Top 7 KPIs for Retail Training Programs

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Training is something that corporate leadership tends to take for granted, but there is real value in engaging and well-designed retail training programs. As a learning and development professional, how can you show your management the value of training for your company?

In this article, we will cover why retail training is essential, HR and retail-specific metrics that you can track to show your return on investment and even steps to consider when launching a retail training program.

Why Retail Training Is So Important

In a world dominated by eCommerce, brick and mortar retailers need every competitive advantage they can get to stay relevant and profitable. Retail employees can be that advantage. Proper training and development will improve employee retention, increase sales, and build a successful store.

Here are a few essential areas of retail training:

• Retail Onboarding – getting employees acquainted with the company, branding, and processes
• Customer Service – from navigating difficult conversations to service with a smile
• Product Knowledge – your retail employees, should be the experts on your product offerings and capabilities
• Sales – from customer assistance to closing the sale, even upselling and cross-selling
• Safety – prepare for dangerous situations such as fires, natural disasters, violent customers, shoplifters, or even armed robberies.

Read More: 5 Ways To Use AR and VR for Retail Training

HR Training Key Performance Indicators

LinkedIn Learning reports that 49% of L&D professionals are challenged with getting managers to make learning a priority for their teams. 

Tracking your key performance indicators is crucial for learning and development professionals. Everything in a business needs to show return on investment; otherwise, you risk getting your budget cut, or worse, your entire program could get cut. 

Course Completion Rate

The course completion rate shows you how many employees have successfully completed your training program. Whether it’s measured by modules, by lessons, or by programs, you should measure how many employees start and successfully finish the training assigned to them. 

Low course completion rates can be attributed to poor communication in the training, weak incentives, or inability for the employees to keep up with the material.

• How to calculate completion rate: Number of completions ÷ Number of employees participating x 100
• Example: “Maintain a 90% completion rate for all training modules.”

Assessment Pass Rate

The assessment pass rate shows how well your employees retain and recall their training. This metric only works if you have assessments in your training program applicable to the content.

A low pass rate can be attributed to the content being delivered in a way that the employees aren’t retaining, the assessment not realistically applying the content or material that is too advanced.

• How to calculate pass rate: Number of employees passed ÷ Number of learners x 100
• Example: “Maintain a 90% pass rate for all training modules.”

Employee Retention Rate

According to LinkedIn Learning, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development. Measuring the employee retention rate will show you the percentage of employees that are still with your company after a certain period of time, most commonly used is 90 days. Proper orientation and onboarding can have a considerable effect on your retention rate.

A low retention rate can be attributed to hiring people that are not a good fit for the company or position, improper onboarding, or low employee satisfaction.

• How to calculate employee rate: Number of employees still employed ÷ Number of employees at the start of measurement period x 100
• Example: “Meet at least a 70% employee retention rate for all store locations.”

Download Now: [Infographic] KPIs for Employee Training 

Retail Training Key Performance Indicators

Successful training programs affect business performance, work with your management team to measure store performance metrics before and after the implementation of a training program.

Sales Per Employee

Measuring sales per employee shows how productive your employees on the floor are at helping customers find the right products and closing the sales. 

Low sales per employee can be attributed to employees that don’t have excellent product knowledge, poor customer interaction, or even too many employees on the floor.

• How to calculate sales per employee: Net revenue ÷ Number of employees
• Example: “Increase the number of sales per employee by 10 units per shift within the next 90 days.”

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate shows you how effective your team is at making sales to people that walk through the door. You don’t want potential customers to leave empty-handed or unhappy.

Low conversion rates can be attributed to employees with weak customer service, but also improper store layout or ineffective marketing.

• How to calculate conversion rate: Total number of sales ÷ Number of visitors
• Example: “Increase conversion rate by 5% before the end of the quarter.”

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate metric that drives B2C businesses. The most commonly used metric for customer satisfaction is the Net Promoter Score.

Low NPS can be attributed to employees with poor customer service, lacking product knowledge, or even the quality of the products.

• Read: Net Promoter Score® Calculation 
• Example: “Increase NPS by 20 by the end of the year.”

Average Transaction Value

The average transaction value measures how much money customers are spending when they visit. This can be increased by upselling, cross-selling, and excellent product knowledge.

Low average transaction value can be attributed to lacking product knowledge or sales training.

• How to calculate transaction value: Total number of sales ÷ Number of transactions
• Example: “Increase transaction value by 10% before the end of the fiscal year.”

Designing and Launching a Retail Training Program

Outline Your Training Program Goals – Employers provide training courses so that employees may be readily equipped with the tools they need, develop new skill-sets, or even to learn the ins and outs of a new process. Set clear learning objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on what your employees need in order to be successful.

Choose Your Modalities – Your retail employees may be new to the workforce, might not have desks and computers, and they have to learn quickly. Be sure to choose modalities that fit your content and learning style of your employees.

Audit Your Current Materials – Gather everything you currently have so you can audit what worked and what didn’t; there may be opportunities to evolve materials you already have into a new format.

Develop Content and Materials for Your Program – Depending on your budget, you may be able to leverage your learning development partner for some of this work, or perhaps hire internally for this task.

Run a Pilot – Run a small pilot group through your program, watch your timing, what works, what doesn’t, and how the group reacts to your content and technology. Be sure to collect extensive feedback.

Fine Tune and Launch – Review what happened during your pilot, make your updates, and launch for your employees.

Evaluate Results and Program Effectiveness – Revisit those critical Key Performance Indicators and use them to measure the success of your program.

Do You Measure Up?

In this article, we covered why retail training is essential, top KPIs for retail training that you can track to show your return on investment and even the steps to consider when launching a retail training program. Are you ready to show your management the value of training for your company?