Behind the scenes of Avril….
- Lili
- 9 nov. 2020
- 3 min de lecture
The other day, I had a really interesting talk with a sales assistant working in one of Avril’s stores in Lille. This is why I wanted to share it with you!
She was a student working 10 hours a week since the beginning of March, and I was really surprised because she was able to perfectly answer almost all my questions, she knew a lot of different things about the brand, even though she has not been working for Avril since a long time.
For example, she knew that the design of each Avril’s store is made by a different architect, and is inspired by the place in which it is located. She even told me that the ceiling of the shop where she works has a very linear structure to represent the rails of the train, as it is located in a railway station.
Thanks to this discussion with her, I can say that Avril is making sure that all of its salespeople are properly trained before starting to work in the store, and that they develop a deep understanding of the brand, its engagements towards the environment, etc. They have a first training day about the brand, the products and the labels, and a second one dedicated to make-up, during the one they learn how to make up customers. They can also have access at any time to some online training about various subjects on a platform called 360 Learning.
While she was talking, I also realized that she knew the different products very well and that she could explain their properties as well as the way to apply them. I really felt that she manipulated the vocabulary related to beauty and skincare products very well and that she felt comfortable talking about it.
However, there are still some answers she gave me that I wasn’t expected. For example, when I asked her about Avril’s values, she was able to tell me about the organic one, and she also mentioned the simplicity, which is also an important part of the brand’s philosophy, but she didn’t state the ones of quality, accessibility, and proximity.
The first part of one of her answers also surprised me a lot! Indeed, when I asked her how the brand can have such low prices, she starts by saying that as the packaging of its products were made of plastic, it lowered their cost. She added that even if plastic is more pollutive, this allows them to respect their promise of offering organic cosmetics accessible to everybody. This, in my opinion, goes completely against Avril’s engagement of trying to reduce at the maximum its impact on the environment, so I was a bit disappointed to hear that.
This illustrates well the quote from W. Buffet, which says that « it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it ». Even if this will probably not lead to the brand’s failure, it shows the impact that employees can have on the perception of the brand, and that it is really important to make sure that everyone in the company has the same discourse concerning, among other things, the brand’s practices.
Another question I have asked her that could have been asked by a customer is the difference between the « COSMOS ORGANIC » label and the « COSMETIQUE BIOLOGIQUE » one. It turns out that she didn’t really know how to answer this question, she was confused and couldn’t remember well, which can be because she has not been working in the store for almost a month because of the COVID-19 restrictions.
In order to avoid this situation when the stores will be allowed to open again, Avril could encourage its salespeople to continue to follow small training courses via the platform 360 Learning.
I would still like to finish by saying that, considering all the questions, sometimes specific ones, I have asked her, she was able to answer most of them in a developed way, sometimes even justifying her answers. This shows that Avril is putting all the means in place to ensure that its salespeople can provide the necessary information about the brand and the products to potential customers.
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