CONFLICT TACTICS

CHAPTER FIVE OF MY LATEST BOOK

CONFLICT TACTICS

In this panic stage that we're living right now, you and your team are not always showing the respected they should from your customers. And from the community.

Social distancing rules are in place now. It's not something that you as a retailer have decided to do; it's the law. And it's not your fault.

But your customers still think it's okay to abuse and have a conflict with your frontline team, you've invested much time, energy, and money in your organisation. And it's just hard to believe, human nature.

And how some people are reacting. 

Your aspiration is that the abuse stops. It's just not acceptable.

I'm getting very frustrated with social media and negativity. It's relentless. And in no small degree, I believe it's fuelling. Some of the conflicts as people's frustrations, boil over.

You must be starting to get concerned that your team members, particularly your frontline team members, are going to be taking more time off for stress. Or even worse resigning and finding employment in other areas, or just taking up some of the government grants that are available to them.

I don't think there's ever actually been a better time to prepare your team about how to handle conflict. Even. Do you ever train your team about how to handle conflict? It is a learnable skill.

I have a local independent retailer near where I live. And the interpretation of the social distancing laws is part of the reason that there's so much conflict.

For example, as you probably do now, line markings on the floor to indicate how far you need to stand apart.

But it's evident that they haven't done any training, other than to say, you need to implement and enforce this new law on social distancing. Otherwise, we are going to be fined by the authorities.

But in this particular example, the retailer has the same colour tape on the ground. And as you approach the register, the checkout operator barks at you, “stand behind the line”.

But there are three different lines that you could choose, one's right next to the register one's 1.5 meters back, and another down another alley, it just would make a lot more sense to me as a customer to maybe have that colour coded.

So, if you're waiting in line, put your groceries on the checkout stand behind the yellow line.

As an exercise, put yourself in your customer's shoes, looked at the whole situation through their eyes, may go a long way to reducing some of this stress.

Here is some tactics, I can share with you to help reduce conflict.

#1. Getting your team trained, either as small groups of 2 groups or individuals and just helping them understand what is going on.

#2. There is nothing to be gain arguing with somebody who is stressed and aggravated.

#3. Who gets called in to help if the situation is getting out of control?

#4. How to match someone body language so you can get your point across.

#5. Maintain a safe distance at all times.

#6. Wear the uniform provided. Will portray authority.

#7. Ask the customer for there name and ask permission if you can call them by their first name.

It's very basic things but often you think that your team should know this, but they don't. They've never experienced situations like we're in right now.

So, the best tactic of reducing conflict is not to have conflict.

Look at the situation through your customer's eyes if you can eliminate the possibility of having conflict that would provide a lot more advantages that are trying to react.

And if you still are finding that your team are copying abuse. Think of employing a security guard as the last resort.

You could also do something really out of the box and ask some of your customers as they leave your premises. Put some feedback on how you could improve the experience cost you very little.

Spend 30 minutes once a week, asking customer as they leave. How could you do it better for them?

That certainly would get you ahead of the curve in the whole retailing situation right now.

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