With customers griping, retailers finally get the message

Unless you shop exclusively online, you've probably sensed a change for the worse in America's sales force. Consider these recent real-life tales from the customer-relations crypt:

• An associate at a consumer- electronics store keeps pitching an extended warranty even after a customer has declined it - twice.

• Under orders, checkout clerks at a growing apparel company demand e-mail addresses from customers.

• A financial-services firm decides to reduce wait times for customers, only to learn later that this was never an issue for clients. What they want, a consultant finds, is more respect.

Customer complaints are way up, according to the latest statistics. And the usual explanations - a worker shortage, Gen-X indifference - seem to fall short. The real issue, some experts say: a lack of effective training.

On that score, there's hope. Pressed to find new ways to gain a competitive edge, firms now appear to be advancing on that front. One indication: The trickle of training dollars, some of it routed into cost-effective, high-tech programs, appears set to become a stream.

"We've had clients lately who have asked us to not just measure customer satisfaction and loyalty but also to help them gain some insight into how to improve their training programs so that their front lines would be more effective," says Jack Mackey, vice president of Service Management Group, a company in Kansas City, Mo., that helps more than 70 brands build loyalty.

The extra training comes none too soon. Consumer complaints to the Better Business Bureau against US retail stores doubled - a jump of 104 percent overall - between 2000 and 2003. Many of those involve customer interactions with sales people.

Companies are waking up to the problem because a positive "people experience" is key to success. For example: Nearly 70 percent of respondents said it matters most in building satisfaction and loyalty, according to a survey by Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality.

"There simply is no other company" for consumers than the one embodied by workers they meet, Mr. Mackey says.

That's why retailers - from superstores to specialty shops - are sharpening employee training. At big-box retailers, for example, expect more product expertise, says Michael Patrick, president of MOHR Access, a retail-training and consulting firm in Ridgewood, N.J.

Last March, audio-video chain Tweeter teamed up with OutStart, a training firm that uses online instruction. With 2,600 sales and installation associates in 175 stores in 21 states, Tweeter wanted to provide employees with just-in-time access to information about its evolving product line, a spokesman for OutStart explains.

Similar training at Best Buy was found to boost sales of some items by as much as 20 percent, according to a June report by Forrester Research.

At smaller specialty-retail stores and service providers, look for the results of what Mr. Patrick calls "pioneering efforts" to go beyond standard meet-and-greet training.

"One of the things we're seeing is [efforts by firms] to make themselves unique," Patrick says. "More intimate relationships, like fitting-room selling, or more complicated sales, like selling to friends or to multiple parties."

That focus on "unique selling situations," he says, calls for higher levels of training that can be very nuanced.

In the case of the company that was turning off shoppers with its blunt requests for e-mail addresses, for example, Patrick's firm suggested a softer approach: Sales associates began explaining the benefits of joining the electronic mailing list while the customer was still out on the floor. Many cooperated and the database grew.

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