You're not losing sales reps because retail is hard. You're losing them because you hired a resume instead of understanding the person.
Built for commissioned retail: telecom, furniture, electronics, and automotive. A 15-minute conversation reveals who can truly sell, so your floor is filled with top performers, not turnover. Available by voice or chat in 34 languages.
A bad hire doesn't show up in turnover first. It shows up in your sales.
Your reps earn on trust, resilience, and the ability to turn “no” into “yes.” A resume and a 10-minute interview won't tell you who has that.
The Revenue Leak
$10K-$25K per bad hire. One weak sales rep in a flagship store costs far more than recruiting fees. It drains revenue, misses upsell opportunities, hurts customer experience, and forces you to hire all over again.
Always Hiring
At 60-75% annual turnover, hiring is never really “done.” And one wrong hire doesn't just slow things down. It resets ramp time, breaks momentum, and quietly pulls down the performance of the entire floor.
The Promotion Gamble
Promote the wrong rep into management and you're looking at a six-month mistake that's hard to unwind, and even harder for the team to recover from.
What the data says about sales-driven retail.
Built for a chain, not a single store.
Headquarters defines each sales role once, and every store hires from the same ranked standard. Multi-language by default for the applicant pool you actually get.
Define what sells, once
Headquarters defines what “great” looks like for every role, from sales associate to store manager. Every store hires against the same standard, keeping brand consistency tight while ensuring hiring stays locally relevant.
Tera talks to every candidate
Fifteen minutes each, voice or chat, in 34 languages. Built for everyday hiring and for peak seasons, when applications jump from 30 to 300 in a week.
Each manager gets a ranked list
Candidates are scored on the signals that predict sales performance, backed by verbatim evidence. Store managers decide in 10 minutes, while headquarters sees performance patterns at 30, 60, and 90 days across every store.
Score every candidate on the signals that actually drive sales, not generic traits.
Personality tests weren't built for the sales floor and candidates can easily game them. A real conversation surfaces the signals that actually predict who closes.
Can they understand the person in front of them?
The instinct to understand the customer, not just follow the script. That's where every great sale begins.
How quickly do they recover from a “no” and move to the next opportunity?
Who pushes through an objection versus who folds after the first rejection of the shift.
Do they build the relationship that brings the customer back?
Repeat business and referrals. The reps who don't just close, they compound revenue over time.
Turnover-cost calculator.
Enter your numbers to see the annual cost of lost reps and what even a 20% improvement in retention gives you back.
Behavioral signals your resume screen can't see at the scale a chain actually hires.
of reps rated the conversation equal to or better than a human interview.
Candidate experience is your employer brand, and yours can't afford a bad one at volume.
reps reached back out on their own after screening.
When a rep follows up unprompted, that's usually someone who wants the job and sticks around longer.
retention lift is immediate ROI at 60-75% turnover.
The math works from the first region you turn it on.
One system. Every applicant, every store, every sales role, connected.
Fountain, Paradox, and HigherMe are built for compliance hiring, not sales.
The metrics you review every week are lagging indicators of hiring decisions made weeks earlier.
I ran a company that grew from 9 people to 40, and past 40 I stopped seeing the people behind the functions. In retail, every store has that same problem, multiplied by every manager. The math punishes you twice, at the cost line and at the register. We built Tera so you stop paying for both at the same time.
The questions retail ops leaders ask first.
Will my store managers actually use it across a region?
Store managers use what saves them time. Tera removes screening and hands back a ranked list with verbatim evidence per candidate. Most save hours per role, and become the loudest advocates by week two.
How does it handle seasonal hiring spikes?
Volume scales without limit, from 50 to 5,000 applicants in the same footprint. Spin up campaigns per store for the holiday spike, then shut them down. Pricing is volume-based, not seat-based.
Can it screen for actual selling ability, not just fit?
Yes. Every candidate is scored on customer orientation, resilience, and relationship building, the signals that predict close rate, each backed by a verbatim quote from the conversation.
How does it fit our existing payroll and scheduling tools?
The candidate flow runs through Tera, and the post-hire workflow stays in your existing payroll, scheduling, and applicant-tracking tools. Most chains are live in one to two weeks from signature.
What about compliance for AI-based screening?
Scores trace to the candidate's own words, not protected characteristics, so any audit (EEOC, NYC LL 144, Illinois AIVIA) can follow a decision back to what was actually said.
Run a pilot on your next 10 hires.
One region, one role. See the ranked candidates, the evidence, and the early-retention signal for yourself, before you roll it out across the chain.
Talk to us about your stores