Edition #30: How Your New Employees Are Killing The Telco Retail Experience

In this edition of Telco Talk, self-described telco retail aficionado & straight talker, Will Gibson, explores how the lack of staff training affects telco retail experiences – and how to get it right.

I’ve spent more hours in phone shops than I’d like to admit (I’m from Newcastle, England, so I don’t mince my words - we are known for it!).

And let me tell you, after a career in telecoms (and a penchant for wandering the high-street shops), there’s a very real pattern emerging: poorly trained new employees are torpedoing the customer experience - and ironically, making their own day-to-day lives harder.

If you want to crush your NPS and funnel your most loyal customers straight to the arms of your competitors, just skip out on proper induction programs. It’s that simple!

Here’s the harsh truth: It takes a long time for a new telco retail hire to become halfway decent. And yet, many retailers think a quick shadowing session and a half-hearted ‘eLearning’ module is enough. Spoiler alert: it isn’t.

In this edition of Telco Talk, I’ll examine why this lack of training is so problematic, show you some painful real-world examples, and then talk solutions.

Why Training Can’t Be Ignored In A Complex Industry

Telco retail is immensely complex – we’re not just selling SIM cards here! The telecoms industry is in constant flux. Seriously, the word “hectic” doesn’t do it justice. A new hire’s job isn’t just to “sell phones.” Here are just a few of the things they’ve got to master:

• The features and benefits of 50+ smartphones (and that’s just today; half of them will be obsolete or replaced by next season’s lineup in a few months).
• Prepaid pricing structures, including understanding top-up amounts, cost breakdowns, and how to top-up properly.
• Postpaid plans, including data whitelisting quirks (“Get unlimited Facebook usage without eating into your monthly data!”), add-ons, and top-tier premium plans with special perks.
• Logging into and using 5-6 different complex systems (POS, CRM, queuing platforms, and more!).
• Legal compliance, contract signing procedures, e-signatures, or how to do the old-school double copy for the store’s dusty filing cabinet. (For those telcos that STILL use paper in 2025, yes they walk among us!)
• Accepting cash and card payments, with all those fiddly bits around double-checking IDs and verifying amounts.
• Troubleshooting bills, sorting out irate customers who can’t understand their data overages, scheduling truck rolls for engineer visits, scanning out inventory (like set-top boxes or modems), porting numbers from other networks…The list goes on!

And that’s not even touching the actual customer side of things, like how to greet people, read their body language (knowing when to jump in or hang back), and deliver a slick product demo.

That’s a lot to learn. To cover all this material, you’d need a training program covers 12 weeks of consistent, in-depth learning, at minimum.

Yet time and again, I see new hires left to sink or swim after a couple of days. Maybe they’re given a battered binder of product info, told to follow “Dave” around for a shift, and then they’re let loose. It’s a recipe for frustration - for both staff and customers.

My Real World Experiences With Under-Trained Staff

In my career, I’ve experienced good and bad retail experiences firsthand. Here are two examples featured undertrained staff that stand out in my mind.

Example 1: Currys UK

The first example occurred at Currys, which is the largest consumer electronics retailer in the UK. It’s an equivalent to North America’s ‘Best Buy’, or Europe’s ‘MediaMarkt’.

Picture this: I popped into a Currys store looking for an HDMI-to-DisplayPort cable for my new desktop PC just last week. I wandered around the ground floor for five minutes, circling like a lost seagull. Finally, I spotted a staff member with a “Trainee” badge. She’s brand new, so I cut her some slack. But from the get-go, her lack of training was obvious - she looked terrified to engage with me.

When I eventually asked for help, she just kept shrugging and repeating, “I don’t know.” After a minute, she called over her more experienced colleague, Dave, without so much as a handover or an introduction. No “Hey Dave, can you help? This chap is after a DisplayPort cable,” or “Dave is our resident cable guru.” Nothing. I had to re-explain my problem from scratch.

Honestly, I’m not sure who was more uncomfortable: me or the poor trainee. It’s painful to see staff thrown into the deep end like that - no empowerment, no knowledge, no idea how to gracefully pass on a query when they’re out of their depth. She was probably just told to shadow a colleague for a few shifts, then left on her own.

If there had been proper training, especially in customer-facing soft skills, this scenario could have been handled brilliantly, leaving me delighted instead of disgruntled.

Example 2: Vodafone UK

This one takes the biscuit. As a business user (and ex-employee) of Vodafone, I went into one of their stores to add an iPad to my account for my wife. This turned into a fiasco so long and painful, I wrote a whole blog post about it (link here). But let’s zoom in on the new hires.

Three weeks – yes, three entire weeks - after my first visit, no update, no iPad, zilch. I trudged back to the store, only to face another marathon wait. The staff (including a “quite new” advisor) discovered that my order had been cancelled, possibly due to me “not responding” to some mystery communication. The blame game started: it was all Vodafone’s fault, or maybe it was my fault for not responding. But the store staff apparently had zero solutions up their sleeve.

No one took ownership. No one said, “Look mate, let me sort this out for you. I’m sorry about the mix-up.” Instead, there was shrugging, referencing disclaimers like, “We can’t process a refund here, you’ll have to call customer service.” So, I left empty-handed (and with a hundred quid deposit still floating somewhere in Vodafone’s coffers). Not a single person had the presence of mind to fix the issue, reassure me, or do a quick courtesy gesture like offering a coffee or scheduling a faster resolution.

Now, maybe the manager was busy, and maybe the new advisor was still learning the system. But that’s exactly the point. In telco retail, the systems are maddeningly complicated, and staff can’t wing it after one session of “onboarding.” They need to master the intricacies of payment, refunds, and escalation protocols. Customers should never be told “I can’t do that” without an immediate follow-up.

Three Hidden Cost of Dismal Training

If you don’t invest in a proper training program, there are tangible impacts to your business.

1. Loss of Sales and Reputation: When your staff can’t answer a question or solve a minor issue, customers walk straight across the street to your competitor. Or they jump online to that e-commerce giant we’re all too familiar with. Studies show a single negative experience can send 33% of customers straight to your competitor. Either way, you’ve lost not only the immediate sale, but potentially the long-term loyalty of a repeat customer.
2. Skyrocketing Churn: Unhappy customers aren’t the only ones who leave. Frustrated, under-equipped employees frequently quit too. You want high turnover? Just keep ignoring training. Replacing an employee is expensive - far more expensive than giving them decent training in the first place. 40% of employees are likely to leave their current job if they feel unsupported, costing you up to 30-50% of their annual salary to replace them.
3. Damaged Morale: Nobody likes feeling incompetent. If your new hires keep bumping into problems they can’t solve, they’ll internalise it, become disillusioned, and develop a “not my problem” attitude. A Gallup study found 87% of Millennials say professional development is crucial to their job satisfaction.

With stats like these, ignore training at your peril.

5 Steps To Turn Your Training Program Around

Right, enough doom and gloom, let’s talk solutions. Yes, training can be a slog. Yes, it costs money. But it’s an investment, not an expense, and it pays off massively in staff confidence, customer loyalty, and brand reputation. Here’s how:

1. Develop a Proper 12-Week Induction Program: Forget the standard “two days and you’re good to go” routine. You need a structured plan that covers product knowledge, system mastery, and crucially, customer interaction skills. Start with smaller knowledge chunks, like how to navigate the POS, then build up to advanced tasks like scheduling engineer visits or troubleshooting complicated data packages. Make sure there’s a blend of on-the-floor practice and classroom/off-job training.
2. Focus on Soft Skills: Teaching your staff how to approach customers might seem like common sense, but trust me, it isn’t. The difference between “Can I help you?” barked across the shop and a warm “Hiya, mate, what brings you in today?” can make or break a sale. Invest in role-playing scenarios: from greeting customers to handling complicated returns, each step should be practiced before staff are left solo.
3. Product and System Mastery: Telecoms retail is detail-heavy. If your newbie can’t remember which plan includes free social media usage or how to properly log a deposit, you’ll get meltdown after meltdown at checkout. Don’t just bury them in reading material; quiz them, set up practice scenarios, and ensure they’re comfortable with each system before day one on the floor.
4. Empower Staff to Solve Problems: If the system is glitchy or a procedure is unusual, give employees the authority and the confidence to do what it takes to keep a customer happy. That might be calling a dedicated helpline, offering a goodwill gesture, or arranging a call-back if needed. When staff know they have the tools and permission to fix issues, they’ll take ownership instead of shrugging helplessly.
5. Ongoing Mentorship & Feedback: Pair new hires with seasoned staff who actually enjoy mentoring. Offer weekly check-ins, celebrate successes, and correct mistakes in a constructive manner. This prevents minor misunderstandings from snowballing into epic fails (like losing a deposit for weeks on end).

Final Thoughts: There’s No Excuse

In an age where we can all learn anything from YouTube tutorials or online courses, there’s no excuse for poor training. If a new starter is flailing around with the basics, that’s a failure of leadership, not the individual. Telcos and retailers often chase their tails worrying about this week’s sales targets, ignoring the fact that under-skilled staff are literally turning away business in real-time.

Yes, a good induction takes effort. It’s more than plonking a trainee on the shop floor with a name badge. But trust me, when your team is properly trained, it transforms your store’s energy. Staff feel confident and supported, customers trust the advice they’re getting, and you’ll see the payoff in glowing reviews and soaring sales figures.

So, if your brand-new employees are fumbling, shrugging, and throwing the blame around, it’s time to wake up. Invest in a robust, 12-week induction that covers the trifecta of soft skills, product knowledge, and system know-how. If you can’t do that – at least invest in a specific sales-training event for your staff, even those who have been with you a while. Make sure managers mentor, and the culture encourages problem-solving rather than passing the buck. Do that, and you’ll have a store full of unstoppable brand ambassadors - and fewer cringe-worthy blogs written by disgruntled ex-customers like me.

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