Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, is applying new strategies to improve customer’s experience. The most visible one is that the company will be adding more employees to the doors. Employees who will be wearing yellow vests to make it easier for customers to spot them and ask for help. The retailer expects this move will enhance service quality and help reduce rates of shoplifting at the same time.
In a blog post this week, Walmart said these specially trained workers, known as customer hosts, will greet people as soon as they walk in. In addition to assist customers with returns to give a better first impression, so they can feel welcomed and motivated to stay.
Employees at the door will be also tasked with detecting potential shoplifters by checking receipts when they considered it appropriate. The company hopes this measure will help keep entrances safe and clean as well.
Walmart is set to provide a better first impression on its customers
The retailer will expand a successful pilot program it started last year in a handful of stores across the country. The customer hosts will be in most U.S. stores by mid-summer. Especially in those stores where the risk of shoplifting is higher. Aside from all the details Walmart is taking into account, it is studying data on safety, security and shopping losses to figure out the best ways to staff its entrances.
“Providing customers with an excellent first impression is part of Walmart’s broader strategy to ensure simpler, more convenient shopping. Focusing more on our greeters is one of a whole host of details we’re looking at – it just happens to be a very visible one”, Walmart’s post reads.
Given the key role of greeters in the company’s corporative culture, Walmart is confident that taking the program to a larger group of stores will contribute to a better customer experience.
Improving service quality to face competitors
Other strategies used by the discounter to improve the shopping experience include increased wages for its hourly workers, cleaner stores and extra cash registers during busy times.
The company’s efforts to improve its service quality are a consequence of a tough competition against Arkansas-based Bentonville. While also including other retailers such as Amazon.com and the dollar stores located nationwide. Even though Walmart has obtained gains for a key revenue measure for six quarters in a row at its Walmart U.S. division, the increases have not been significant, according to a report by Fox News.
Source: Walmart Blog