needs to do to improve, they can set them during the assessment. The sales associate will then be notified of their outstanding tasks.

For example, the manager may notice that they didn’t upsell the correct products. They can set an upselling training task which asks the sales associate to complete their upsell training before their next review.

Step 5 - create the scored report and action plan

Once they’ve finished the coaching session on a specific sales associate, they can hit the finish button. The sales coaching platform will then generate an action plan with a scored report.

This highlights the employee's areas of strength and weaknesses, making it clear to see the gaps in their performance affecting their success.

Step 6 - tell the sales associate their feedback

Take the sales associate aside and talk them through the coaching report. Explain your feedback and highlight areas where they need to improve. This report can be shared with them so they can track of their scores and measure their improvement.

Step 7 - make the report available for the wider team

Submit the report so your wider management team can access it. The data from every report gets collected by the sales coaching platform so it can generate company-wide insights. You’ll be able to see how well your team is doing as a whole and compare their performance to your region.

Why is Ocasta Review the best sales coaching platform for retail teams?

It can easily be accessed on any mobile or tablet device.
It has been designed for efficiency, ensuring it’s quick and easy to fill out a coaching review on the shop floor.
It saves all your insights as you go, so it doesn’t matter if a customer interrupts you midway through.
It automatically scores your report, so no more awkward Excel spreadsheets.
It colour codes the report, so it’s easy to walk your employee through it and highlight their areas of strength and weakness.
The scoring makes it easy to measure improvement month on month.
Because of the platform's intelligent data analysis, it makes it simple to view performance by region, store or employee. This allows you to compare scores, view top and bottom performance and see where your business is struggling.

Why should you invest in a sales coaching platform?

We know what you’re thinking. They sound like a nice thing to have, but are they worth the investment?

We know they can provide incredible ROI and our clients are a testament to that. One client increased sales by 300% just in their pilot period, and other of our customers see an average 2-3x boost in sales.

But don’t just take our word for it; take a look at these sales coaching stats below, which prove the value of investing in a sales coaching platform:

Sales reps with 30 minutes or less of sales coaching per week receive win rates of 43%, and those that receive at least 2 hours of coaching per week, have a win rate of 56%.
Sales coaching and mentoring is cited as the most important role that frontline managers play, according to 74% of leading companies.
51% of companies with a strong coaching culture report higher revenue than their industry peer group.
Sales coaching can improve the performance of the middle 60% of an organisation’s sales reps. High-quality coaching can improve it by up to 19% and moderate coaching can improve it by 6-8% across 50% of the sales force.
⅓ of high-performing companies have ongoing sales coaching programs.

Want to try our sales coaching platform for free for 60 days?

Here’s how the pilot works:

A personalised, quick demo to check we're both a good fit for each other
If that goes well, a 60-day pilot in the field with your pilot sales team
If you’re happy with the pilot, you can launch it across your entire sales team

Join the likes of Next, Virgin Media O2 and Victoria’s Secret, who all use our sales performance coaching platform to improve customer service and increase sales.

Get started now and we’ll get you set up, yes, it is that simple.

Pilot Now