Career English: four key phrases you need as a sales assistant

If you work as a sales assistant in a shop popular with tourists, you are likely to get customers that only speak English. So here we have put together four key phrases you might find helpful in your sales conversation.

1. How can I help you? – As soon as the customer enters the door, this is a phrase you want to use to first address them. Add a greeting before the phrase such as ‘Hello’ or ‘Hi’ and you have a polite way of welcoming your customer. In response, your customer will tell you what they are looking for.

2. Our return policy is… – If you want to let your customer know what the rules are in case they want to return their purchase, this is the phrase to use. For example, you might say: “Our return policy is 30 days with a receipt.” This means that the customer has 30 days to return the product as long as they bring their receipt.

It’s on sale – If you are offering discounts on some of your products, you want to tell the customer that ‘it’s on sale.’ Also, you could make signs that say ‘Sale’ to let customers know that you are offering items at a discount.

4. Your total is… – Finally after you have entered your customer’s purchases on the till, you want to tell them how much money they owe you. Use this phrase and include the final amount. For example, “Your total is $29.95.”

Being confident in general English conversation is great. But being fluent in the language of your business is what will definitively seal your success. Following a growing number of requests for industry-specific content, we created the EF English Live Spin Courses, a great way of learning English phrases key to your industry.

image: Steve Snodgrass