Developing a Framework for Informal Training/Learning for Retail Store Employees in India

Providing stellar customer service has become more important than ever before. COVID-19 has reshaped consumer behavior and their needs, and digitalization has accelerated the change. When shopping and browsing are just at the tip of your fingers, where does it leave the brick and mortar stores? The pandemic has struck the retail industry the hardest. To cut costs, many brands have restricted their marketing and training budgets, whereas many had to let go of their employees. With resources at a shrink, it is tricky to provide the stellar customer service that consumers expect. This paper aims to develop a framework on informal training for the retail frontline employees, from the existing resources that a retail brand has, that is the customer service experience of the frontline employees. To develop the framework, this paper aims to review the present literature on informal training/learning. Also, a survey is done on 90 front-end retail employees to understand their learning and development process (formal and informal training). The survey further evaluates how their experience in customer service can be leveraged in a structured learning process for their colleagues. In this paper, ‘Retail’ is referred to as a physical format store.