Retail customers get impatient and frustrated when they have trouble getting served. Even if they buy something, they may leave dissatisfied with the quality of service they received. So, when they have similar needs in the future, the odds are they'll go elsewhere to shop. Especially in today's economy, you can't afford to lose customers due to inadequate staffing.

You also can't afford to have salespeople concerned about getting customers out the door so quickly that they don't take the time to maximise each sale. Add-on sales are important to your bottom line, and you could be preventing add-ons from occurring if your salespeople have to rush to service everyone in the store.

Who's on your floor?

Before attempting to determine how many salespeople you should have on the floor and when, let's review which salespeople should be on the floor at which times. Let's say you have three full-time and three or four part-time salespeople. The full-time people probably want to work during the week and have as much of the weekend off as possible. So, you use the part-timers to fill in on weekends when the store is most likely to have a higher traffic volume. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Why wouldn't you want your A-team working during the busiest hours? Use your part-time sales staff on Tuesday mornings when you could go bowling in your store and not hit a customer.

Anyone who's even a little serious about retail should realise working weekends is a reality, especially if all or part of their pay is based on commission. Why wouldn't anyone want to work on the day he or she stands to make the most sales --and earn the most money? As an owner or manager, do your full-time staff a favour and make it clear they're expected to work weekends, aside from special requests for a day off from time to time.

Reviewing your compensation structure

If your current pay plan isn't structured with a commission or incentive plan, you may be making a grave error. Why? You're not paying your staff based on their sales production. And if you don't pay people on their sales production, they may be more concerned with getting operational tasks done than making sure every customer walks out with a purchase.

Reviewing your compensation structure is the first step in manpower planning. Otherwise you may be underestimating the potential your current sales staff has to sell during their scheduled hours.

Determining the appropriate number of salespeople

The next step is to determine whether you really do need more people on the floor. For most retailers, the simplest way to do this is to look at the sales per hour your current staff is generating. As a general rule, salespeople should be able to sell at least 10 times their hourly wage. For example, if a salesperson earns $13.00 per hour, he or she should sell a minimum average of $130.00 per hour over the course of a week. The exception to this is in industries that sell high-ticket items such as jewellery, spas or furniture. Here, sales per hour may be inconsequential if salespeople work on straight commission.

If your store's sales-per-hour figure is lower than the 10-times factor, you may be overstaffed and may need to cut hours or simply schedule more efficiently. On the other hand, if sales per hour are significantly higher than the 10-times factor, add more personnel.

Taking a reading on the register every hour or two for a few weeks will help you determine if there are times when additional staff should be scheduled or cut back, when to begin a second shift, when to schedule breaks, etc. Look at the number of transactions per hour to get a better estimate of the volume of traffic in your store.

Don't get so wrapped up in the day-to-day chaos of your business that you're unaware of the effectiveness of your wage dollars. Even more important, you don't want potential customers walking out your doors because you're understaffed. Spend some time analyzing your current staffing situation, fix it and prosper. If you need advice, we're here to help.

by Harry Friedman