A good sales person will have developed a repor with their clients and will have managed to gather personal information (collecting their business card, cell phone # etc). It is impossible to control the flow of information between your sales help and the customer, but you can make certain that your stores presence is what makes the difference in the sale. Let your customers know that it is your store that stands behind the product, if needed will service the item and looks forward in seeing them again. The best way to know what your salespeople are really doing is with Video Mgt. systems that integrate with your pos system. It will signal any abnormal activity that may be a concern to you. Marc Cohen

Data policies are likely to vary considerably for store to store and owner to owner. That said, a top down approach would probably work in most situations. Establish and communicate a clear policy on all customer related data. Done properly, this can also be used as a sales point that can be applied to foster a sale; “we have a strict policy about safeguarding our customer’s information.” 1. All customer information is valuable and should be safeguarded at the same level as their jewelry. 2. Reviewing, sharing, or duplicating customer information is strictly limited to management personnel. With these or similar policies in place, and understood by the staff, your efforts to “lock up” the data will be in context and not seen as a sign of distrust of the staff.

This may be naive, however would the use of a contract for employment with a confidentiality agreement plus stipulation that the employee would not take any information that belongs to the store with them. When I hire people to work for me they sign an agreement about confidentiality, taking intellectual information (suppliers, etc) and taking any company/corporate info out with them either via documents or in their own writing. If subsequently they use it, and we find out, there will be a legal problem. This is in Canada mind you. Similar in concept to a confidentiality agreement on settlement of a legal action. Also, in some employment contracts there is a non compete clause so you can't even work in the same field for a specified period of time. If sales folks are good - they can sell more than just jewellery, no? Just my 2.5 cents worth.