How Do You Keep Your Staff from Taking Customer Info When They Leave?
Most my new staff have come from other local independent stores—the first question they asked me is, “Do I have preprinted cards that we could send out to let our old customer’s know that we have moved?”
My answer…”If you have their personal information, because over time you have become friends with them then great—but by NO means am I asking you to take information from another store. If things didn’t work out with any staff member here I would not allow anyone to take customer info and I wouldn’t like if anyone went behind my back and took the info themselves.
So—how do you prevent your staff from taking the info themselves? From my understanding confidentiality agreements don’t hold up.
What about keeping the info secure—restricted access for the POS? My staff cannot pull up reports with lists of customer’s phone numbers and addresses—but if they really wanted to they could go through the computer and look up one by one and print out or handwrite each one of their addresses.
Do you have a better way of keeping customer info confidential?
RDH6 commented:
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.
John2007 commented:
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.
marc cohen commented:
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
