Training for retail stores

Why is training important?

Thinking about how to approach today’s topic, my mind immediately went back to my school days, then to university, and finally to the hours spent learning procedures and studying to perform my job to the best of my ability. Because, in the end, what is life if not continuous learning?

Especially in today’s world, where everything changes so quickly, it becomes challenging to understand the dynamics of various phenomena, learn rapidly, and adapt to change with a fresh mindset.

But why am I telling you all this? Because this applies now more than ever to technology.

Every day, we work on projects that bring innovation, new features, and process improvements, which, over just a few years, are reworked, refined, or sometimes even replaced because they have become obsolete.

Amid all these changes are the people who use these technologies — who may feel lost when a piece of software is replaced, new features are added, certain procedures are modified, or when there are major changes in general!

At Aton, we know this all too well, because for decades we have been supporting store and head office operators in resolving issues related to technology or in answering how-to questions, through studying our clients’ systems and procedures.

Retail store training: what our trainers do

Aton’s trainers:

• organise on-site meetings in retail stores and at our clients’ headquarters to experience everything that happens on the front line, analysing user targets and needs
• collaborate with store staff, department heads, area managers, and executives to gather information and suggest ideas for improvement.
• train clients to gain detailed knowledge of the systems in use and their specific features, whether developed by aton or by external suppliers
• map the suppliers we contact in the event of an escalation
• produce functional and procedural manuals for fast, effective troubleshooting.
• provide “hypercare” support to be ready and responsive in the event of new releases and applications
• coordinate and deliver training sessions, on-site or remotely, with selected stakeholders, aiming to optimise both the time and the quality of the training

How do we approach retail store training at Aton?

• Physically, by setting up in-person or virtual classrooms to transfer all our knowledge of our clients’ systems.
• Through video capsules to facilitate the onboarding of new colleagues, the introduction of new features, and the review of unclear procedures. In addition, we check content retention by administering questionnaires to monitor employees’ learning progress.
• With artificial intelligence, by making manuals available to our AI engine for immediate consultation. In this case, we work alongside our clients to identify the most effective ways for users to interact with the system, providing a smart tool not only for training but also for troubleshooting and for the “intelligent” opening of tickets directly from mobile devices.

Training is a subject I am passionate about, precisely because it must be built together with our clients and, more than anything else, it leads us to say that you never stop learning!

See you in the next article!