Retail is in a pressure cooker moment. Store teams are stretched. L&D programs are under scrutiny. And yet, expectations from the boardroom keep rising. Everyone’s asking the same question: how do we make performance more consistent without adding more to everyone’s plate?
That’s the question we tackled in our latest webinar, coaching that converts. Building on the conversation from our previous session on connecting insight to impact, this time we went deeper, into the store, onto the floor, and into the moments that actually drive results.
Zack Hamilton, Strategic Advisor at TruRating, was joined by Kayleigh Fazan, Founder of The International Retail Academy, for a high-energy, practical conversation on what coaching really looks like when it works—and how to scale it.
Watch coaching that converts
Key takeaways
Coaching is the bridge between insight and execution
Even with robust CX or VoC data, if that insight doesn’t connect to daily team behaviors, performance stalls. Zack introduced the “Retail Performance Layer“, a real-time system that links customer feedback to staff behavior and commercial impact. It’s what turns passive reporting into proactive coaching.
Real-time feedback unlocks real behavior change
The most effective coaching happens in the moment. TruRating’s data shows:
- Customers who are greeted spend 31% more
- When help is offered, baskets grow by 26%
- Saying “thank you” boosts likelihood to return
But these behaviors only occur consistently in top-performing stores. Without daily reinforcement, even the best teams default to task over service. Real-time insights give managers the signal they need to coach at shift level, not after the fact.
Training is an event. Coaching is a system.
Kayleigh shared how too many training programs are one-off, top-down, and forgotten by the time staff hit the floor. What sticks? Daily reinforcement by confident store leaders who know how to turn feedback into habit. She broke down:
- How to coach behaviors like UPT, greeting, and service posture
- Why some staff avoid customer interaction (and how to gently challenge it)
- How to coach even when you’re short-staffed or task-heavy
- Bottom quartile stores need coaching, not pressure
Not every store will lead on metrics, but every store can improve.
Zack and Kayleigh discussed how to:
- Spot underperformance early with behavioral data
- Use shift-level insight to adjust coaching schedules
- Coach low performers without damaging morale
- Start from the shop floor, not the boardroom
Too many new service models fail because they’re designed in head office without input from the people delivering them. Kayleigh emphasized co-creating training and coaching models with your store teams and area managers,not just for them.
Meet the speakers
Kayleigh Fazan is the Founder and Managing Director of the International Retail Academy (TIRA), a company built to transform retail from the inside out. After two decades in the industry, from the shop floor to senior leadership, Kayleigh saw a critical flaw in how brands approached training; it was being done at teams, not with them. That’s why she built TIRA to drive real impact through human-first coaching and culture change.
Her approach centers on designing programs that create confident, customer-obsessed store teams by focusing on mindset, behavior, and daily execution. She’s worked with major global retailers like B&Q, Rituals, Curry’s, and GAP to embed performance strategies that drive results.
Zack Hamilton brings decades of experience as a former VP of Store Ops, CXO, and executive advisor to 200+ retail brands. He led the rebuilding of the sales effectiveness model at North America’s largest rent-to-own retailer and now serves as Strategic Advisor at TruRating. Zack works with clients to connect customer behavior to store performance, helping turn feedback into fuel for execution, coaching, and commercial results.
How it builds on the last conversation
In our last webinar, we surfaced a powerful theme that insight without action doesn’t move the needle. CX teams have worked hard to build VoC programs, but without coaching systems at the store level, those insights rarely lead to behavior change.
As Zack said: “LMS videos don’t build skills. Coaching does. But only if it’s rooted in live, behavioral data.”
This next session picks up right where that one left off on how do we operationalize insight to create behavior change? How do we build coaching rhythms that stick? And how do we prove the ROI of service excellence in terms the CFO will understand?
The case for coaching, backed by one billion ratings
Coaching is no longer just a cultural initiative; it’s a commercial one. After analysing over one billion real-time customer ratings across all retail verticals, we found that small shifts in frontline behaviour can have a massive revenue impact.
But the problem is that most stores we analyzed only execute one or two of these behaviors per shift, and almost none consistently stack three or more. That’s where coaching comes in.
We found that when just two key behaviors are executed together, say, greeting and offering help, customer spend more than doubles compared to stores where only one is present. Yet, execution remains inconsistent across shifts, stores, and regions. Without a system to coach and reinforce these behaviors daily, the potential ROI gets left on the table.
If you want stronger ATV and conversion, better visibility into execution gaps, store managers who lead with confidence and learning programs that drive measurable change, then you need to make coaching a daily habit, not a quarterly initiative.
What’s next?
If you’re ready to turn coaching into a high-impact, everyday capability across your stores, TruRating can help. Our platform captures real-time behavioral feedback at the point of payment, then connects it to coaching systems your managers can use. With our help, HR and L&D teams can:
- Identify training gaps that affect performance
- Provide shift-level insight for live-time coaching
- Track improvement over time with commercial impact
- Equip managers to lead without needing more headcount or admin
If you’re looking to move beyond generic training and build a performance-driven culture from the floor up, we’d love to show you how.
Explore our customer feedback platform or book a walkthrough with our team today.
