Posted by: Diane Capuano

More and more paint retailers are discovering the advantages of online education via the PDRA Coatings Specialist Training Course. This course, introduced last spring by the Paint & Decorating Retailers Association, allows retailers and their salespeople to further their paint industry education while sitting in front of a computer.

Convenience is key with this course. The course is divided into 12 modules, allowing the student to stop and start the course in a way that suits his or her schedule. The advantage for paint stores, of course, is that they don’t have to lose their employees for an entire day or more, as is the case if they would have to go out of the store to take an all-day training course. The course also is set up so that it is easy for students to go back and review sections of the course to reinforce their learning.

The 12 modules in the course cover everything that retail salespeople need to know in order to sell architectural coatings, including comprehensive information on the technical aspects of paint, an expanded section on paint sundries, color and decorating information, and guidelines for customer service/selling skills. Each module also has a series of review questions.

The course concludes with a comprehensive exam. Those who achieve a passing score will be awarded a certicate that designates them as a PDRA Paint Specialist, which is something that paint stores can promote to show customers that they are the store with the best paint expertise in town.

Feedback from those who have taken the course has been positive. Complements from retailers call it “very easy to digest” and “a good refresher” for the experienced paint person. Retail salespeople, meanwhile, praised the course for its thorough coverage of the paint industry and for the convenience of taking it online, allowing them to access it any time they like, including early in the morning or late at night.

While this is the first online course produced by PDRA, additional courses will be added on a variety of subjects, including customer service and selling skills.

The PDRA Coatings Specialist Training Course is available at a discount to all PDRA members; multi-person discounts for members and non-members are also available. Click here for more details on how to purchase the course.

Tags: PDRA Coatings Specialist

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 3:41 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.