Inspired by the
TRRAIN Retail Awards, World's Best Sales Associate awards were launched by The World Department Store
Forum to recognize outstanding work in the retail sphere across the globe.
The Award Ceremony held in April
2015 in Rome awarded 3 finalists who were selected by a panel of experts, led
by B S Nagesh from TRRAIN. The jury’s goal was to honour exceptional
performances by a sales associate in fulfilling customer expectations,
commitment beyond duty, product knowledge, team work and commercial results.
Eva Bunzel, from The KaDeWe Group, won the trophy and shared some examples which
demonstrated her passion and dedication to exceptional customer service. She
was joined on stage by her CEO André Maeder.
Picking up from where we left
off, we’re now going to share the inspiring stories of the 3 winners in the World's
Best Sales Associate 2015 award category.
Eva Bunzel from the Kadewe Group - Winner
Eva pioneered the concept of ‘Wellness Shopping’. When the idea was in its pilot stage, she
tested it by inviting a regular customer and her friend to a presentation of
the latest collections. She combined this presentation with Shiseido beauty
treatment as well as catering. That’s where Wellness Shopping all began. She followed
up this experiment by inviting twenty best regular customers to the Wellness
Shopping session. In cases where the ladies took part with their entire
families, Eva organized a tasting in the wine department of the legendary
gourmet floor for the men. While their husbands were busy tasting fine wine,
their better halves were advised in the latest fashion trends. At the end of
that day, a purchase of approximately $ 15,000 was made. The women bought
clothing, makeup and shoes and their men bought wines and multimedia products.
Two years ago, Eva received a
request from an architect. He wanted her to set-up an apartment for a customer
with the assistance of Eva’s personalized shopping service. The request
demanded that she arrange everything for the entire apartment, from towels to crockery
and cutlery to linens and kitchen appliances. What’s more, the customer had
given no budget! Eva took up the challenge and with the help of some
hardworking colleagues, successfully completed this job. For this assignment,
she transacted about $70,000 and even secured a follow-up order for the
decoration of a house.
This is a classic example of how
Eva used initiative and innovation to take customer experience to new levels of
amazing!
To read the stories of the other 2
finalists in this category, click here.
Roosevelt from Macy’s - Finalist
Roosevelt is no ordinary retail
associate; he’s a retail ninja. That’s because Roosevelt exceeds his customers’
expectations every single day. While helping a couple select outfits for an
upcoming cruise, Roosevelt took the time to offer multiple options and made
sure that they would be the best-dressed couple on the boat. This initiative
led the couple to send Roosevelt text messages and pictures saying,
"Everyone wants to know where we got our outfits from. We told them they
need to go see Roosevelt at Macy’s, White Marsh. Thank you for making us feel
like a million bucks. We will be back soon to see you!"
On another occasion, Roosevelt
helped a young man who came to shop for an upcoming interview. Roosevelt made
sure to dress him from head to toe and even dropped some advice on what to say
in the interview. Suffice to say, the young man was thrilled and also landed
the job!
Roosevelt is a powerhouse
combination of customer care and product knowledge. He consistently offers his
customers style options and educates them on the best and most appropriate
accessories for their outfits. His YouTube video series, Roosevelt Knot, which
demonstrates his excellent skills in tying ties has gone viral.
On one occasion, he went beyond
the "call of duty" and ran the Home Store during the biggest shopping
day of the year, Black Friday, while an Executive was out. Now, Roosevelt serves
as Sales Supervisor during the Holiday Season.
Little wonder why, for 2014, Roosevelt's sales were nearly
$100,000 more than the previous year.
John Kirby from Selfridges - Finalist
What happens when determination, time management, multi-tasking, trend
knowledge, drive and strong client networking converge? John Kirby;
that’s what happens.
When presented with the
opportunity to service a VIP client, who prefers to shop out of business hours
and stays until well after midnight, John took up the client and went well out
of his way to assist the customer. Additionally, when this client was hosting a
party John arranged for her favourite celebrity to attend it.
With expansive product knowledge
at his disposal, John was able to create massive amount of product and buying
options for his customers. This helped him in increase YTD sales per hour to
$635.00 compared to the department average of $269.00.
With a client book of 1000+
members, John continually strives to offer them specially tailored and useful
services. Once a client informed John about how he broke his back in an
accident. John immediately sent him a get well card and kept him up-to-date with
images of new products throughout his recovery, so that he didn’t miss out on
anything while he was bed-ridden. Post recovery, the client spent a great deal
of money in the store. What’s more, his wife is now John’s client too.
This level of personalization
combined with John’s extensive product knowledge has resulted in sales totaling
$1m, exceeding his previous year's
sales performance by +25%.
Initiative, insight, innovation
and imagination; these are the qualities that make successful leaders. Stay
tuned to our next newsletter! Until then, we hope these three stories have
inspired you to write your own story.
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