Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations Course

Do you have employees who work in either retail or hospitality that could benefit from learning how to deliver consistently great customer experiences for your customers?

Would your business benefit from happier customers and more sales?

When interacting with customers in a face-to-face environment such as retail or hospitality, there are a myriad of skills that come into play, including how to engage effectively with customers, handle objections, take orders, display empathy, take ownership, etc.

With decades of experience working directly in the customer service industry, we’ve designed this Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course to deliver what we consider the fundamental customer service skills required for anyone who works in a role that deals with customers either face-to-face or via the odd phone call such as retail assistants, hospitality staff, etc.

Aligned with the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) Quality Standards, along with leading body language and conflict-resolution skills, your employees will be taught the skills that are proven to deliver improved customer (and business) outcomes.

The Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course combines some of our most popular short courses into one handy course covering the essential skills for interacting with customers either in person or over the phone for both customer service and sales, along with how to handle objections/difficult customers.

Delivered over 2 x 3-hour online sessions (total of six hours of live, expert training), your employees will be coached to progressively learn, build and apply new habits and skills in a structured manner that will positively transform their psychology and performance in how to interact with customers.

If you’re looking for a great all-around course that will return the investment you make in training your employees with an immediate uplift in happier customers and more sales, this is one course not to be missed!

Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Training Foundations course

Learn more about the course by scrolling below or jump straight to a section:

Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course Fast Facts

  • 2 x 3-Hour modules (6 hours in total) of live, facilitated training by industry experts, so it’s easy to schedule with minimal operational impact.
  • Suitable for any employee interacting with customers in a face-to-face/in-person/retail setting.
  • Employees will learn leading customer service and sales techniques that are designed to have an immediate impact.
  • All sessions are delivered live & online with high engagement (learn and laugh!).

Optimised for online learning (virtual training)

This course has been specifically adapted to be delivered online so your employees can dial in from either the workplace or from home, with employee engagement and learning outcomes enhanced by the short bursts of interactive and engaging development methods.

Whilst intuitively, retail training would be delivered in person, the skills taught are easily conveyed via online training without impacting the training outcomes (except for the lower price!).

Being online, it is easily accessible to anyone with an internet browser, whether they are in a retail store, staff room, office, or working remotely from home or across different locations.

The Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Training Foundations course will introduce and coach your employees through the essential behaviours needed for superior in-person customer service that results in more satisfied customers and more revenue.

Two short, 3-hour modules enable you the flexibility to schedule the training with minimal disruption for your business, as well as deliver improved learning outcomes via progressive learning (instead of cramming everything in and retaining very little).

For private bookings of this course, we can also conduct online/virtual training outside of standard business hours to ensure there is no disruption to your business whilst your employees receive training.

Online Customer Service Training course for Hospitality workers
Employees can dial in either from work or from home!

Course Suitability

Hospitality Customer Service Training course

The Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course has been designed to help any employees who work in a role that interacts with customers face to face/in person such as retail workers and hospitality staff.

The 2 x 3-hour sessions have been designed to be delivered in a structured manner enabling your employees to learn and apply their new skills in between the different modules.

The skills we teach are applicable to all industries, products and services!

Typical roles include:

  • Retail staff (retail/shop assistants, retail sales assistants, etc.).
  • Hospitality staff (Wait staff, bar staff, restaurant/cafe staff, hotel employees, baristas etc.).
  • Receptionists/Front of house roles.
  • Customer service staff.
  • All frontline staff who interact with customers face-to-face/in-person.

If you are looking for shorter or more targeted course options, we have a range of alternative courses, including our Retail Sales & Service Essentials (a shorter version of this course at just 3 hours), Retail Sales & Service PRO (the extended version of this course with 9 hours of training delivered via 3 x 3-hour sessions), Customer Service ExcellenceManaging Difficult Customers and lots more!

View all our Customer Service Courses >

What your employees will learn:

The Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course is designed to equip employees with the essential skills they need to work in a role that involves working with customers on a consistent basis.

How to have better conversations with customers, how to ensure customers’ needs are met, how to handle tough situations and how to ensure your employees can consistently perform at their best are all covered in this course that pulls content from some of our most popular courses and rolls them into one!

There’s plenty of role-playing, interaction and practice included to ensure your employees can put their new skills to work with the training conducted in a safe, fun and welcoming online environment.

At the end of the course, your employees will be provided with a certificate of achievement, and most importantly, they’ll be empowered with new skills that will help them succeed in their job and deliver improved outcomes for your business.

Key course outcomes include: 

Retail Customer Service Foundations training course outcomes
  • In-person/face-to-face customer service skills that enable your employees to engage customers with the confidence to deliver experiences that will improve the outcomes for your business (i.e. improved customer service, more sales, higher retention, etc.)
  • Skills to handle difficult customers that will reduce anxiety in your staff in how to handle those tough situations and ensure your business has a reduced level of frustrated customers.

Six hours of training delivered over 2 x 3-hour Sessions 

The public version of the Customer Service Foundations course is a six-hour training course spaced out over 2 x 3-hour sessions to minimise the impact on your operations and enable employees time to learn and apply their new skills in between each session.

This course can also be conducted privately,  which provides greater flexibility with the dates, times and duration of the course (e.g. we could deliver one 3-hour session per week for three weeks, complete all the sessions in consecutive days, run the sessions only in the mornings or afternoons during your quieter periods etc.) and the content can be customised to suit your exact requirements.

Session 1 - 3 Hours

We will teach your employees the critical skills and behaviours for enhanced customer interactions that are used by the most successful customer service employees in the world to deliver superior customer experiences.

1. The Psychology of Customer Service & Sales

This module sets the scene about what customers want and need to purchase based on decades of research and why customer experience (CX) is crucial to business success.

2. How to Start and Finish any Customer Interaction

Your employees will learn how to create a strong first impression by showing strong ownership and intent, managing expectations and building trust and confidence.

They’ll also learn how to avoid those often awkward, clunky finishes through a simple method of strong final checks, expressions of gratitude and thanks in a warm farewell that leaves a positive impression.

3. Body Language & Voice Projection

Participants will explore and practice the use of good posture, breathing, vocal delivery and body language to enable strong face-to-face communication that builds confidence and trust in customers resulting in better customer service and more sales!

Session 2 - 3 Hours

In session two, your employees will learn how to ensure your customers are satisfied, resulting in better outcomes for your business.

Dealing with frustrated customers is inevitable in any retail or hospitality job, so in this module, we’ll also equip your employees with the skills and confidence to handle difficult customer situations.

4. Needs Discovery

We’ll teach your employees techniques used by the FBI for enhanced customer conversations that efficiently and effectively identify and confirm what customers wish to achieve through your products and services (for sales) or get to the root cause of any issues (for service).

5. How to Educate & Inform for Success

Participants will learn how to proactively educate and inform customers through consistent checks of understanding, comfort and suitability with key information and solutions provided.

6. Handling Difficult Customers

With increased levels of customer frustration, we’ll teach your employees various vocal and body language techniques used to diffuse heightened customer emotions and how to respond to more inappropriate customer behaviours.

Other courses suitable for retail and hospitality workers include Retail Sales & Service Essentials (short 3-hour course), Retail Sales & Service PRO (9-hour course), Customer Service Foundations (same as this course but more focus on service, not sales) & Managing Difficult Customers (8-hour course). 

Search all Customer Service training courses > 

About CX Skills

CX Skills is a specialist training business that only delivers customer service, customer experience (CX), contact centre, workforce optimisation (WFM/WFO) and workplace wellness courses designed and facilitated exclusively by industry professionals.

We're the official training provider of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA), and we are proudly Australian-owned and operated.

We’re grateful to have been trusted by hundreds of customers, and we’re proud of the amazing customer testimonials we’ve received, so you can rest assured that when you book a training course with CX Skills, your training is in good hands.

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Pricing and Payment Options

The price for this Retail and Hospitality Sales and Service Foundations course is $428 AUD per person ex GST for the entire six hours of online facilitated learning (2 x 3-hour sessions) with discounts available for multiple employees.

Select the preferred date at the bottom of this page to purchase tickets to that course or speak to us about a private booking just for your employees.

Each employee who attends the training will receive:

  • Six hours of live, facilitated training.
  • Course workbook containing key action points and prompters.

Payment for the course can be made by credit card, or you can request an invoice (payment must be received before the course commences).

Available Discounts

  • Save 15%  when booking for three or more staff in the same transaction (note: the discount will be applied on the final checkout page, and no other discounts apply).
  • ACXPA Members save 25% off all CX Skills courses (including this one!), plus membership includes 15 self-paced training courses and a host of other benefits. Learn More >
  • Want to train your whole team or multiple employees?  Contact us for volume-based pricing and availability.
Serving customers training course

Do you have any questions about the Retail and Hospitality Sales & Service Foundations course?

Contact us on +61 3 9008 7287 between 08:30 to 17:30 AEST/AEDT (Melbourne, Australia) Monday to Friday, or complete the form below and send us a message anytime.

Purchase a ticket to a public Retail and Hospitality Sales and Service Foundations Course

All the publicly available Retail and Hospitality Sales and Service Foundations courses are listed below – click on your preferred date to purchase tickets.

Tickets can be purchased instantly with a credit card, or you can request an invoice on the checkout page.

If you have larger numbers (more than 6) and would like more flexibility with dates and times, contact us for pricing and availability on a private course.

New public course dates are published on a regular basis!

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This course is available for private bookings!

The course is also available to be delivered privately just for your employees, either onsite or online/virtually, with dates and times to suit you.

Contact us for more information >